Jena Myths Exploded

The Jena 6 boat is sinking fast. The flood of facts is swamping the ship of lies, and it's heading to the bottom to join Tawana Brawley and the Duke Rape Case in the Davey Jones Locker of false accusations, racial fraud, and outright lies against Whites.

The truth makes a powerful torpedo.
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Christian Science Monitor

October 24, 2007 edition

Media myths about the Jena 6
A local journalist tells the story you haven't heard.
By Craig Franklin

Jena, La.
By now, almost everyone in America has heard of Jena, La., because they've all heard the story of the "Jena 6." White students hanging nooses barely punished, a schoolyard fight, excessive punishment for the six black attackers, racist local officials, public outrage and protests – the outside media made sure everyone knew the basics.

There's just one problem: The media got most of the basics wrong. In fact, I have never before witnessed such a disgrace in professional journalism. Myths replaced facts, and journalists abdicated their solemn duty to investigate every claim because they were seduced by a powerfully appealing but false narrative of racial injustice.

I should know. I live in Jena. My wife has taught at Jena High School for many years. And most important, I am probably the only reporter who has covered these events from the very beginning.

The reason the Jena cases have been propelled into the world spotlight is two-fold: First, because local officials did not speak publicly early on about the true events of the past year, the media simply formed their stories based on one-side's statements – the Jena 6. Second, the media were downright lazy in their efforts to find the truth. Often, they simply reported what they'd read on blogs, which expressed only one side of the issue.

The real story of Jena and the Jena 6 is quite different from what the national media presented.

It's time to set the record straight.

Myth 1: The Whites-Only Tree. There has never been a "whites-only" tree at Jena High School. Students of all races sat underneath this tree. When a student asked during an assembly at the start of school last year if anyone could sit under the tree, it evoked laughter from everyone present – blacks and whites. As reported by students in the assembly, the question was asked to make a joke and to drag out the assembly and avoid class.

Myth 2: Nooses a Signal to Black Students. An investigation by school officials, police, and an FBI agent revealed the true motivation behind the placing of two nooses in the tree the day after the assembly. According to the expulsion committee, the crudely constructed nooses were not aimed at black students. Instead, they were understood to be a prank by three white students aimed at their fellow white friends, members of the school rodeo team. (The students apparently got the idea from watching episodes of "Lonesome Dove.") The committee further concluded that the three young teens had no knowledge that nooses symbolize the terrible legacy of the lynchings of countless blacks in American history. When informed of this history by school officials, they became visibly remorseful because they had many black friends. Another myth concerns their punishment, which was not a three-day suspension, but rather nine days at an alternative facility followed by two weeks of in-school suspension, Saturday detentions, attendance at Discipline Court, and evaluation by licensed mental-health professionals. The students who hung the nooses have not publicly come forward to give their version of events.

Myth 3: Nooses Were a Hate Crime. Although many believe the three white students should have been prosecuted for a hate crime for hanging the nooses, the incident did not meet the legal criteria for a federal hate crime. It also did not meet the standard for Louisiana's hate-crime statute, and though widely condemned by all officials, there was no crime to charge the youths with.

Myth 4: DA's Threat to Black Students. When District Attorney Reed Walters spoke to Jena High students at an assembly in September, he did not tell black students that he could make their life miserable with "the stroke of a pen." Instead, according to Walters, "two or three girls, white girls, were chit-chatting on their cellphones or playing with their cellphones right in the middle of my dissertation. I got a little irritated at them and said, 'Pay attention to me. I am right now having to deal with an aggravated rape case where I've got to decide whether the death penalty applies or not.' I said, 'Look, I can be your best friend or your worst enemy. With the stroke of a pen I can make your life miserable so I want you to call me before you do something stupid.'"

Mr. Walters had been called to the assembly by police, who had been at the school earlier that day dealing with some students who were causing disturbances. Teachers and students have confirmed Walters's version of events.

Myth 5: The Fair Barn Party Incident. On Dec. 1, 2006, a private party – not an all-white party as reported – was held at the local community center called the Fair Barn. Robert Bailey Jr., soon to be one of the Jena 6, came to the party with others seeking admittance.

When they were denied entrance by the renter of the facility, a white male named Justin Sloan (not a Jena High student) at the party attacked Bailey and hit him in the face with his fist. This is reported in witness statements to police, including the victim, Robert Bailey, Jr.

Months later, Bailey contended he was hit in the head with a beer bottle and required stitches.

No medical records show this ever occurred. Mr. Sloan was prosecuted for simple battery, which according to Louisiana law, is the proper charge for hitting someone with a fist.

