Thousands pour into Louisiana town to support Jena 6

From the AP via the Houston Chronicle:

Drawn by a case tinged with one of the most hated symbols of Old South racism — a hangman's noose tied in an oak tree — thousands of protesters rallied Thursday against what they see as a double standard of prosecution for blacks and whites.

The plight of the so-called Jena Six became a flashpoint for one the biggest civil-rights demonstrations in years. Five of the black teens were initially charged with attempted murder in the beating of a white classmate.

Old-guard lions like the Revs. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton joined scores of college students bused in from across the nation who said they wanted to make a stand for racial equality just as their parents did in the 1950s and '60s.

"It's not just about Jena, but about inequalities and disparities around the country," said Stephanie Brown, 26, national youth director for the NAACP, who estimated about 2,000 college students were among the throngs of mostly black protesters who overwhelmed this tiny central Louisiana town.

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So I was listening to some New Orleans talk radio this morning and I was shocked to hear many of the white callers focusing on the violence in Jena while heavily downplaying the nooses, which is the context in which the fighting must be understood. I'm increasingly coming to believe that it's not just piece-of-shit small towns that have race problems: it's the whole goddamned Deep South. Since I've moved to Louisiana, I've encountered time and again the whole us-and-them attitude, among both blacks and whites, that will keep racial strife festering indefinitely.

It's cool that Jackson and Sharpton led this massive march. It's what they excel in, old-school civil rights demonstrations, and it will probably pressure the Jena white power structure to get its shit together. However, I'm also starting to believe that the old-school approach tends to piss off white people so much that they can't hear the message. Don't get me wrong. It's not the fault of African-Americans who are simply trying to find justice; it's the fault of the white us-and-them sensibility.

In short, if Deep South whites have closed their ears to African-Americans and the good points they make, it is now the responsibility of whites of good conscience to deliver the message. Loudly. And right now.

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