Jena? Is This For Real in 2007? YES

What happens when you hear a story about racism? I don't know about you, but my mind goes back to years ago. I guess I wear rose colored glasses many days, because I don't want to believe what I read sometimes.

The question becomes, how can you ignore something, that can be so scary, and happening in 2007. It's a story that reads like it came from decades ago.

Let me show you what I read when I was visiting a friend's blog. This is a quote from the "Color of Change".

From ColorOfChange.org, here is a brief rundown of events:

Last fall in Jena, the day after two Black high school students sat beneath the “white tree” on their campus, nooses were hung from the tree. When the superintendent dismissed the nooses as a “prank,” more Black students sat under the tree in protest. The District Attorney then came to the school accompanied by the town’s police and demanded that the students end their protest, telling them, “I can be your best friend or your worst enemy… I can take away your lives with a stroke of my pen.”

A series of white-on-black incidents of violence followed, and the DA did nothing. But when a white student was beaten up in a schoolyard fight, the DA responded by charging six black students with attempted murder and conspiracy to commit murder.

It’s a story that reads like one from the Jim Crow era, when judges, lawyers and all-white juries used the justice system to keep blacks in “their place.” But it’s happening today. The families of these young men are fighting back, but the story has gotten minimal press. Together, we can make sure their story is told and that the Governor of Louisiana intervenes and provides justice for the Jena 6. It starts now.

If you'd like to read more about this, you can go to ColorOfChange.org, you can read more on my friend Marisa's blog, and also more on my friend Suni's blog.

You can also read the story on CNN.