Myth 6: The "Gotta-Go" Grocery Incident. On Dec. 2, 2006, Bailey and two other black Jena High students were involved in an altercation at this local convenience store, stemming from the incident that occurred the night before. The three were accused by police of jumping a white man as he entered the store and stealing a shotgun from him. The two parties gave conflicting statements to police. However, two unrelated eye witnesses of the event gave statements that corresponded with that of the white male.

Myth 7: The Schoolyard Fight. The event on Dec. 4, 2006 was consistently labeled a "schoolyard fight." But witnesses described something much more horrific. Several black students, including those now known as the Jena 6, barricaded an exit to the school's gym as they lay in wait for Justin Barker to exit. (It remains unclear why Mr. Barker was specifically targeted.)

When Barker tried to leave through another exit, court testimony indicates, he was hit from behind by Mychal Bell. Multiple witnesses confirmed that Barker was immediately knocked unconscious and lay on the floor defenseless as several other black students joined together to kick and stomp him, with most of the blows striking his head. Police speculate that the motivation for the attack was related to the racially charged fights that had occurred during the previous weekend.

Myth 8: The Attack Is Linked to the Nooses. Nowhere in any of the evidence, including statements by witnesses and defendants, is there any reference to the noose incident that occurred three months prior. This was confirmed by the United States attorney for the Western District of Louisiana, Donald Washington, on numerous occasions.

Myth 9: Mychal Bell's All-White Jury. While it is true that Mychal Bell was convicted as an adult by an all-white jury in June (a conviction that was later overturned with his case sent to juvenile court), the jury selection process was completely legal and withstood an investigation by the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division. Court officials insist that several black residents were summoned for jury duty, but did not appear.

Myth 10: Jena 6 as Model Youth. While some members were simply caught up in the moment, others had criminal records. Bell had at least four prior violent-crime arrests before the December attack, and was on probation during most of this year.

Myth 11: Jena Is One of the Most Racist Towns in America. Actually, Jena is a wonderful place to live for both whites and blacks. The media's distortion and outright lies concerning the case have given this rural Louisiana town a label it doesn't deserve.

Myth 12: Two Levels of Justice. Outside protesters were convinced that the prosecution of the Jena 6 was proof of a racially biased system of justice. But the US Justice Department's investigation found no evidence to support such a claim. In fact, the percentage of blacks and whites prosecuted matches the parish's population statistics.

These are just 12 of many myths that are portrayed as fact in the media concerning the Jena cases. (A more thorough review of all events can be found at http://www.thejenatimes.net/ – click on Chronological Order of Events.)

As with the Duke Lacrosse case, the truth about Jena will eventually be known. But the town of Jena isn't expecting any apologies from the media. They will probably never admit their error and have already moved on to the next "big" story. Meanwhile in Jena, residents are getting back to their regular routines, where friends are friends regardless of race. Just as it has been all along.

Craig Franklin is assistant editor of The Jena Times.

Try to Kill A White Kid...

and get on TV!

That's right, Black Entertainment Television (BET) rewarded two of the infamous Jena 6 for the beatdown they administered to a white teenager by bringing them onstage at the BET Hip Hop Awards last night. How did the audience respond? With a standing ovation, of course!

This would never happen on White Entertainment Television... oh wait, there is no White Entertainment Television. That would be racist to have a network aimed at one particular ethnicity- of couse, that only applies to White folks.
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Two of 'Jena Six' defendants present BET award
By Abbey Brown
abrown@thetowntalk.com
(318) 487-6387

Two of the teens enmeshed in the nationally known "Jena Six" case helped present the most anticipated award during Black Entertainment Television's Hip Hop Awards show broadcast Thursday night.

Carwin Jones and Bryant Purvis were introduced by Katt Williams, a comedian and the awards show's host, as two of the students involved in a case of "systematic racism."

"By no means are we condoning a six-on-one beat-down," Williams said during his introduction of the teens, one of whom is still facing attempted murder charges in connection with the attack on white student Justin Barker. "... But the injustice perpetrated on these young men is straight criminal."

As Jones and Purvis walked onto the stage at the Atlanta Civic Center, where the awards show was filmed on Saturday, they were greeted by a standing ovation.
"They don't look so tough, do they?" Williams joked as the teens stepped up to the podium.

Both Jones and Purvis thanked a number of people, including family, friends, the "Hip-Hop Nation" and the thousands who came to their small hometown to rally behind their case.

Purvis said the Sept. 20 rally proved "our generation can unite and rally around a cause."

