Commentary; Posted: 10/3/07
Sad reality is racism still exists in America
Devon Holstad
Guest Columnist
The large oak tree at Jena High School is gone. Cut down. Yet the tension remains in the small Louisiana town where the heartbreaking ghosts of past racial divide have been stirred from the dead.
It makes one wonder, how far has America come in the fight against racism when three nooses can be hung from a self-proclaimed “white tree” after black students had the audacity to sit under it and the ordeal is written of by the school superintendent as a “youthful prank?”
It was a normal day last September in Jena, Louisiana, when a group of black students asked their vice-principal for permission to sit under the now long-gone oak tree. The vice-principal told the students that they could sit wherever they pleased...it is America, after all, and the days of Jim Crow and racial segregation are only memories of a horrible past, right?
Wrong.
The students sat under the tree, only to arrive at school the next day to find three nooses hanging from its branches. When the three white students responsible were found, the principal recommended expulsion. The white superintendent, however, felt differently. Telling the Chicago Tribune that, “Adolescents play pranks, I don’t think it was a threat against anybody,” the superintendent over-ruled the expulsion and reduced the punishment to a mere three days’ suspension.
This set off a string of events that included a black student being jumped at a party, another black student having a shotgun held to his head by a white classmate at a gas station, and no repercussions whatsoever as a result of the incidents.
Then, one day, when faced by racial taunts in the school hallway, six black students engaged in a schoolyard fight with the white student spouting the racial epithets. The white student was treated and released from the hospital relatively quickly, and he was able to attend a school function later that day.
The black students, who have become known as the Jena Six, were arrested and charged with attempted second-degree murder.
An all white jury quickly convicted the one member of the Jena Six who has gone on trial so far, Mychal Bell, who was tried as an adult despite being 16 at the time of the incident, of a reduced charge of aggravated second-degree battery and conspiracy to commit aggravated second-degree battery.
(The decision has since been overturned by the Louisiana Court of Appeals, which concluded Bell had no reason to be tried as an adult, and the conspiracy charge was dismissed outright. The county attorney has promised he will appeal the decision to the Louisiana Supreme Court).The other five have yet to have their day in court.
It is a sad day in America when we can no longer look at fellow citizens not as people, but as black and white. Hasn’t our nation gone through this before? Didn’t the courageous pioneers of the original Civil Rights Movement sacrifice so much to rid our society of this type of evil?
We as a nation are at a crossroads. We must all, as Americans, but more importantly, as human beings, look into our souls and make a decision. Are we to continue down this path of complacency with inequality, or are we going to choose to use the Jena Six as a springboard to finally changing the state of our society once and for all?
Bobby Kennedy said to a crowd in downtown Indianapolis on the day that Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed, “What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence or lawlessness; but love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or they be black.”
Racism still lives in America today. As much as we would all like to turn a blind eye and pretend that it no longer exists, the sad reality is that it does. It exists perhaps as much as it did back when MLK lost his life in the struggle.
Yet today it is in a different form. It is subtle and hidden, which is in many ways much more dangerous.
We are called today to show up and take control of our society that has all potential to spiral into a state of disrepute. We must all stop waiting for change to come, but instead show up and be that change.
It is up to us. We can make a difference, but only if we as a society make a conscious effort to fight the demons of racism that we encounter on a daily basis. It takes a dialogue. We all need to stop ignoring the elephant in the room, and start talking about the problems present in our nation.
It takes more than just self-evaluation; speaking out to others, and educating our community is what’s needed. Only when this begins to happen can we claim that we are truly making progress towards real, effective change.
The tree in Jena may be cut down, but the ghosts still remain. It is up to all of us to ensure that they are finally laid to rest for good.
Throughout history we have, as a society, grown accustomed to and complacent with the fact that not all of us are equal. We have accepted the fact that we live apart. But now is the time that we must start a movement. Now is the time when we must stand, and learn to live, together.
The writer is a Forest Lake resident who contributes to the newspaper on a regular basis.
Forest Lake Times
P.O. Box 218
880 SW 15 St.
Forest Lake, MN 55025
651-464-4601
Fax 651-464-4605