Justice for the Jenna 6

This is an important case and a sad commentary on race relations in America. Here is the link to the Justice in Jenna site so that you can keep up with events and get involved. For those who may not have heard about the case NPR has a good run down of the facts but I'll try and present them here.

In the small central Louisiana town of Jenna there was a large shade tree outside of the high school. White students would sit underneath it while Black students stayed close to the cafeteria. At an assembly a Black student asked if he could sit under the shade tree and was told he could sit wherever he liked. Three White students who were part of the rodeo team tied nooses under the tree. The school gave the boys in school suspension, but the Black students though that the punishment was too lenient.

The Black students lead by star players on the football team organized a sit in under the shade tree. The authorities were called and the district attorney told the children, "with one stroke of my pen, I can make your life disappear."

There were fights though out the year which escalated into the school being burned down but who was responsible was not determined. Robert Bailey (16) tried to enter a party accompanied by other Black students that was attended by Whites. He was beaten up by some of the White boys and no charges were filed against them. During the fracas he was hit over the head with a beer bottle by Justin Sloan, who months later was charged with simple assault and given probation.

At a convenience store the next day Bailey argued with one of the White boys from the party who ran to his truck and retrieved his pistol grip shotgun. Bailey ran at the the armed teenager and wrestled for the gun. Eventually getting the gun away from the boy and heading home with friends. Bailey and his friends were charged with theft of a firearm, robbery, and disturbing the peace. The white boy who pulled the gun wasn't charged with anything.

Justin Barker (17) was bragging to friends that Bailey had been whipped by a White man. He was attacked by Black students when he went into the courtyard. The first punch knocked him out and some of the boys kicked him in the head. The wounds were slight enough that he was treated, released and out that very night at a social function.

Six Black students were charged with assault but the D. A., Reed Walters, bumped the charges to second degree attempted murder. The first trial is over with the defense resting its case immediately after two days of the prosecution presenting the charges. Mychal Bell was found guilty by the all white jury and faces a possible 22 years in prison.

Fo anyone who has a hard time understanding let's make it simpler. A black kid asks for permission to sit under a tree on the campus of the public high school that he attends and nooses are hung from it. The kids who did it get a slap on the wrist. Some of the Black students decide to protest by sitting under the tree and they are threatened by the district attorney. One of the Black students and his friends try to get into a party and he is beaten up. He argues with one of the kids from the party the next day and he has a shotgun pulled on him. He wrestles the gun away and is then charged with theft and related charges for getting the gun away from the guy (the gun turned out to be unloaded but there was no way for them to know that while the gun was pointed at them). A white kid boasts about the "gun thief" getting charged and is then beaten up, which wasn't right but charging the kids with attempted murder is idiotic and spiteful. At most they should have been charged with a mutual fight or assault, give them a fine or probation. The boy didn't have any life threatening injuries and was able to amble on down to a ring ceremony after being so "viciously" attacked.

I could do the whole metaphorical thing with the tree of intolerance and the shaded truth. But a case like this is just depressing and a stark reminder of how short a distance we've come as a nation in 40 years. I guess the defendants should take consolation that 40 years ago they would have been swinging beneath that shade tree instead of being lynched by the legal system and the tree turned into kindling.

Pop-up teacher reprise

The teacher who was facing 40 years for pornographic pop-ups in the classroom is getting a new trial. This is good news in my opinion since she was railroaded. It's understandable as soon as you mention sex and kids people's minds shut down. It's not right but understandable.

Another teacher had a similar incident this week. Fortunately she wasn't hauled into court. As is mentioned in the article the likely cause was the duplication center dubbing the educational material onto a porno tape.

An epistle on epithets part 1

I’ve been reading Covering by Kenji Yoshino – well I actually bought it awhile ago but got sidetracked – and I’ve been thinking about the problems some celebrities have had with epithets. Mel Gibson, Michael Richards, Isaiah Washington and most recently Tim Hardaway have run into some difficulties for using slurs. The religious, racial and sexual derogatory terms that were used by Gibson, Richards, and Washington / Hardaway respectively have force mainly in how they differentiate the target from the “norm.”