The teens assisted Williams in presenting the Video of the Year honor to Kanye West for "Stronger." Purvis handed the award to West, who in turn shook hands with both teens.

The rest of the article can be read at TheTownTalk.com.

Now What Do You Think Could Be Their Reasoning?

Seems that officials at Columbia University are being less than cooperative with law enforcement officers looking into the hanging of a noose on a black professor's door. One would think this bastion of left-wing lunacy would want to help law enforcement find the perpetrators, since they consider this a "hate crime," and one would also think Jesse and Al would be putting all kinds of pressure on them to turn the tapes over so the white racists could be arrested.

Or perhaps (and I'm of course only speculating here) that's the whole point- maybe the perpetrators aren't white after all. I posted a story on here a few days ago about a black man burning a cross in his own yard and blaming it on whites to stir up the racial pot... perhaps the same thing happened here. Again, I'm just speculating, but maybe this is a "false flag" opeartion, employed by agitators to enrage minority students at Columbia. If this were the case, then it would make perfect sense for the Columbia adminstation to not turn over the security tapes- if it showed a black person hanging the noose, then the whole thing would be shown to be as big a fraud as the uproar in Jena, and their leftist anti-white agenda would once again be exposed.

But of course I'm only speculating. The liberal elite have far too much integrity to pull a scam like this, right?

You can read the story here.

The Jena 6 Thugs- The Saga Continues

If you do a news search on Yahoo, Google, or just about any other search engine, you'll find story after story of protests supporting the alleged attempted-murderers are breaking out all over the Country. They descended on the Justice Department, walked out of high school and college classes, wrote songs, and invoked the spirit of the 60s to anyone who would listen.

As much as I know all of this is a crock, the last thing I want to do is put a stop to it. I want them to keep protesting, keep marching, keep walking out of class, and by all means, please keep talking.

Why do I say that? Simple, really. The truth about what really happened in Jena is starting to come out- even black journalists are blowing the whistle (read my previous posting of an article by Jason Whitlock of the Kansas City Star). The truth is out there and available- we'll see how long Jackson, Sharpton, and the protesters refuse to accept it. We'll see how long Jackson, Sharpton, and their ignorant sheep followers keep up the unrest in spite of the truth. Their true colors are showing, so to speak- they aren't interested in the truth, only in those things which will get them on TV and line their pockets.

Proof the Jena 6 Saga is Bogus

A black reporter from Kansas City blows the lid off the widespread deception and fabrications concerning the Jena 6 thugs. It's about time the mainstream media figured out what some of us knew from the start- it was hogwash.

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Jena 6 case caught up in whirlwind of distortion, opportunism
By JASON WHITLOCK
Source: Kansas City Star

JENA, La. | Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and talk-show hosts certainly feasted on the racial unrest in this tiny central Louisiana town.

But it would be unfair to claim they threw the match that ignited the Jena Six case into a global blaze of hostility and misinformation.

That distinction belongs to Alan Bean, a 54-year-old white, self-proclaimed Baptist minister from Tulia, Texas.

“Do I know him?” was LaSalle Parish District Attorney Reed Walters’ sarcastic and dismissive response when I asked about Bean during a 45-minute interview.

“People are reluctant to say it,” said Craig Franklin, editor of the Jena Times, “but there is no doubt that Alan Bean created all of this.”

This is different things to different people. To some, this is a long overdue civil-rights reawakening, which points out pervasive racism in the South and in our justice system. To others, this is a horrific public-relations crime against the white people of Jena and irreparable damage to race relations in the poor oil town. And to some dispassionate observers, this is an unfortunate situation being exploited by white and black racial extremists.

On Sept. 20, when Jackson, Sharpton and Jena Six family members led competing rallies in support of six black youths accused of brutally attacking a white classmate, this — more than 20,000 marchers — was something no one in Jena could ever imagine.

But Alan Bean could.

Bean — the creator of Friends of Justice, an organization primarily dedicated to helping poor minorities victimized by our justice system — had warned prominent members of the Jena community as early as January that the town would be painted as racist by the national media if Walters didn’t back down.

“I told them I was going to bring media attention to this situation, and it was likely the same thing would happen to them that happened to my little hometown,” Bean said by phone on Friday. “Tulia got a bad rap, a rap it probably didn’t deserve. But the media doesn’t do its job. It’s in the entertainment business.”

“Tulia” refers to the case that made Bean and Friends of Justice a player in the world of American criminal justice. In the late 1990s, Bean exposed a corrupt cop in his hometown. More than a dozen drug convictions against minorities were overturned because of Bean’s work. Tulia was labeled as racist, and Bean became the person to call if you thought the police and/or a prosecutor were exploiting you.

