Jena

There's a lot to be said about this, but I'm not in the mood for a long post so here it goes. First off I would suggest reading this where you are likely to see a few things you won't read anywhere else. This column by the Jena DA is probably worth considering as well.

I don't pretend to know everything about this case, in part because it seems so difficult to get a clear picture of exactly what happened. But what really angers me is how the whole situation has been treated by people such as Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. Jackson, of course, was quick to liken the situation to Selma as he is wont to do. Sharpton used even more extreme rhetoric:

"[Rev. Martin Luther] King went to Selma. That wasn't the only place you couldn't vote. That was the point of action. They went to Birmingham. That wasn't the only place we didn't have public accommodations. It was the point of action. Jena is a point of action for the Jenas everywhere. There's Jenas in Atlanta, there's Jenas in New York, there's Jenas in Florida, and there are Jenas all over Texas."

I think that Jackson and Sharpton actually get excited when controversies such as Jena arise. It takes them back to their glory days. It makes them relevant. They proclaim this to be Selma all over again because that's they want, through such rhetoric they project their desires. In a society without racial strife they are unneeded.

It's also interesting to me how the story has been seized upon by both the glitterati and the foreign media. Like Jackson and Sharpton, Jena fits the narrative of the U.S. that they enjoy -- a racist, bigoted society that decades after the civil rights struggles of the 1960s is incapable of shedding the vestiges of racism. They had their hopes dashed in North Carolina, but Jena is keeping the dream alive.