A tree, a noose and the reverends.
Otherwise known as the Jena case!
Here is the tree: 
The New York Times reports the sequence of events as follows.
They called it the White Tree. Not because of the color of its leaves or tint of its bark, but because of the kind of people who typically sat beneath its shade here at Jena High School.
And when a black student tried to defy that tradition by sitting under the tree last September, it set off a series of events that have turned this town of 3,000 in central Louisiana’s timber country into a flashpoint over the issue of racial bias in the criminal justice system.
Three nooses quickly appeared on the tree a day after the black student sat under it, and not long afterward, the authorities said a white student had been beaten by six black schoolmates. The white student was treated at a local hospital and released; the black students were charged, not with assault, but with attempted murder.
Here is the white student, otherwise known as Justin Barker 
Now, let’s be clear, the black students went and asked permission to sit there..Asked permission to sit under a tree on school property,and it is 2007 folks! The 3 nooses showed up a day later. The kids should have been thrown out of the district, but they weren’t. This was on school property and with zero tolerance, bye bye! So it isn’t until December, that on school property, 6 black students attack 1 white student, that had nothing to do with the nooses
There was no “schoolyard fight” as a result of nooses being hung on a whites-only tree.
Justin Barker, the white victim, was cold-cocked from behind, knocked unconscious and stomped by six black athletes. Barker, luckily, sustained no life-threatening injuries and was released from the hospital three hours after the attack.
….charges needed to be filed, the attackers broke the law..just like charges are stacked in O.J.’s case, and thousands of other cases, the Jena six had multiple charges brought, but many were dropped as the investigation moves forward. Attempted murder does seem extreme. The arguement should be, do they get tried as adults or juveniles…
Enter the reverends Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson :
Thursday, thousands of us, proud African-Americans, expressed our devotion to and desire to see justice for the “Jena Six,” the half-dozen black students who knocked unconscious, kicked and stomped a white classmate.
Jesse Jackson compared Thursday’s rallies in Jena to the protests and marches that used to take place in cities like Selma, Ala., in the 1960s. Al Sharpton claimed Thursday’s peaceful demonstrations were to highlight racial inequities in the criminal justice system.
Jesse and Al, as they’re prone to do, served a kernel of truth stacked on a mountain of lies.
There are undeniable racial and economic inequities in our criminal justice system, and from afar the “Jena Six” rallies certainly looked and felt like the righteous protests of the 1960s.
But the reality is Thursday’s protests are just another sign that we remain deeply locked in denial about the path we need to travel today for true American liberation, equality and power in the new millennium.
The fact that we waited to love Mychal Bell until after he’d thrown away a Division I football scholarship and nine months of his life is just as heinous as the grossly excessive attempted-murder charges that originally landed him in jail.
Reed Walters, the Jena district attorney, is being accused of racism because he didn’t show Bell compassion when the teenager was brought before the court for the third time on assault charges in a two-year span.
Where was our compassion long before Bell got into this kind of trouble?
That’s the question that needed to be asked in Jena and across the country on Thursday. But it wasn’t asked because everyone has been lied to about what really transpired in the small southern town.
I would like to hear your thoughts on the case.
Bryan has tons more
September 21, 2007 - 11:22 AM on September 21st, 2007
Excuse me, but a 6 to 1 beat down is not a protest. The fact the cowardly 6 attacked from behind, knocked the 1 boy unconscious with 1 blow, then the 6 proceeded to beat and kick the ever lovin’ S**T out of him deserves serious charges in ADULT court.
I don’t feel sorry for the QB that had been allowed to skate, and in my opinion because he was the school’s QB, on previous assault charges BEFORE this tree incident. Would you defenders of this criminal prefer he turn in to another OJ Simpson?
I think it is time Jackson and Sharpton get their jail time and then be run out of the county.
September 21, 2007 - 03:26 PM on September 21st, 2007
The monkey march is on! They have nothing better to do. Well, maybe sit on the porch.
September 22, 2007 - 03:18 PM on September 22nd, 2007
Three felony convictions gets you 25 to life in Ohio and a number of other states. It doesn’t matter if the perp received probation for the first two, 3 strikes and you’re in. The libs hate it, but the voters got tired of the lib judges releasing two legged rabid animals back on to the streets. There are few things that cools a felons jets like being told either:
a. This is your second conviction. Another one puts you away for A VERY LONG TIME.
b. This is your third conviction. The law requires that you spend a minimum of 25 years in prison BEFORE being eligible for parole.
The ones not shocked into reality by the first statement get the wakeup call from the second one. Ask the 6′4″ moron who had two assault convictions who thought it would be funny to steal a slice of pizza from two teenagers and dared them to try and do anything about the theft. They did something. They filed a complaint. Under CA law, he had committed strong arm robbery. That slice of pizza, that he could’ve easily afforded to buy because he was working as a construction worker, is costing him 25 years. He’ll be around 50 when he finally gets out. Of course the libs are screaming about it only being a slice of pizza, but the amount of the theft isn’t of consequence when someone commits a robbery. They don’t punish the bank robber who steals thousands any more harshly than the convenience store robber who gets $25.