A lawyer in New Orleans put Bean and parents of the Jena Six in contact with each other in December. Within three months, Bean had researched Jena and the events surrounding the assault, and published a 5,400-word narrative titled “The Making of a Myth in Jena, Louisiana” and a 2,400-word, media-friendly narrative titled “Responding to the Crisis in Jena, Louisiana.”

These two pro-defense narratives form the outline for most of the world’s understanding of the case. Bean connected the December assault on Justin Barker to the September noose hangings, to Reed Walters’ infamous “I can ruin your life with the stroke of a pen” statement at a hastily called school assembly, and to separate off-campus confrontations between Robert Bailey and white men on the Friday and Saturday before the attack on Barker.

Walters said Wednesday he’d never heard that the attack on Barker had anything to do with the noose hangings until the defense filed motions in the spring to recuse him from the case.

Bean said he first spoon-fed his narratives to Tom Mangold of the BBC because Mangold had worked with Bean on the Tulia drug cases. The BBC filmed a documentary on the Jena Six titled “Race Hate in Louisiana.” Bean said he then gave the Jena Six story to newspaper reporter Howard Witt of the Chicago Tribune, which published a similar story on May 20.

“I put it in the hands of people I knew would do a good job with the story,” Bean said.

Bean also gave his story to a blogger, Jordan Flaherty, and a law professor, Bill Quigley. From all of these sources the story mushroomed and became fact.

The Jena Six beat up Justin Barker because they were still angry about the lack of sufficient punishment given to white kids who hung nooses on a whites-only shade tree, and the six were railroaded by an overzealous district attorney who failed to properly prosecute white men who viciously assaulted Robert Bailey and later pulled a shotgun on Bailey and two others at a convenience store.

Walters, police investigators, school officials and some Jena residents say Bean’s story is hogwash. There is at least some legitimacy to those claims. Bean’s story and subsequent posts on his Web site contain factual errors.

The three kids responsible for hanging the nooses were given more punishment than just a “few days of in-school suspension.” They went to an alternative school for nine days and received two weeks of in-school suspension, LaSalle Parish school superintendent Roy Breithaupt said.

But more than the factual errors, Bean’s story is framed — by his own admission — as an indictment of the criminal justice system and the people in power in Jena and, therefore, the story is unfairly biased. Bean never examined the other forces at work that contributed to the Jena Six assault and Walters’ heavy-handed approach to justice as it relates to the alleged perpetrators.

“I didn’t know,” Bean said when asked whether he knew of defendant Mychal Bell’s violent juvenile history when he was crafting his narratives. “I never talked to Mychal’s family, and I never talked to Mychal. He was in jail. I knew he had a history for getting into trouble. I knew he was a kid at a crossroads.”

Bean also didn’t know that in fall 2006, Bell, who 16 at the time, was living with his then-18-year-old best friend John McPherson and McPherson’s then-16-year-old wife, Ashley, in a three-bedroom trailer. The McPhersons are white. Bell is the godfather to their 18-month-old daughter.

Bean has a very idealistic view of the Jena defendants.

“These are fun-loving, impetuous, athletically gifted black males that don’t drink and don’t smoke, and they go to church as well,” he told me.

The church-going contention flies in the face of what Rev. Jimmy Ray Young, pastor at L&A Baptist Church, said Wednesday.

“None of these boys have been in church except when Al Sharpton was in town,” Young complained. “I’ve told the ministers we need to get these boys back in church.”

Walters claims that Bean and the media have distorted other key elements in the case.

Bean reported that Walters directed his “stroke of the pen” remark at black students when the school called an assembly to quell protests of the noose hangings. Some pro-Jena Six chain e-mails create the impression that Walters met privately with black students and threatened them. Not true, Walters and police say.

Paul Smith, Jena’s chief of police, says he and sheriff’s investigator Jimmy Arbogast called Walters to the school after a student took a swing at Smith when he was breaking up a fight between students.

“Tensions were high. Everybody was upset,” Arbogast said. “We wanted Reed to explain to them that, ‘Hey, look, you have to think for a minute. Look what age you are. Y’all are in high school.’ ”

Flanked by Arbogast and Smith, Walters addressed the entire student body. He said he began by telling the students about an aggravated rape case (possible death penalty) that he was considering.

Walters recalls saying: “ ‘I can be your best friend or your worst enemy. With the stroke of a pen I can make life miserable on you or ruin your life. So I want you to call me before you do something stupid.’ That last part doesn’t get reported. It doesn’t make good press.”

