Here's an excerpt from my new VDARE.com column. PLEASE click on the [More] link at the bottom of the excerpt to read the rest of it on the VDARE site.
The Jena Six Through the Looking Glass
Last Thursday in the small Louisiana town of Jena, the Reverends Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton led a march of thousands of protestors chanting "Jail the Jena Six!"
The demonstrators and the press had come from all over the country to condemn the savage racist attack of December 4, 2006, in which a black high school student was jumped from behind, knocked unconscious, and then kicked and punched by six white football players until they were dragged off their supine victim.
"Phrases like 'stomped him badly,' 'stepped on his face,' 'knocked out cold on the ground,' and 'slammed his head on the concrete beam' were used by the students in their statements," wrote reporter Abbey Brown in "Documents Give Details of Fight," a June 11, 2007 article in the local Alexandria-Pineville Town Talk.
On Thursday, the two ministers demanded that hate crime charges be added to the indictments against the six muscular white athletes accused of beating black student Justin Barker senseless. "Why in the world isn't this being called a hate crime?" asked Sharpton. "Given the long series of racial incidents in Jena, this was clearly a racially-motivated attack."
The black leaders denounced District Attorney Reed Walter's decision to reduce the main charge from second-degree attempted murder to second-degree aggravated battery. They implied that only bias could account for his leniency toward the white athletes. "These six football stars might well have killed this poor boy if they hadn't finally been stopped," said Jackson. "Let the jury decide whether it was attempted murder or not."
The Rev. Jackson blamed school authorities for not disciplining their star white players for earlier crimes. He pointed out that the only one of the football players so far to be tried and convicted, fullback/linebacker Mychal Bell, had been accustomed to running amok off the field because of preferential treatment he enjoyed due to his athletic stardom. In the twelve months leading up to the attack on Barker, Bell had scored 18 touchdowns and been convicted of four crimes, two of them violent. Capping off the junior's busy year, on December 17, 2006, Bell was named All-State while he was sitting in his jail cell.
Jackson quoted Brown's August 25 article "Bell denied bond due to criminal history:"
"… Bell was placed on probation until his 18th birthday -- Jan. 18, 2008 -- after an incident of battery on Dec. 25, 2005. After being placed on probation, he was adjudicated of three other crimes, the two in September and another charge of criminal damage to property that occurred on July 25, 2006."
The Rev. Jackson noted that Brown's article showed that school officials were negligent in reining in their violent star:
"Mack Fowler, Jena High's football coach at the time, said that … he discovered that while he was punishing his players, the school 'wasn't doing anything' to them. Fowler said he decided then that he was going to do the same thing the school did—nothing."
Discriminating on Bell's behalf paid off on the football field. Brown wrote:
"Bell was adjudicated—the juvenile equivalent to a conviction—of battery Sept. 2 and criminal damage to property Sept. 3 … A few days later, on Sept. 8, Bell rushed 12 times for 108 yards and scored three touchdowns—one of the best performances of the year for the standout athlete."
The Rev. Sharpton argued that the youngest of the attackers, Jesse Ray Beard, should have been charged as an adult. "Instead, he is frolicking on the football field right now!"
Brown reported in "'Jena Six' all ran together -- on the field and off:"
"Since returning to school, Beard has shined as one of the Jena Giants' star players on the football field. … He had 91 yards rushing and scored the game-winning touchdown Friday night in the Giants' 12-6 overtime win over Iowa."
Both civil rights organizers agreed that … oh, wait … No … hmmhmmh …
Look, this is kind of embarrassing for me. I'm not sure how to explain this … Okay, here goes:
I just realized that this article I've been writing is about an "alternate universe" ... [More]
My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer
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19 comments:
Brilliant.
Great article, Steve. I hope you're submitting this for publication elsewhere, too. The only way the race baiters are going to get the message is if we insist they learn to see the conflicts that emerge every time blacks or Hispanics get caught committing a crime against whites - from the perspective of their victims.
Good column
Steve Sailer writes:
"... there's a tremendous hunger in modern America for news accounts of white violence against blacks."
Oh yeah? Where exactly is the hunger, Steve?
The hunger wasn't in Paula Zahn's audience on CNN was it? She got canned in spite of her crusade during 2007 to sniff out white-on-minority injustice. Her crusade should have saved her show according to your claim. But it didn't.
The highest rated news shows in America, O'Reilly, Dobbs etc. muckrake and debunk the hoaxes - they don't promote the hoaxes and witchhunts.