September 23, 2007 - 07:13 AM on September 23rd, 2007
I don’t understand.
Why shouldn’t these students be held accountable for their actions, whether they are black or white?
September 23, 2007 - 08:22 AM on September 23rd, 2007
I think we have learned with OJ that you just don’t punish black on white crime. I believe it’s a liberal thing.
September 23, 2007 - 09:10 AM on September 23rd, 2007
Here’s a thought to ponder.
Liberals consider burning an American flag free speech. Burning a Mexican flag is a crime. Hanging a noose from a tree is a worse offense than beating someone unconscious. Where’s the ACLU defending the free speech rights of the noose hangers? They were freely expressing themselves WITHOUT actually hurting anyone. I want to see what happens when one liberal group has to stand up to another one. Of course that is unlikely to happen. Just like it’s unlikely that the blacks will ever be taught that it was the Democrats who formed the KKK to suppress the black vote, or that the vast majority of KKK members are Democrats. Of course, if the KKK members would ever pull their heads out of their sheets, they’d discover that the very party that they’ve been rabidly voting for since their formation, is now the very same party that is undermining everything they stand for. It’s just a good thing for the Democrats that the union controlled Government Education system in this country is so pathetic and slanted left as well. If the government schools EVER started teaching the truth about the post civil war south and the civil rights movement, Democrats would be swept from office like they had been caught in a tornado. Except perhaps for KKK member Robert Byrd, but then again he’s in his 90s, he’s not going to be there much longer anyway. Being from West Virginia, he’s from a state with people who haven’t yet accepted that the South lost. I have a buddy from WV and after having his eyes opened from living here for a few years, he can’t believe how stupid most of his friends and relatives there are when it comes to politics.
September 23, 2007 - 02:52 PM on September 23rd, 2007
“Just like it’s unlikely that the blacks will ever be taught that it was the Democrats who formed the KKK to suppress the black vote, or that the vast majority of KKK members are Democrats.”
I actually did learn this in my history class and it was covered in the textbook. When I had a discussion with my in law liberal relative he was shocked and denied that this was a fact.
For me it’s one of the reasons I get so frustrated. Liberals always take the high road, often denying facts in order to fit their neat little theories that they are perfect and make no mistake. In another post I believe Ted questioned where SFL was when responding to the post on Hsu. Nowhere around. They just refuse to answer the hard questions continuously hiding from facts.
It’s more than annoying though, it’s dangerous.
September 23, 2007 - 09:19 PM on September 23rd, 2007
Hey BonBon ask your Liberal inlaw which party George Wallace belonged to. He might remember Wallace as the Democratic governor who was running for president before being shot and paralyzed in 1972. When he tells you Democratic, ask him which governor stood on the stairs of their state university and declared that it would be segregated (essentially) over his dead body. If he doesn’t know, have him look it up. It was George Wallace. Ask him which party dominated the elections in the south following the civil war BEFORE the adoption of the Jim Crowe Laws that prevented the blacks from voting. The freed slaves were voting overwhelmingly Republican including electing a number of black Republican candidates. At least until the KKK suppressed the black votes sufficiently to allow passage of the Jim Crowe Laws that prevented the blacks from voting. Then the Democrats took control in the south again. Ask him one other question. Ask him how did he ever become so ignorant of the facts as to become a liberal?
September 24, 2007 - 05:41 AM on September 24th, 2007
3, FAO,I was living in Anaheim when this happened. The Liberals, especially Democrats who had been against the 3 strikes legislation and initiative, thought they had the kryptionite in this incident. Not enough of them lost their seats when the facts started coming out, like the fact this creton didn’t even like pepperoni pizza. He just took the pizza because he could. That, my friends, is another definition of terrorism, and people like this who terrorize their neighbors were precisely the people 3 strikes meant to get off the streets permanently. Too bad it doesn’t lock up their ACLU lawyers and Democrat pandering politicians, too.
September 24, 2007 - 06:25 AM on September 24th, 2007
Hi FAO. There again it’s the denial factor. Liberals absolutely refuse to acknowledge their mistakes. At least the ones I know. Short of starting an argument I usually just quit the conversation. It’s really sad though because I’m often ready for some intellectual conversation and to get the Bush Derangement Syndrome talking points is just shoulder shrugging, head hanging sad.
September 24, 2007 - 06:39 AM on September 24th, 2007
10, BonBon, just try a kick in the crotch as an ice breaker if not a ball breaker to your libs.
September 24, 2007 - 06:53 AM on September 24th, 2007
September 24, 2007 - 07:00 AM on September 24th, 2007
4- Ted- you, me, many many many other people, including many prominent blacks are asking the same thing. It is my belief that Jackson is trying to tie all the events together in order to make it appear that the kids are innocent.
Jackson should have marched last fall when the nooses appeared, don’t you think? Maybe, just maybe, the kids that hung the nooses would have been expelled, not suspended. Maybe, just maybe, kids would have thought twice and realized that for every action there is a reaction, and sometimes it isn’t pretty.