Bean also wrote that three days before the Jena Six assault a white man, Matt Windham, pulled a shotgun on Bailey and two others. He wrote that they wrestled the gun away from the man and ran off, and that Walters charged them with a crime rather than the white man.

The police contend that Windham — not the boys — called the police, claimed the boys threatened him, chased him back to his vehicle and wrestled his gun away. The police also say that two uninvolved female witnesses backed Windham, and that’s why the boys were charged.

Bean also mischaracterized the simple battery that Bailey suffered at the Fair Barn party four days before the attack on Barker, according to Walters, police, several witnesses and Bailey’s statements to police.

“Robert Bailey Jr. was attacked by a savage white mob at a local dance,” Bean wrote. “True, he wasn’t knocked unconscious — but that is just a matter of aim and good fortune. He was punched, he was kicked, and he was smacked over the head with a beer bottle (and he’s got the scars to prove it).”

Walters, who prosecuted Bailey’s lone attacker (Justin Sloan), said there was no mob attack. It was simply a dispute at the door of a mixed-race, invitation-only party that Bailey was denied access to.

“It wasn’t a fight,” Walters said. “Robert Bailey didn’t swing. He didn’t do anything. The kid hit him, knocked him down. No beer bottle, no anything. There was no statement of the victim at that time indicating any weapon was used. … The defendant (Sloan) was arrested on a simple battery. He was prosecuted on a simple battery. He pled guilty to a simple battery.

“It was only after the fact that I learned that a beer bottle was involved, that stitches were involved,” Walters continued. “And I checked after the fact with my local hospital: Did this happen? The information (about a beer bottle) came up in a motion to recuse me from the current charges. That’s the first time I’d heard about that.”

Ironically, Bean is now growing frustrated with the way the case has turned, particularly since Jackson and Sharpton got involved. He said they wouldn’t return his calls. He indicated there was a riff between the Bailey (Bean camp) and Bell (Sharpton camp) families.

People in Jena say the feud is over money. The families are handling the donations to the Jena Six defense fund. Robert Bailey recently posted and took down MySpace photos of himself and another Jena Six defendant with wads of $100 bills stuffed in their mouths and splashed across their bodies.

“I can tell you there is no misappropriation of the funds,” said Bean, adding he was not being paid for his services. “I’ve been there and seen them handling the checks. Where Robert got his hands on that money, I don’t know. He’s a kid. It was a stupid thing to do.”

As for Bean’s thoughts on Jackson and Sharpton?

“I’m not at all comfortable with the way this has been handled by the Jackson and Sharpton folks,” Bean said. “What’s wrong is that Jesse and Al have tried to turn this into an old civil-rights story in which Mychal Bell emerges like Rosa Parks, and that’s not right. These guys (Jackson and Sharpton) have lost their gravitas, lost their credibility. People are really tired of the same old 1960s shtick.”

Based on the crowds in Jena on Sept. 20, I’m not so sure.

Man charged with crime of burning cross into his own yard

I wonder if either the State or the Feds have the guts to tack on charges for falsely reporting a hate crime, since this action was intended to enflame anger against Whites in his community.

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From KTSP.com:

ANOKA, Minn. (AP) - De'Andre June told police he woke up Wednesday morning to find the charred outline of a cross burned in the lawn of his home. June now is accused of burning the cross in the lawn himself.

The 47-year-old Anoka man was charged Friday with falsely reporting a crime. He also is charged with disorderly conduct and obstructing the legal process stemming from an altercation when police arrested him Thursday afternoon on a felony warrant from Hennepin County in connection with a financial fraud case.

According to the criminal complaint, inmates at the Anoka County jail told authorities that June was planning such a ruse.

"Inmates from the Anoka County Jail saw the news story on TV and recognized Mr. June," said Capt. Phil Johanson of the Anoka Police Department. "(They) said that when he was in jail with them last week, he had made comments that he was going to do something like this to get sympathy from the community and the church for financial gains and otherwise."

(Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

Get ready for a Jena repeat

4 Black students in NC try to beat up a white Assistant Principle. The racist cracker, how dare he tell one of them to "go to class." Just who does he think he is?

I wonder if Al and Je$$e are on their way to Fayetteville yet. I also wonder if the Fayetteville DA will have the testicular fortitude to charges these thugs with a "hate crime." How silly of me, I forgot that law is only used against white folks.

(Since of course the mainstream media won't come out and say that the Assistant Principle is a white man, here's a link to his picture on the school website.)
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Charges filed in Pine Forest High brawl
By Nomee Landis
Staff writer

Four Pine Forest High School students were charged with inciting a riot Tuesday after reportedly fighting with coaches and an assistant principal in a school hallway.