So, where is the "tremendous hunger", Steve? Because you characterize the hunger as "tremendous" the reader is likely to assume that you are talking about mass numbers i.e. the Public. But that is not the case. No, it is the non-PC media outlets that are thriving and gaining audience by pointing out the madness of politically correct witchhunts.
The Duke Rape Hoax did not save the New York Times' bacon did it? Revenues did not spike up and right that floundering ship did they? Neither Paula Zahn (fired) or Anderson Cooper (wings clipped) generated ratings by feeding your so-called "tremendous hunger for news accounts of white violence against blacks."
Please explain the source of the "tremendous hunger", Steve. Please cite who exactly is generating an increased audience by feeding the hunger. All the PC network newscasts are down. All of the PC newspapers are shrinking. The big PC outlets are stagnant or losing market share.
Are you talking about last place black talk radio? Are you talking about last place MSNBC? Last place Air America? Your local KABC-LA?
Are you talking about Kos? Kos does qualify as having a "tremendous" audience. But a search of Kos for "Jena" brings up 7 threads from the past two weeks averaging 200 comments. Big deal. They are not exactly crazy with Jena fever over there.
So, what are you talking about?
Stop being disingenious Mr. Sailer. The "alternate universe" you construct is a mere fantasy, nothing more. You take the beating of Justin Barker, remove it from its racial context, and then switch the races of the two parties as a "thought experiment" in order to make a point. Your article makes no mention whatsoever of the nooses hung from the trees, nor of the beating with a beer bottle of a black student by a white at a "white" party (the white attacker has only recently been charged with simple battery), nor of the confrontation outside the convenience store between black students and a white man in which the white man produced a sawed-off shotgun. The students wrestled it away from him, only to be charged with stealing a firearm. The white man was not charged with anything. You quote the Reverend Thompson without revealing that the Reverend, as you know fully well, is NOT of the opinion that there is no racial bias in this case, in the cases leading up to it, in Jena, Louisiana, or in the United States of America. The issue is not whether the behavior of these young black men can be condoned or excused. The issue is the clear, obvious bias that surrounds this case. Yes, some of the black students were allowed to get off of earlier crimes, partly because they were athletes (which has to with the sexism and machismo that saturate this culture as well as racism), and probably also because their previous victims were black. That is hardly the most important point. What is far more scary is the double standard in these cases applied to white and Black attackers. (What is even more scary than that is the prosecutorial misconduct being perpetrated by Mr. Reed: http://counterpunch.org/washington09222007.html)
I know you are a very intelligent man. Stop pretending that there is no racism in this country, as you clearly do by putting scare quotes around the term "white racism." Stop making excuses for it when it pops up. Stop passing the buck. Take responsibility, and stop using your intellect and your rhetorical skills to attack poor black and brown folk. Take a look at some of the comments people make on your blog, some of which I know for a fact you disagree with. Why do you think such people are attracted to your writing? Why do you continue to make irresponsible ommisions and exaggerations in your professional writing, but when I speak to you personally, you sound like a reasonable, decent, if sometimes somewhat misinformed or misguided human being? Are you afraid, being trained in marketing in college after all, that if you speak your true opinions, that you will lose the white supremacist dollar that you have so effectively cornered? Do you really need that extra buck from pathetic white nationalists now that your wife is teaching at a public school? I hope you have recognized who I am by now, and realized the hurt that you cause me every time i see you write something i know you believe to be false.
Your article makes no mention whatsoever of the nooses hung from the trees, nor of the beating with a beer bottle of a black student by a white at a "white" party (the white attacker has only recently been charged with simple battery), nor of the confrontation outside the convenience store between black students and a white man in which the white man produced a sawed-off shotgun. The students wrestled it away from him, only to be charged with stealing a firearm.
Pathetic red herrings. The "argument" here is that an alleged "climate of racism" in some way mitigates the responsibility of the six athletes for launching what could easily have been a lethal group assault on a lone white man.
Good article. And "Jail the Jena 6" t-shirts are available: http://www.printfection.com/randalltees/JAIL-THE-JENA-6/_s_102051
To anonymous at 11:03
You've made the fundamental error of deciding that justice should be meted out according to group identity.
The justice system should consider individual cases, not the relative merits of black or white grievances. Your attempts to conflate a whole series of events into a single narrative to excuse the beating of a white individual by a black gang... well, to be blunt... you aren't interested in justice. You are interested in using the justice system to settle old scores.
The fact that you think that a raving, hysterical rag like Counterpunch should be trusted... well, the only thing that that proves is that you are not entirely sane.