This categorization and classification as being different grants the more “normal” or “ideal” among us power – to greatly summarize Foucault – in the form of the gaze. The epithet is in a way the verbal expression of the gaze; it allows one to point to those who have not successfully assimilated themselves as being freaks outside of normal human discourse. It is a means to objectify the targets of the gaze and the epithets subjugating humanity and reducing them merely to the epithetic difference.

I’ve been the target of all three of the types of epithets that the above-mentioned celebrities espoused as have several others. The most recent controversy over “Grey’s Anatomy” star Isiah Washington’s use of the “F word” struck a nerve because so many people trotted out the same old tropes. First some people I know who shall remain nameless – who know that I am gay, mind you - said that it wasn’t a big deal because he was using the word to deny using the word. T. R. Knight, the person he was ostensibly referring to with his comments stated that Washington said them in October during the big kerfuffle. The brouhaha forced Knight out of the closet. This is the “you people have always been so thin skinned.”

The other trope is the old “some of my best friends are (insert oppressed class I just insulted)” which Washington brought out when he brought up his role in Spike Lee’s “Get on the Bus” as a Gay Black Republican. While it is true he was a poster boy for Mary Cheney, PFLAG and others it doesn’t give him a free pass on the use of epithets. If it did Richards could have just pointed to Kramer having an African American attorney after his outburst.

The other trope is the old “ruler contest” that is trotted out every time you have one person from a minority insult another minority. I saw this when some people jumped to Washington’s defense saying that if he is fired it is a sure sign of racism on the part of the producers. The reasoning works like this, Blacks have suffered through slavery, segregation and are still given less pay and opportunities in professions like acting so therefore the “F word” is bad but not as bad as the “N word” so Knight and everyone else should get over it.

The last trope that I’ll bring up is the “but you say it” argument. While I’m a Black Gay Man I try to avoid using the N-word or the F-word, because they have a dark history attached to them. Other people believe that they should be reclaimed, they tend to forget that reclaiming in the modern age means commercialization. When you commercialize a word it goes beyond the confines of the group. By using the words in pop culture it implicitly gives permission to people not of the effected communities to use them. Hence, “why can 50 Cent say it and I can’t?”

While it is true that the overwhelming audience of hip-hop is suburban Caucasians, one has to wonder why so many of them have the urge to use the N-word to show that they “are down with their boys.” I’ve never felt the urge to sling a few anti-Semitic words at my Jewish friends to show my affection.

The main problem is that on the one hand people argue that these are just words and they have no real power and on the other they show the power of the words by pleading to be able to drop them casually in polite conversation. If the words are not meant in a harmful manner then why insist on using them when others say that they are harmful to them.

For those who still think that people are just blowing things out of proportion and wish to affect a more laissez faire attitude in their speech they should try a simple experiment. The experiment goes like this replace their speech with the entire hip-hop lexicon, not just spinners, n****s and f*****s but b*****s and h*s as well. Do this regardless of the audience or to whom the term applies. For example a man should refer to his girlfriend as “this is my b***h, she’s chill wit’ whatevah.” No one who had any respect for his girlfriend would say something like this. Why would it be acceptable to say we can dance like some n****s (a la Paris Hilton)?

Pop-ups and jail time

A substitute teacher is facing 40 years for porno pop-ups during class in CT. This is despite the PCs running an unpatched, version of Windows 98 without antivirus, pop-up blockers, or spyware blockers. The teacher is being thrown under the bus by the school district on this one because parents want their pound of flesh. The only other alternative is to point the finger at the IT staff of the district for not doing a better job of network security. To be fair locking up the teacher or the staff in this case seems to be going a little too far. The children being exposed to pornography wasn't the intent of anyone involved in this case.

One thing that should be considered in relation to school libraries and even public libraries is the balance between privacy and security. One of the problems of large institutions is the desire to maintain a homogeneous environment and lack of disposable funds. Because of this the lowest common denominator in security is usually what is maintained. At the very least, a browser with a built-in pop-up blocker should be the default, antivirus and anti-spyware software has to be on every computer no matter what the operating system.

I'm hoping that she will get an appeal with a judge that actually understands that pop-ups are not sought out. I'm not holding my breath.