One of the students, 17-year-old Luis Angel DeJesus, also is charged with assault on a school employee.

The incident happened early in the school day.

According to arrest reports and a statement from Debbie Tanna, a spokeswoman for the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office, it began when Vernon Aldridge, one of the school’s four assistant principals and the school’s athletic director, repeatedly asked DeJesus to get to class. Tanna said DeJesus allegedly spit in Aldridge’s face.

An arrest report said DeJesus spit at Aldridge twice.

The fight broke out as Aldridge was taking DeJesus to the principal’s office for counseling, Tanna said. Three students identified as friends of DeJesus — Davon Demtrice Nowell and Anthony Dranell Dickerson, who are both 16, and 17-year-old Michael Pinkney Draper — had seen what happened and reportedly began to threaten Aldridge.

Four coaches at the school tried to bring the students under control, Tanna said. She said they were injured in the fight and all received medical treatment afterward. None of their names were available Tuesday.

Punched, scratched
In an arrest record narrative, school resource officer Marc Dedeaux wrote that he was called to a back hallway of the school because a fight had broken out. When he arrived, he saw several students fighting with several school employees.

The students were cursing and several school officials were bleeding because they had been punched or scratched by the students.

All four of the students were charged with resisting arrest and misdemeanor inciting a riot. Tanna said no other students at the school were involved, but because more than one student was fighting, it is considered to be a riot.

Draper lives on the 200 block of Village Drive in Fayetteville.

DeJesus, Nowell and Dickerson all live in the Deerfield Home, a group home owned by Lighthouse Group & Associates that is in the 200 block of Wapiti Drive in Spring Lake.

Charles Davenport is the director of the home. He said he received a call from the school at 9:05 a.m. By late afternoon, he said, he had contacted the boys’ parents or guardians.

Some of the children who live in group homes are in the custody of the Department of Social Services, Davenport said.

The Deerfield Home is for high school boys who have had troubled home lives, Davenport said. He said four boys live at the home right now. The home has been open since 2001.

“Some of the children graduate and go to college and to the military,” Davenport said, “but the success rate is not very high.”

Wanda McPhaul, spokeswoman for the Cumberland County schools, said the principal of Pine Forest High School, Cindy McCormic, is investigating to determine the students’ punishment from the schools.

Article Source with pictures of the thug students: Fayetteville Observer

The Jena Dodge

by Heather McDonald
Source: Suppressed News

The Jena Dodge
Demonstrators and the media avoid the stubborn truths of black social breakdown.
24 September 2007

Let’s assume the worst about Jena, Louisiana, and the charges of attempted murder brought against five black youths for beating a white student unconscious last December: that the district attorney’s indictments were motivated by rank racism, and that the racial tensions in this town of 3,000 are exclusively the product of white animus against blacks. Does it follow that this latest object of frenzy on the media’s racism beat is emblematic of America’s judicial system or the state of race relations today?

That is certainly what the ever-expanding army of racial victimologists and their media enablers would have you believe. Since the Jena story became international news last week, the media, the advocates, and pandering politicians have erupted in an outpouring of seeming joy at the alleged proof—after so much diligent trolling for evidence—that America remains a racist country. Senator Hillary Clinton told the NAACP: “This case reminds us that the scales of justice are seriously out of balance when it comes to charging, sentencing, and punishing African Americans.” Senator Christopher Dodd declared that Jena reveals that “de facto segregation”—in the spirit of Jim Crow—“is still very real” in many parts of America. Britain’s Observer announced that Jena shows “how lightly sleep the demons of racial prejudice in America’s deep south.” The New York Times has designated Jena “a high profile arena in the debate on racial bias in the judicial system”—a debate that perhaps not everyone was aware that we were having. J. Richard Cohen, president of the Southern Poverty Law Center, said: “I think a lot of people recognize that the criminal justice system grinds down people of color every day. Oftentimes, it’s nameless, it’s faceless. . . . People see Jena as the tip of the iceberg and ask: What lies beneath?” Needless to say, the Reverends Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton have vowed with Biblical thunder to avenge the Jena innocents and force America to own up to its mistreatment of blacks.

Unquestionably, the attempted murder charges (which were later dropped for four of the defendants, while a sixth assailant was booked as a juvenile) merit scrutiny. If the indictment in fact resulted from discrimination, then the prosecutor would deserve the strongest punishment—debarment at the very least and harsh federal penalties for civil rights violations. And the incident that seems to have led to the group assault on the white student—three students’ hanging of nooses from a school tree where white teens congregated—was a despicable provocation. If adults in Jena condoned such incendiary behavior, then these grown-up enablers truly are throwbacks to a vicious American past, and all citizens should revile them. There is evidence, however, that such adolescent cruelty is not official policy. The school principal told a black student who had inquired about the segregated tree that he could sit there or anywhere else he pleased.