To anonymous 11:02
The "tremendous hunger in modern America for news accounts of white violence against blacks" does exist. You are correct in pointing out that the mainstream audience has seen beyond it.
The entire "diversity" industry lives on the myth of the evil of white hetero men. That industry is firmly in control in corporate executive offices, university administrations and the race and sex grievance wing of the Democratic Party.
So, yes, you are right that the mainstream audience rejects PC as so much crap. You are wrong in that asserting that, for lack of a better word, the administrative "elite" is not hungrily searching for that Great White Defendant. Perpetuating the myth of the evil white hetero male is a necessity for the race and sex quota industry.
To Anon 11:02
The "tremendous hunger" is within the MSM, not the general public. Although Anon 11:03 sounds like he has the same appetite.
Mr. Anonymous 11:03: (1) Why is the nooses incident supposed to be relevant to Mychal Bell's case? It took place three months before the assault on Justin Barker, who was not involved. Is it supposed to establish that the justice system in Jena lets white guys off easier than black guys? But how so? The noose incident involved no actual violence, nor even a credible threat of violence, and the white guys responsible had no criminal record. Nor did they escape scot-free. According to Eddie Thompson, they "were sent to an alternative school, off-campus, for an extended period of time. They underwent investigations by Federal and Sate authorities. They were given psychological evaluations. Even when they were eventually allowed back on campus they were not allowed to be a part of the general population for weeks." I mean, how much punishment is supposed to be enough for non-violent racial insensitivity?
(2) Your account of the attack at the party (which, again, did not involve Justin Barker) is tendentious. Some accounts call it an all-white party, others say that some blacks were present. But all agree that it was invitation only, and that the black guys who were trying to get in were not invited. Justin Sloan, a white guy at the party, picked a fight with them. Police were called. He was arrested and charged with battery. He pled guilty. He had no previous record and received probation. Only later did Robert Bailey (one of the gate-crashers) claim that Sloan had knocked him over the head with a beer battle. There is no record corroborating this claim.
(3) Your account of the fight at the convenience store (which, again, did not involve Justin Barker) is equally tendentious. According to the most detailed accounts I have been able to find, Robert Bailey (again) and a couple of buddies ran into Justin Sloan (again) in the parking-lot of a convenience store. Fighting words were exchanged. The three black guys chased Sloan to his truck, where he tried to grab his shotgun, but they wrestled it away from him and made off with it. In other words, it's not as if the white guy showed up brandishing his weapon at some innocent black guys who were just minding their own business. Based on the testimony of an uninvolved eyewitness, Sloan and two of the black guys got off without charges. Bailey was charged with theft. Do you have some reason to believe that the witness was wrong and that Sloan was the real bad-guy in this confrontation?
A "double standard" means that like cases get treated differently. But none of the previous cases is even remotely like the assault on Justin Barker, who got cold-cocked from behind and knocked unconscious by a bunch of guys, some of whom had a long record of violent crime, and who then stood around stomping on the guy's face after he was down.
One possibility that seems to be missing from your analysis Steve, is that perphaps part of the reason why the black student athletes were let off with lenient punishments for their previous crimes was that, in addition to their being football players in football insane Louisiana, their previous victims were black. Consider this testimony from a black resident as reported by the AP (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070922/ap_on_re_us/a_place_called_jena):
Huey Crockett, 50, lives with his wife, Carla, 45, in a heavily wooded, predominantly black district just beyond Jena's limits, an area known as "The Country." The Crocketts, who are black, have complained to police that Bell and other youngsters were causing trouble in their neighborhood — scratching cars with keys, breaking the windows of parked cars, spraying property with paint.
The authorities, Crockett says, were always slow to respond.
"But as soon as he had a run-in with a white boy, they came down on him like a hammer. That's not right. If I call the police for an incident here, it may take them an hour, an hour and half to get out here. But they'll be right out in an instant if a white person calls them."
Is this so preposterous?: That the police and courts are more concerned with white crime victims than black ones in Jena, LA, which, after all, went solidly for David Duke back when he ran for Governor of Louisiana? Is that so improbable? Could it be that the reason the white guy who beat one of the black students with a beer bottle (certainly a deadly weapon) has only been charged with simple battery, and the white man who produced a shotgun has been charged with nothing while the blacks who took it away from him have been charged with theft, has anything to do with racism???? In the deep South??? In Jena, LA????? In David Duke country????? (and please don't try to make excuses, as many conservatives have, for Duke's popularity among Louisiana whites. I know you are smarter than that). Please tell me, Steve, that you see that there is some sort of racial angle here. I know you are smart enough to see it. I agree with you that athletes are treated far to leniently in this society (I'd invite you to consider the possibility, however, that part of the reason for that has to do with sexism and the overvaluation of pathological forms of masculinity at the expense of feminine values in our society. Please don't dismiss this possibility as "feminist nonsense.") But are you telling me that there is no bigotry whatsoever in Jena, LA, and that, if there is, this racism somehow magically is incapable of spilling over into the legal system? Come on now... really...
