It has come to my attention, albeit somewhat belatedly, that there’s some sort of controversy going on about an incident in Louisiana. I learned about this when I started seeing “Free the Jena 6” in various venues, and then a whole passel of cryptic editorial cartoons that made it clear that there was some racist nefariousness going on down south.

Well, what’s new?

But then, horror of horrors, I actually read a little about what happened, and man, my blood started to boil. There is a serious problem going on in this country, and it’s steeped in history, prejudice, and ignorance. I am anguished to know that several of my friends are a part of this problem, and it’s so deeply ingrained that talking to them about it has proven fruitless in the past.

The Jena 6 belong in jail. Further, they should be charged under federal hate-crime statutes.

But the problem I spoke of is not the problem that gets the press, and is indeed the major issue confronting United Statesian culture: racism. Racism in this country is deep, stubborn, well nigh intractable, as much a part of the fabric of this country as, say, warmongering. Racism is very real, and we must do everything we can to stamp it out. But how in the holy of holies does protesting for the freedom of a group of kids who beat unconscious another kid further the cause of eliminating racism?

Here’s the message the protesters want to get across: those 6 black kids were responding to the racist taunts of their white neighbors, and therefore their actions were of self defense. What really steams me is that the same people who make this argument are invariably rabidly opposed to the Iraq war, which is justified in the exact same way. We suffered a terrorist assault (nooses slung over a tree; 9/11) and so therefore we are going to pummel a member of the enemy race (a white kid; Iraq), even though there was absolutely no connection to the original assault.

Further, what message does this say about being black in America? Or about being white? Is it okay to commit brutal hate crimes if you’re black, just so long as you can say it’s the “white people’s” fault? Is that any way to ennoble our character? Is pardoning those kids going to send a message of tolerance, or will it send a message of enabling? Are white liberals so out of touch with human decency that beating someone bloody is acceptable, just so long as it’s blacks beating a white kid up?

That’s not solving racism, that’s perpetuating it.

This is a problem of an entirely different, more malevolent stripe. This is a kind of racism that holds minorities to a lower standard, passing without comment the years of trouble those kids had already been in, their parental neglect, the hip-hop culture of hatred and misogyny with which many black Americans identify with pride. Tipper Gore was right: the glorification of violence and sex in our popular media really does affect how people perceive these acts, and that perception is what blinds us. We allow ourselves to lose sight of universal values in favor of relative values in a naïve belief that doing so gives honor and respect to minority groups. Humanity is a rich tapestry, but we are one rich tapestry, not many different monochrome carpets. We are a single field of myriad blooms, not a myriad fields of ecologically unsound monocultures.

Don’t get me wrong (though I suspect that if you disagree with my premise, you’ll have shut down completely by now, and won’t hear anything I’m about to say): those kids who slung that noose needed to have been dealt with severely, and they weren’t. They, too, committed a hate crime, and should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. It’s shameful and tragic that they weren’t. There seems to have been a cavalier attitude taken in the town about dealing with the scraps the led up to the assault. A unforgivable ignorance of how powerful a statement those nooses were as well as how the racial tension had been aggravated led to a wholly insufficient response. When the Jena 6 were arrested, it’s entirely reasonable to be enraged that only with the black kids underfoot did the wheels of the legal system seem to turn.

I’m all for peaceful protest to encourage awareness, to provoke dialogue, and to work for change, but I must draw the line at calls to free thugs who beat on a kid the way whites used to beat on blacks (and unfortunately still do). Eye for an eye is not justice – that law was abrogated over 2,000 years ago. We cannot protect the law, and everybody that the law is designed to protect, by calling for its repeal in the situations and times when it suits us. That is not civil disobedience, that is not the way forward.

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