It is great to see people taking to the street marching for a cause: democracy with feet. The recent anti-war march on Washington brought out 100,000 demonstrators. Then we had last week’s march on Jena, to protest the unequal treatment of blacks and whites in the school system and judicial system in Jena. It was a big peaceful protest and reminded one of the old days when people marched across the south for racial equality.

Unfortunately the poster child for equality in Jena is not a great role model. The story I saw on television didn’t give many details of the events, but it reported that the young man was an A student who had never been in any trouble. After participating in a beating of a young white man, he was charged with attempted murder. Horror. There were insinuations that the KKK was in the background as demonstrated by the hanging of three hangman’s nooses in a tree that was the center of conflict. Get it? Noose, Noose, Noose stands for KKK. That bothered me. The story said that the white boys who hung the nooses received a couple days suspension as their only punishment. Then the AJC ran a rather detailed story.

The young black man in jail is a good student. This is not however, his first run in with the law. He has been convicted of other violent acts and was on probation for three crimes at the time of this attack. Furthermore, other members of his community who are also black are angry because they have been reporting this young man to the police regularly without follow-up by the police. They are angry that when he committed a crime against a white man the police arrested him: a different kind of unfairness than I had anticipated.

Other problems with the television story: turns out there were only two nooses. Oops, the KKK angle goes out the window because now we only have KK. What’s more, when they were hung in the tree, students played with them—black students and white students. There wasn’t instant outrage or stigma. School officials took them down not because they recognized them as a racial hatred statement but because they were afraid someone would hurt themselves. After investigation of the circumstances, when it was clear there was some racial animosity associated with the placement of the ropes, the white boys responsible were sent to the county’s alternative school for a month, then returned to the home school for two more weeks of in-school suspension (isolated instruction). They were punished for 6 weeks for their non-violent, but highly insensitive acts.

The beating that took place was 6 black students against 1 white student and occurred three months later. It doesn't seem to be related to the earlier incident. The white student was beaten unconscious and then kicked as he lay helpless on the ground. Hospitalized, he had no serious injuries and went home in a few hours, looking much the worse for wear, but with the resilience of youth, able to continue his regular activities. The charges of attempted murder were reduced to aggravated assault and this was the charge on which the young black man was convicted. Five others await trial. I’m sorry, but I would need a better excuse to march than this set of circumstances. I can’t determine that anyone has much to complain about. The march on Washington I understand. Jena is a mystery.

Jesse Jackson made it to both marches, bless his heart.