But even if the worst possible interpretation of these events is merited, the massive international attention to this tiny town would seem vastly disproportionate to the cause, unless Jena stands for a more widespread problem. The idea behind the protests and the politicians’ exploitation of them is that just as these five youths were overcharged, the hundreds of thousands of blacks in prison are also the victims of systemic abuse. But for institutional racism, the black prison population would be much smaller.

This is an old complaint, for which no proof has ever been offered, Hillary Clinton’s irresponsible statement notwithstanding. The usual evidence in support of the charge that the criminal laws discriminate against blacks is the far stiffer sentences for selling and possessing crack cocaine compared with powdered cocaine. But that colorblind sentencing regimen, which dates from 1986, was a heartfelt effort to protect the overwhelmingly black victims of crack, not to penalize them. Black liberals such as Congressman Charles Rangel were loudest in sounding the alarm about the effects of crack in the black ghetto. Not even the most deluded racial apologists have ever explicitly suggested that racial bias motivated Congress’s efforts to combat a drug that results in much higher rates of violence among dealers and users, quicker and more onerous addiction, and more emergency room visits than its powdered cousin.

The reason that the black incarceration rate is the highest in the country is that blacks have the highest crime rate—by a long shot. Don’t trust the police, prosecutors, or judges to give a fair picture of black crime? Then go where the bodies are. Los Angeles is representative. In the first seven months of 2007, blacks in Los Angeles were murdered at a rate ten times that of whites and Asians. Who’s killing them? It’s not whites and Asians. While a minor proportion of the assailants of blacks are Hispanic, the vast majority are black themselves. Nationally, blacks commit murder at about eight times the frequency of whites. In New York, any given violent crime is 13 times more likely to have been committed by a black person than by a white person, according to the reports of victims and witnesses. Though they are only 24 percent of the city’s population, blacks committed 68.5 percent of all murders, rapes, robberies, and assaults in New York last year. Whites, who make up 34.5 percent of New Yorkers, committed only 5.3 percent of violent crimes. These ratios are similar across the country. In Los Angeles, blacks committed 41 percent of all robberies in 2001, according to victims’ descriptions, though they constitute only 11 percent of the city’s population. Robbery victims identified whites, who make up 30 percent of the Los Angeles population, just 4 percent of the time.

When attacking the justice system, racial agitators work mightily to change the subject from violence to drugs, using their flimsy argument that crack cocaine penalties are too high. But the vast preponderance of prisoners are in the pen for violence and property crime. In 2003, 52 percent of inmates in state prisons were serving time for violent offenses, 21 percent for property offenses, and only 20 percent for drug offenses. To be sure, black incarceration rates are off the charts. Black men were 41 percent of the more than 2 million men in federal, state, and local prisons at midyear 2006. At the end of 2005, there were 3,145 prison inmates per 100,000 black males in the United States, compared with 1,244 inmates per 100,000 Hispanic males and 471 inmates per 100,000 white males. Is that because violent and property crime is overpenalized, as race advocates sometimes argue? No. Despite the advocates’ constant complaints about three-strikes laws, the criminal justice system actually underpenalizes crime because of inadequate prison space. Prosecutors cut deals to lessen sentences; sheriffs overseeing local jails regularly devise new schemes for dumping offenders back on the street to make room for the next batch. And in any case, even if penalties for particular offenses were too draconian, the punishments affect all offenders the same.

No one in the Jena stampede dares whisper a word about black crime, because it undercuts the portrait of a victimized race. You can listen to every protest across the country glorifying the “Jena Six” and you will never hear an acknowledgement of the massive social breakdown that is the black crime rate: no mention of the violence in inner-city schools that black students commit overwhelmingly; no mention of the rising homicides in midsize cities that young black males commit when they feel “disrespected.” It is not racism that is putting black men in jail; it’s their own behavior.

