Jason Whitlock on Jena: "[E]veryone has been lied to about what really transpired in the small southern town."

Comments

[jc]

"[E]veryone has been lied to about what really transpired in the small southern town."

Sounds like he talking about Greensboro

[Ed Cone]

Read the whole thing, it's a complex story. That may apply here, too.

[jc]

I read the article and Jason tells it like it is. I have heard him speak on the Jim Rome show and like what he has to say. He doesnt hold back on his comments.

[Will]

This is a wonderful article for it's compelling message to dads and whole communities about our respomsibilty to all of our children.
As to the sensational protest and media reaction...it is my observation that anytime Sharpton and Jackson show up you can bet something's fishy.

[The CA]

Good find, Ed.

A few observations:

1) Attempted murder is not related to the actual injury sustained. All that is required is the mental state to kill and an overt act towards that goal. For example, if you hire someone to kill somebody, that can be attempted murder even if the target is never harmed. So people claiming that the Jena incident couldn't be attempted murder because the victim recovered enough to go to school event later the same evening do not know what they are talking about.

2) That said, it doesn't sound like an attempted murder because I haven't heard any evidence of an intent to cause death.

3) In North Carolina, this would be either a felony assault inflicting serious bodily injury (Class F Felony carrying a maximum sentence for a first offender of 24 months), an assault with a deadly weapon (shoes) with intent to kill inflicting a serious injury (Class C Felony carrying a maximum sentence for a first time offender of 120 months) or an assault with deadly weapon inflicting serious injury (A Class E felony carrying a maximum sentence for a first offender of 47 months). So the sentence for this act would carry a maximum of 24-120 months depending on the charge if it occurred in North Carolina. I'm not sure what the complaining is about.

4) If someone calls you a name or taunts you, that doesn't give you (much less seven of your buddies) to jump on that person and beat them unconscious. That's revenge, not self defense and there is a huge difference. You can expect to be punished accordingly.

5) If it had been eight white guys beating up one black guy, we would still have the same protests by the same people.

6) If on Day One, A white guy punches a black guy, and the fight is broken up and nobody is seriously injured, that is a simple assault, a Class 2 misdemeanor and should be treated as such. If both parties willingly fight, it is a simple affray, a Class 2 misdemeanor against both parties. If on Day Two eight black guys beat up one white guy and seriously injure him within the meaning of the law, it is not an injustice for them to be charged with a much more serious crime because it was a much more serious act, not only because of the injury, but because of the number of assailants. The idea that both acts one and two deserve the same treatment or otherwise it's racism is complete crap. It's about proportion, not race.

7) Again, I'm not sure I follow the hype. It sounds like the argument is that the "Jena 6" should get off completely soley based on the contention that some white people said or did something to some other black people at a different time and place. That's not the law. By that logic, eight white people should be allowed to attack one black person as a tit-for-tat for the Jena 6 beating and walk away without charges. I don't think any reasonable or intelligent person believes that is fair or the way the system is supposed to work.

8) The actual facts are getting lost in the hype, most likely on purpose by the charlatans and the media. We have our own example of this with the way the Wray case was loudly announced in the News and Record as racism, only to find the actual facts didn't really support it- those facts were then dribbled out much more quietly by the N&R over a period of time, and many were not reported at all. Same thing with the Guilford College incident.

9) The white victim in this case is in a fine position to argue that he is the victim of a hate crime, and not the other way around. That angle is being totally ignored by the media, but I suspect if the victim was black and the perpetrators white, we'd be hearing a lot more about hate crimes. Apparently, victims of hate crimes can only be minorities and gays.

10) We reap what we sow. As the guy you linked to points out in his story, as long as accountability is shrouded by denial and blame shifted elsewhere, we will continue to have these problems. Yes, this was a racial incident, but that doesn't excuse the behavior of anyone involved.

[Ed Cone]

Let's not lose site of the fact that there seems to have been a "whites only" area of the school, that it was marked with nooses after a black kid sat there, and that the penalties for the noose-tying students seem insufficient.

These details appear to be unrelated to the violent attack, and that attack should be judged in the proper context.

But it is important to recognize that there are multiple stories here and concentric circles of context, and that the larger story of Jena is not as simple as, well, black and white.

[BrendaBowers]

Come on Ed and get your facts straight if you are going to keep hitting at this story. The "Whites only" area was not marked off as such, it just happened to be where a bunch of kids who happen to be White hang out. I would guarantee you there is also a place on the grounds where Black kids hang out. Time has shown us that integration of the races is not going to happen by choice of the races. I have read several studies that have been done of this phenomenon and the consensus of the investigators is that the Black teens are the ones who want to segregate. White teens are far more likely to have Blacks as friends than are Blacks.

Now back to Jena: The noose thing took place in late August. I will grant you the persons who hung the nooses were let off too easy. The school board overruled the principal who wanted much stronger punishment. Then the kids managed to get thru the fall and home coming activities and classes and sports together. Then in December 6 Black kids knocked out and beat up one white kid after he was downed and unconscious. From August to December Ed! Is your White Guilt Complex so heavy you have to try to project it onto the world? Well you can just count me out because my folks were hunkies in the Pennsylvania coal mines being discriminated against by the “real” Americans whose ancestors just happened to get here before mine. While yours were apparently practicing Jim Crow here in G’boro and you can't get beyond that.

Julian Bond and the NAACP were the ones behind most of this hype(the same old racists who threw Bruce Gordon out because he, a Black man, was telling the truth that Blacks have to admit their own failings and start looking within for the culprits). The MSM and White folks like you just seem to always fall right in line and beat your breast and keep it going.
http://www.snopes.com/politics/crime/jena6.asp

[Ed Cone]

BB, you don't seem to be reading my posts and comments on this subject, or the articles to which I link, very carefully.

[BrendaBowers]

Ed you brought up the nooses which had nothing at all to do with the Jena 6. The nooses were thrown in by the NAACP, the MSM and people like you. I don't need to read all your articles and links because I can cruise the Internet, find and read my own stories. I just get ticked when people deliberately try to stir the pot as you so often do without airing the facts. And then of course you waffle back to another position and deny your first comment. And what gets me the most Ed is the fact that you are a very intelligent man so why do you persist in making asinine statements? Dam! I have always claimed to be intolerant of four things: Cruelty, Brutality, Stupidity and Willful Ignorance. You are trying to force me to add another category! BB

[Ed Cone]

"I don't need to read all your articles and links."

Only if you want to know what I'm actually saying before launching, BB.

Your remarks don't really have much to do with what I've said and linked here on the subject.