Cases like the Jena Six are not new. If you've heard about it, you know it seems like something that would fly 60 years ago-but not today.
Most of us believe the overt racism on display in Jena doesn't happen in 2007. It happens covertly-behind closed doors, around kitchen tables, when you think no one else is listening.
To us, nooses are an element of the past. Even so, we certainly know there's no humor behind hanging nooses from a tree. Put simply, nooses in any context mean, "N-, I'm going to kill you."
In Jena, La., the setting of a string of racially motivated altercations, nooses are nothing more than a high school prank.
When the Jena Six incidents began last fall, the mainstream media remained oblivious. During one of Jena High School's first assemblies of the year, Kenneth Purvis, a black student, asked the vice principal if he could sit under an oak tree on campus. "You can sit anywhere you like," the vice principal replied. Later, Purvis and some black friends went to talk with some of their white friends under the tree.
The day after Purvis and his friends hung out under the oak tree, three nooses were hung from its branches. According to the unspoken racial code at Jena High School, standing under that tree was a privilege reserved for "whites only." The white students who hung the nooses were only suspended for a few days.
In Jena, it seems that nooses are funny, that they have no ties to racial violence in American history. Barbara Murphy, the town librarian, said in a news report, "We don't have a race problem. The nooses? I don't even know why they were there... what they were supposed to mean. There's pranks all the time of one type or another going on and it just didn't seem to be racist to me."
It's as if all of the "whites only" signs from the Jim Crow era hadn't been removed from Jena. Segregation has persisted in this town of roughly 3,500 people-apparently bypassed by the civil rights movement.
The tree incident sparked a series of racially motivated disputes in Jena-bringing all of the town's racial problems to a head. Arson destroyed one wing of the school and a white student beat a black student with beer bottles after he tried to enter an all-white party. Finally, six black students were arrested and charged with attempted second-degree murder and conspiracy for beating up Justin Barker, a white student and friend to one of the students who hung the nooses. The "deadly weapon" the six used was a tennis shoe, with which they beat Barker, who was already unconscious. Barker was in the hospital for a couple of hours and well enough to attend a class ring ceremony later that afternoon.
An all-white jury took fewer than two days to convict Mychal Bell, the first of what would be called the Jena Six to stand trial, of felony aggravated battery and conspiracy charges. He faces more than 22 years in prison. The rest of the six await trial.
The media paid the Jena Six case little attention until now. Until Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson jumped on the case, barely anyone knew about it. I randomly asked Duke students if they'd heard about the Jena Six. Although many black students had, just one of the 10 white students I asked knew of it.
This story isn't like the looting and violence stories that the media aired in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina-it doesn't display the black "coonery" they like to show. Instead, it conjures up images of slavery, the Jim Crow South and institutionalized racism that white America likes to forget about.
Needless to say, incidents like this one won't let them.
Wild inequities in the justice system and other forms of institutionalized racism are no less harmful than the overt racism they have replaced. The white student who beat up the black student was charged with battery and got off with probation. For nearly the same crime, the black students were charged with attempted murder. The district attorney, Reed Walters, told the black students, "I can be your best friend or your worst enemy. With a stroke of my pen, I can make your lives disappear." During Bell's trial, his court-appointed lawyer did not call a single witness to defend him. Sadly, the boys may face bleak futures because of the outright racism embedded in the legal system.
Civil rights advocates and Jena Six supporters will stage a rally in Jena September 20, the day Mychal Bell could be sentenced to more than 22 years in prison. BSA, let's hold an event at Duke that day.
What can you do to help? Join the Facebook group, sign the petition, and discuss what we can do to stop this from happening again.
Aria Branch is a Trinity junior. Her column runs every other Tuesday.
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