What about the broader significance of Jena? Again, assuming for the sake of argument that this minuscule Louisiana town seethes with the crudest bigotry, held uniquely by whites against integration-seeking blacks, is Jena’s supposed state of affairs a microcosm of America? To the contrary: there is not a single elite institution in the country that is not twisting itself into knots in favor of African-Americans. Every minimally selective college is desperately seeking to enroll more black students. Boosting black enrollment requires drastically lowering a college’s admissions criteria to overcome the intractable 200-point SAT gap between black and white high school students, but every college institutes such double standards for the sake of “diversity.” Any black student who graduates from high school with decent grades and respectable SATs will leapfrog over thousands of more qualified white and Asian students right into the Ivy League. Blacks are also the hottest commodity for exclusive private schools that serve as training grounds for the Ivies. Andover, Exeter, Choate, and every other fancy prep and day school practice the same double standards in their eagerness to admit African-American students. After college, law schools, business schools, medical schools, engineering schools, and others accept black students whose test scores would disqualify them if they were white or Asian.

The preferences continue into the professions. Wall Street law firms annually flagellate themselves over their lack of proportional representation of black associates and partners, even though the number of blacks who graduate from law school with grades and bar-exam scores comparable with the firms’ white hires is negligible. The lack of comparably qualified black candidates does not stop the law partnerships from hiring black associates, though. Corporations have saddled themselves with massive “diversity” bureaucracies whose only function is to justify hiring and promoting less qualified African-Americans and Hispanics. Newspapers, TV stations, and advertisers put enormous pressure on themselves to have blacks on their staffs and to show black faces to the world.

In short, the opportunities for blacks to roar ahead in the economy if they stay out of trouble, study, and apply themselves are legion, but the numbers taking advantage of these opportunities are not. California’s state superintendent of public instruction broke a longstanding taboo this August by pointing out that middle-class black students in the state score worse on math and English than poor white and Asian students—a disparity that applies across the country. The usual poverty excuse for black underachievement does not hold up.

The Jena protesters will go home in denial of these truths. In fact, the purpose of such mass celebrations—and that is indeed what they are—is to make sure that attention stays far away from the actual problems holding blacks back. Astronomical rates of black criminality are not the only topic that the Jena rallies have obscured. No one wallowing in Jena promotion has had the courage to speak about an even more important crisis, the breakdown of marriage. The nearly 70 percent national illegitimacy rate for blacks—a number that can approach 90 percent in inner cities—is a cataclysm. Its consequences go far beyond the harm to individual black children—especially boys—who grow up without fathers. The real poison of the marriage crisis is the message it sends to young men about personal responsibility. The first duty in civil society is toward one’s own children; everything else is built around it. But when boys are raised without any expectations that they will have to support their children and marry the mother of those children, they fail to learn the most basic lesson about responsibility. They also are freed from the civilizing force of the marriage requirement, which pressures young men to become attractive mates. With enough support, individuals can overcome the moral perils of the illegitimacy culture, but given the prevalence of black crime and disaffiliation from the working world, it’s clear that not enough young men are finding ways to do so.

The race industry will try to keep Jena in the media and political spotlight for as long as possible, and to reinforce the notion that this episode exemplifies blacks’ situation in America. But if there were many other instances of (arguable) overcharging for black crime, we would have heard about them by now. The orgy of Jena coverage will not just fail to improve the lagging performance of blacks; it will impede such improvement by strengthening the victim mentality. Both whites and blacks are complicit in this sabotage. These ecstatic festivals of racism-bashing are a crippling ritual in the codependency between absolution-seeking whites and angry blacks, a phenomenon that Shelby Steele has powerfully analyzed. The demonstrators exhibit a palpable desire for the moral clarity of the civil rights era, as do the reporters, who have covered their every utterance. “This is the first time something like this has happened for our generation,” one student told the New York Times. “You always heard about it from history books and relatives. This is a chance to experience it for ourselves.”

He’s right; there has been nothing like Selma or Montgomery for the current generation, because much of America has accomplished almost an about-face on race since the 1950s. The current martyrs to American bigotry are a far cry from Rosa Parks. Like the “Jena Six,” they tend to have committed acts of violence or other crimes for which they are allegedly being excessively punished. Think of the six high school hooligans from Decatur, Illinois, whom Jesse Jackson tried to beatify in 1999 when their schools expelled them for a violent stadium fight; their backgrounds included robbery, trespassing, truancy, and failing whole school years. We are only belatedly learning that Mychal Bell, the sole member of the “Jena Six” to have been prosecuted for knocking out and kicking Justin Barker, has a previous arrest record that includes battery and property damage. Barker’s injuries led to $14,000 in medical bills, according to a lawyer.

The Jena situation is undoubtedly a bit more complex than the tale that the press has woven of hate-filled whites and peace-loving blacks. But even if it were not, the catharsis that this morality play has offered to its participants is spurious. The real tragedy is the dysfunctional culture that holds back too many blacks from seizing the many opportunities open to them.