[doxy]

The following is a 3 minute intro to what this is about, I suggest watching it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YuoiZnr4jLY

The below is just a story of my Friday night and how it relates to The Jena Six:

So there I am, enjoying my original martini (gin, sweet vermouth, a hit of orange bitters, lemon twist) and a bloke sits next to me at the bar. It's a hotel bar and so I'm figuring he isn't from here. I'm a social cat and so I ask what he's in town for. He says he came down for the Jena Six. I was immediately pleased to meet his aquaintance. I told him my roommates and neighbors went to the rally, and asked him what he thought of the turn-out for it. He was happy with it but emphasized there's still a ways to go. From then on we discussed my dissapointment with the majority of the white people who are actually from this state, especially those outside of New Orleans.
(yes, this email is politically motivated, you can delete it or email me one on one with your dissapointment in me sending it if you'd like, in the end this state has some serious problems)
The basis of my disspointment was how I felt the majority of this state's double standards that went on and go on in all the small parishes, and even the three bigger parishes, did nothing but leave us in 2007 by technicality alone...we're surprisingly behind the times...hate and ignorance has bred more hate and ignorance so much so I feel at times I'm living in Jim Crow's retirement home and it's quite simply the most backwards state in the union ...and I'm not talking just the continental United States either. (I seriously think we've got Mississippi beat--and that's just because their bigotry is more sophisticated)
Back to the main point of my tale.
So myself and the chap next to me are finding ourselves in good company. He told me I shouldn't just accept that I don't like the way things are here and have my views to just sit there at the bar drinking my original martini...that my lazy self should do something productive about it. True, but damn are those martini's tasty.
Then a couple people walk into the bar and they flip-out over my new friend. I asked him what was up? He told me he was sort of a celebrity. Really? Well who are you, I say. He said his name was Most Def. Later on I found out he spells it Mos Def. Either way I still didn't know who he was but said, "damn, that's cool...nice talking to you."
So yeah, I hang out with Mos Def. We have drinks together at the same bar, we're tight. Check me out.

In ending...god bless america.

[girlygirlgag]

I never said that Mr bell should be punished as severely as he has been, but he committed a crime and he needs to face the consequences, and he has done it before. To throw out the, "Well so and so did it and they did not get in trouble" becomes inconsequential, because he did it too, knowing it is illegal, and he got busted.

I understand that white kids in the burbs get away with a hell of a lot more crap than black kids in the hood. I know this is the situation here, considering the kids who hung the nooses are not in jail on hate crime charges, like they should be. This school needs to be held accountable for not taking appropriate action against that assault.

BUT, there is a personal choice to participate in certain behaviors, to act like these kids are not in control of how they act in a situation is ludicrious. These kids stooped down to that level and they should not have. There is a choice, a person has control as to which way they are going to choose. I have sympathy in that this DA, and town needs a serious wake up call and the DA needs to piss up a rope and resign.

I have sympathy for the students, who are not acting like complete idiots, who have to suffer through these injustices and keep their heads up without resorting to illegal behavior, ON ALL SIDES of this situation. I have sympathy for the six who have suffered a punishment that did not fit the crime, and I have sympathy for a the asshole kid that got jumped by a group of other kids.

This is an ugly situation and it highlights what there still needs to be done in the American justice system, to make it fair for everybody. But to insinuate that beating a person up is ever acceptable, goes against making the system fair. To state that it is okay for some people to either judge or harass a person based on their color, because it has been done to them, goes against all senses of fairness.

is it frustrating? Yes. But, things have to be balanced for them to work.