Jena 6 Canada and America

Something about the case of the "Jena 6" in Louisiana has sparked a rumbling within the black and white communities of Canada and the United States What is there about Jena 6 that is different from everyday life in either country.

All of the elements that we have become accustomed to in racial strife in everyday life in Canada and America characterize the case. The eyes of our white and black citizens’ roll and on those faces are etched a common sentiment: “Here we go again.”

Why have protests taken so long? What has driven thousands of black and white civil rights marchers to protest in Jena? Why have black and white Canadians shown a willingness to sign petitions of protest against this injustice? Why does this racial injustice tug so at our heart strings? Some suggest that it is perhaps because it is less about what happened and more about the fact that it happened to our children, both black and white.




The story of the Jena 6 is a long, unreported one, a year in the making story, and full of stunning details. The basic points are these: In the predominantly white town of Jena, La., black students asked the vice principle of Jena High School if they could sit under the “white tree” where predominantly white students only assembled. Following this, last September, after black students sat under the schoolyard tree, white students hung three nooses in it. These students, despite the seriousness of their actions, were suspended for just three days.

After black students protested peacefully, the La Salle Parish district attorney threatened them during a meeting, saying, "I can make your life go away with a stroke of a pen."

Imagine if you can, this being said to black gangs in the hang-gun culture of Toronto, Ontario Canada, or in the projects of southern LA in California. Would it have happened at all, or would it not have gone unnoticed? Who needs a judgment check?

As if things were not out of control enough at this point, there were two beatings of black students by white students. Later a fight ensued and a white student, using racial provocation, was beaten by a black student. The white student was treated in hospital; he had a slight concussion and multiple bruises. In spite of his injuries that same white student was well enough to attend a school function later that same night. Six black teenagers between 15 and 17 were arrested. Five black students were charged as adults with attempted murder and conspiracy. The sixth student was charged as a juvenile.
Up to this point there is very little difference between the Jena High School racial discord and those that have occurred in Cole Harbor High School in Nova Scotia Canada’s Halifax Regional Municipality (HRM).

Frankly, many in mainstream black Canada and America think that white Canadians and Americans are anxious to use disproportionate influence and power to bring groundless and excessive charges against defenseless and often innocent blacks to assure that the accused is put away for a very long time. This activity is referred to as the “New Jim Crow Laws,” at work commonly in Canada and America.

Some in mainstream white Canada and America seem to think that charges of racism vindicated and satisfy blacks since white Canadians and Americans live in denial about racism and racial inequality before the law and in society. Now, how narcissistic can black people allow white Canadians and Americans to get before they are forced to acknowledge the realities of interdependent life?

I cannot be convinced that black Canadians and Americans wish only to dominate the moral high ground by these accusations of racism. Enjoyment of moral certitude founded on proven cases of racism and racial inequality must never preclude black Canadians and Americans from challenging and preventing the exercise of legal power which enables white Canada and America to trash the life chances of thousands of our young, black students in Canada and America.


White Americans, trying to adapt the so-called “New Jim Crow Law, appear to be willing to go that far. Are white Canadians prepared to do what their American cousins seem poised or prepared to do?

The trash and burn approach, the use of old fashioned terror to get their own way when all else fails and the abuse of our laws without the presumption of innocence seem all to be failing as new federal pressures are being brought on local justice in Jena by a proposed House Judiciary Committee’s investigation.

That said where do we stand in Canada’s HRM? How do we deal this problem where the justice system appears to be high jacked and run as the domain of the privileged whites who assume that they provide mechanisms that achieve racial justice for all?

Caption photo above:

Gov. Kathleen Blanco leaves a news conference Wednesday with the Rev. Al Sharpton, center, and Martin Luther King III, right. Blanco announced that the LaSalle Parish district attorney will not appeal a decision to try Jena 6 defendant Mychal Bell as a juvenile.

Also see www.earlofarihutchinson.blogspot.com The Hutchinson Political Report for more information on Jena 6, "The Juvenile Court is No Bargain for Mychal Bell"

F. Stanley Boyd
Freelance journalist
http://www.swog.blogspot.com/.