The Jena 6: A community in peril

Last year, around spring time I believe, national newspapers and other sources of media were ablaze with tales of the “Jena 6.” I remember one day picking up the paper and seeing a small section on the back page about the “Jena 6.” Sounds kind of like a band name, right? You would be wrong, and so was I.
The Jena 6 is a group of 6 students from Jena, Louisiana. They are accused of second-degree murder, and are facing up to 22 years in prison for it. The oldest of them is 17. They are all black students. Some people may think that these students belonged to a gang of some sort. After all, gangs and murder go together like peanut-butter and jelly, and law enforcement is sometimes notorious for cracking down on local gangs, literally throwing the book at them whenever they can.
The Jena 6 are not gang members, merely regular high school students in a racially divided town. There is a tree at Jena High School, dubbed the “White Tree” which is a congregation ground for the white students at Jena. One day, a black student asked the principal, during an assembly, if he could sit under that special tree. The next day, three nooses were hanging from the tree. The white students who put the nooses’ there were given a slap on the wrist.
The nooses sparked violence at the high school. Fights broke out, students were beaten and suspended. Finally, a wing of Jena High School was lit on fire. Blacks blamed whites, and vice versa. The very next night, 16-year old Robert Bailey and some of his friends decided to go to a party of primarily whites. They were beaten and expelled from the party. A few days later, Bailey and his friends heard a white student, Justin Barker, brag about how Bailey had been beaten a few nights ago. Bailey and his friends later ambushed Barker and beat him up. They delivered several blows to the head, all of which turned out to be rather superficial (Barker went to the hospital but was released the same day, just in time to go to another social function, in fact). Bailey and his 5 friends, the “Jena 6” were charged with aggravated assault, which was later upgraded to attempted murder in the 2nd degree.
Hardly a punishment that fits the crime, especially since no one was seriously injured and no charges have been brought to any of the white students involved in the entire Jena fiasco. I’ll be following this story, and posting on it later. Perhaps the issue will resolve, but given the history of the south, I fear that it may not.