Monday, October 22, 2007
www.whiteville.com
By JEFFERSON WEAVER
Staff writer
Maybe we should hang everybody.
I make a bad jest there, of course, but the whole Jena Six fiasco has me even more disgusted than most race-baiting made-for-television news events.
The Jena Six, in case you somehow missed it, were the six black teenagers who assaulted a white teenager in Jena, Louisiana. The attack came because several black kids wanted to sit under a tree where white kids usually gather. The next day, someone hung several nooses from the tree. A few hours later, the white kid was stomped and beaten. The boy ended up in the hospital, albeit briefly.
People were outraged – not because the white kid was beaten, but because the black kids were arrested, and the whites who hung the nooses weren’t. The district attorney pointed out, repeatedly, that there’s no law against dangling a noose from a tree, but that didn’t matter.
The behavior of the white punks was tasteless, yes. Deserving of a whipping by Daddy’s belt, undoubtedly. Insensitive to what blacks went through so much for so long? You bet.
But illegal? No.
The hate-mongers can’t seem to understand that expressing an unpopular opinion is not more of a danger to society than a six-against-one assault.
I thought about the Jena Six and the Jena Three Stooges (the noose-hangers) the other night as I was walking back from a meeting. A young man pulled up beside me in a low-rider boom car blasting music. I had no choice but listen to his music, along with the rest of downtown Whiteville.
I wished I hadn’t.
The song talked about killing white men and taking their women. The song used a particularly offensive term to describe women, a phrase made famous recently by Don Imus.
Was I offended by this song? Yes.
Did I really think this young man was endorsing killing white men? No, but I’ll admit I was disgusted. And it made my ears hurt.
Unfortunately, just like the idiot Imus, this fellow has the right to enjoy whatever music he likes (just maybe not so loudly). That’s part of free speech.
On the other hand, if I had played a similar song talking about killing black folks and prostituting their women, I’m sure some folks would want me stoned to death, metaphorically if not literally.
And some folks would consider that justice.
Did those idiot boys in Louisiana have a constitutional right to hang a noose from a tree? Unfortunately, they did. They weren’t violating any state or federal laws, although they broke the laws of common decency.
I have often expressed the thought that everyone has the right to free speech, as long as they understand what the ramifications of that free speech might entail, be it social ostracism, a punch in the nose, or just the ire of one’s mother-in-law. I still feel that way.
I find crucifixes in urine, vulgar T-shirts, and pornography offensive, but I do not have the right to prevent an adult from looking at such things. Nor do I have the right to punish folks who create such things. Nor do I have to worry about being punished for my opinions.
To claim more equality based on past injustice is ridiculous. When does it end? Where does it stop? How much is enough? I even heard one man – locally – say he felt blacks should enslave “some” white Americans for a few centuries. In the ultimate ironic twist, I heard another one complain because a “white boy” had no business walking through his neighborhood, and should have been arrested for being there.
I say, get over it.
Unlike the pigs in Orwell’s Animal Farm, no one is more equal that the others.
The contributions and sacrifices of the leaders of the civil rights movement, in my opinion, are tarnished every time somebody like Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, or a thousand lesser points of light gets up and demands a modified form of “justice. “We saw it at Duke University last year, we saw it in Jena this year, and unfortunately, we see a shameful amount of it here in Columbus County all the time.
Sharpton, by the way, began screaming prejudice again recently when one of the Jena 6 was jailed for a probation violation. Mychal Bell was arrested in December for simple battery and criminal destruction of property (his more famous assault charge were thrown out). Al Sharpton, according to the news repots, immediately said the courts were seeking revenge against Bell for the previous dismissal.
Unfortunately, we can’t change the way people think. All we can do is show them why they should change their minds.
And that isn’t done by excusing laziness, criminal behavior and a lack of work ethic by playing the race card. It’s done by hard work, rebuilding families, personal responsibility, and swatting a child’s backside when the child needs it.
Oh yes, and exercising our right to free speech to help people come together.
If the state of Louisiana – or any other state, for that matter – were to pass laws against displaying nooses or other Ku Klux Klan related items, they’d have to pass laws banning anything designed to intimidate whites, Hispanics, Indians, Asians, and other folks, too. That would, however, stifle free speech, although the political correctness power-junkies don’t seem to realize that.
We don’t need more laws – we need more common sense.
However badly they want to ignore it, there is a healing going on, the closing of the wounds of racism.
It’s a healing I honestly think racists like Sharpton and Jackson don’t want to see completed, since they’d have to get real jobs.
Maybe if we just hanged everybody, we could satisfy everybody.
Until then, though, we should just get over it and move on.
Weaver is a staff writer at The News Reporter. He may be reached at 642-4104, ext. 227, or via e-mail at jeffweaver@newsreporter.biz.
