Just recently, at a local high school in Jena Louisiana, there was a dispute between a group of black and white students. It appears as though a couple of black students sat under a tree that was normally occupied by white students of the school. Angry, these white students then hung three nooses from the tree. This of course caused some racial frustration which resulted in a fight between them and ended with no serious injuries. Local officials became involved, they arrested and charged the group of black students who were also expelled from the high school. But for the group of white students, they were only given mere warnings and a couple of suspensions. This obviously brought up some controversy which is why Eugene Robinson has confronted this topic in his article. Being an African American himself, he is outraged that the united states could go for so long without racism, only to have it come back again. He explains that both the white and the black students were equally involved and you have to treat them equally.
Obviously Mr. Robinson is right, it’s absolutely ridiculous that we can go for so long with having to think of these kinds of things. For a lot of us we have come to accept the difference between race and agree that equality is a good thing. Mr. Robinson was upset that this issue wasn’t taken very seriously, in fact, it was only brought up because of some bloggers who found this incredibly ridiculous. I totally agree with him, i can’t believe that this kind of occurrence could be kept under the covers or why no one found this upsetting. At the end of Eugene’s article he put a quote from Martin Luther King Jr.: “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
Drive Time for the ‘Jena 6′
I absolutely agree. It is sad to think that there are places in our country that still have not realized that all people are created equal, no matter what the color of our skin. It is also sad that nobody seemed to take much notice until bloogers wrote about it. But atleast the nation did take an invested interest in it when the issue was brought to light. One of the protesters who marched down there said that she “didn’t go because [she] wanted to, but because [she] had to”.