So, where is the "tremendous hunger", Steve? Because you characterize the hunger as "tremendous" the reader is likely to assume that you are talking about mass numbers i.e. the Public. But that is not the case. No, it is the non-PC media outlets that are thriving and gaining audience by pointing out the madness of politically correct witchhunts.
The Duke Rape Hoax did not save the New York Times' bacon did it? Revenues did not spike up and right that floundering ship did they? Neither Paula Zahn (fired) or Anderson Cooper (wings clipped) generated ratings by feeding your so-called "tremendous hunger for news accounts of white violence against blacks."
Your average man on the street doesn't decide the news. That should be obvious to everyone by now. There isn't a "tremendous hunger" for this sort of stuff among average Americans; there is among elites (especially liberals within the MSM) who set the cultural agenda.
Your article makes no mention whatsoever of the nooses hung from the trees, nor of the beating with a beer bottle of a black student by a white at a "white" party (the white attacker has only recently been charged with simple battery), nor of the confrontation outside the convenience store between black students and a white man in which the white man produced a sawed-off shotgun. The students wrestled it away from him, only to be charged with stealing a firearm.
Accounts as to what happened at the convenience store are conflicting but I can see you've already made up your mind that Bailey was telling the truth. The other side of the story is that the man was being chased by Bailey and friends and ran to his truck where there was a scuffle over the shotgun. Some accounts claim that Bailey or friends called the police, others dispute this. What is clear is that they did not contact the police immediately at the convenience store but left with the shotgun in their possession. The shotgun was later recovered from Bailey's home (or from a vehicle parked in the backyard of the home).
According to someone I know through the internet who lives near the area, the shotgun in question was also not a sawed-off but just an ordinary pistol-gripped pump action. This may be another one of those "facts" invented by the media or Jena Six supporters. Most MSM accounts don't refer to the shotgun being sawed-off but a few pro-Jena-Six editorials in smaller newspapers, internet news sources, and many black blogs do.
More importantly, in areas where black criminals prey upon white victims should we excuse or minimize the actions of whites who might attack a random black by pointing to the history of black-on-white crime (or even just black-on-white disrespect) in the area? If so, there isn't any location in the country where blacks and whites interact in any number where white attacks on blacks aren't partially justified. Do you really want to set that precedent?
The "tremendous hunger" is within the MSM, not the general public.
Agreed. So why doesn't Steve make that clear in his article? It looks like Steve made a deliberate attempt to obscure the source of the "hunger" i.e. the role of a few powerful newsrooms and editors.
How many people does it take to create a "media frenzy" in the USA? Not very many I say:
NY Times, Washington Post, USA Today, AP News, CNN, ABC News, NBC News, CBS News, Time, Newsweek.
There it is. There's your "frenzy". About ten newsrooms and at the most 20 editors, most all from the same ...uh... political, cultural, ethnic backgrounds.
Steve is trying to make it sound like there is widespread populist hunger "across America" for this story line.
No, I can use my intellect and see that when Steve wrote, "... there's a tremendous hunger in modern America for news accounts of white violence against blacks."
It was the MSM he was talking about...are you new to this site? This is an old truthful standard that Steve is referring back to...here's an idea take some time to read what he's writing before you launch into a diatribe with the wrong premise. Dan R
This is perhaps one of Steve's greatest articles, and he already towers head and shoulders above every other writer.
The cheerleaders for white-on-black crime stories are the same as for the immigration amnesty. Its the 'mile wide inch deep' scenario all over again. The hunger is amongst them, they need these kind of cases to browbeat the white majority. I thought that was a given.
Steve is trying to make it sound like there is widespread populist hunger "across America" for this story line.
If you've been on this site for any time, you'll notice that Steve writes constantly about the divide between the interests of the elites and the general public. In that context, his point was clear.
This hunger for the great white defendant is not only limited to the MSM, but includes large numbers of white liberals and lefties, blacks, and members of the democrat party and what is laughingly called "intellectuals".
The great unwashed white mass have never cared about this stuff, but then we don't count.
Which is why we constantly hear about a small country in the Middle East on what seems to be an hourly basis.
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