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flashl Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-22-08 07:12 AM
Original message
White, black groups clash at Jena, La., protests
Source: USA Today


One counterprotester was arrested after about 30 members of a white "pro-majority" group marched here Monday.

The Nationalist Movement called the march to express disdain for the holiday celebrating the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr. and for six black Jena teenagers charged with beating a white classmate.

A dozen members of the New Black Panther Party held their own march in protest. Altogether, 200 people demonstrated against the Nationalists. The groups met at the LaSalle Parish Courthouse.

As police tried to push the Black Panthers to the back of the courthouse, officers pulled William Winchester Jr., 42, of New Orleans from the group and arrested him. He was charged with battery of a police officer and resisting arrest.

As the Nationalists marched, they shouted, "No to King! No to the Jena Six!" Counterprotesters followed, shouting, "Down with the Klan!"

USA Today


Read more: http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-01-21-jena_N.htm


Wonder what Americans will think about their country years from now when reading about "The Nationalist Movement"?
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ChairmanAgnostic Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-22-08 07:16 AM
Response to Original message
1. Jena is one sick, sad town. Being a yankee up north, I wonder
how common such hatred and racial bigotry exists throughout the south. We have our problems here in Chi Town, but at least our politicians cross racial lines without any prejudice as they march to prison to finish their sentences.
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ayeshahaqqiqa Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-22-08 07:27 AM
Response to Reply #1
2. Transplanted Yankee living in the Upper South here
I think the attitude is better here in Northwest Arkansas. Yes, there is a Klan faction in the county where I work, but they are in the minority. And folks who are natives (and whose families have lived here for a while) are embarrassed by the Klan, and they literally don't want to have anything to do with them. After a mass mailing by the group that criticized the open hiring policy of the biggest employer here, the Surrogate Court (equivalent to County Board of Supervisors elsewhere)wrote a letter condemning the Klan and telling everyone that they endorsed the open hiring policy (which includes tolerance for gays as well as minorities). There aren't many blacks living in town, but they are tolerated--my boss hired one young man who needed work over the summer, and told me to take any of our customers who balked at having the young man work for them off our list. So prejudice is here, but it isn't universal and isn't supported by the general population.

And the Confederate Memorial on the courthouse lawn flies the genuine Confederate flag (the Stars and Bars), not the infamous Battle Flag, which is really a racist symbol.
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Thothmes Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-22-08 07:29 AM
Response to Reply #1
3. Sad to say
I believe that it lies just below the surface in a lot of small Southern towns and rural areas. Just My Opinion
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ChairmanAgnostic Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-22-08 07:38 AM
Response to Reply #3
5. I'd never say that it doesn't exist up here.
It does. But in a kinder, gentler form.
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donsu Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-22-08 11:11 AM
Response to Reply #5
8. a kinder, gentle racist - is that possible?
nt
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ChairmanAgnostic Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-22-08 02:00 PM
Response to Reply #8
15. Circa 1980s Chicago's Council wars.
Not one noose, not one hanging, not one pickmeup truck dragging, and 25% of the council was minority.

Much kinder and gentler.
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flashl Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-22-08 07:38 AM
Response to Reply #1
4. The racial bigotry manifests itself in the high incarceration of black males. nt
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rasputin1952 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-22-08 08:20 AM
Response to Original message
6. Racism and bigotry are not limited to any one "group"...
it raises it's ugly head from time to time in many forms, from many venues.

Racism is a universal concept born of forgetting the first fact we should all aceept...we are all human.

Disliking someone on a personal level is one thing, but any group, from any "race", (or other "group"), that espouses hatred, whether, white, black asian, hispanic, christian, jew, muslim or anything else, should be taken to task for what they are, bigots and failures at being citizens.

There are plenty of people out there that I don't like, but it is not a dislike because of what they were born into, it rests on their personal traits, like stealing, lying, dispelling hatred etc. i would be a fool to think that everyone from a "group" would act as poorly as the very few do.
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gratuitous Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-22-08 08:55 AM
Response to Original message
7. I saw one of the pinheads interviewed
First off, this whole thing is some demented dumbasses crying for attention. From what I could see from the coverage, there were maybe a half dozen of them. I'll take USA Today's word for it that they actually mustered 30 like-minded idiots. They were outnumbered at least 8-to-1, probably more like 20-to-1. But boy oh boy, were the media more than happy to give the pinheads the attention they craved!

They talked to the chief pinhead, who prattled some nonsense, and when the interviewer asked him why he was protesting, he could only grin and sort of shrug. Reminded me of a certain president we currently have squatting in the White House, for some vague reason.
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LibDemAlways Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-22-08 11:45 AM
Response to Original message
9. Racism is more visible in Jena, LA, but it exists everywhere
in this country. I've personally met plenty of racists, and I live in So. Cal. The racism here isn't as overt, but it exists, and I could fill up a long post with specific examples.
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coalition_unwilling Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-22-08 01:49 PM
Response to Reply #9
14. I also live in So Cal and remember well the attitude among many
closet bigots that Katrina's victims somehow "deserved what happened to them." I don't even bother responding or engaging such stuff any more - it's not worth the energy. I do protest against the Minute Men every chance I get . . . opportunities manifold in So Cal.
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LibDemAlways Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-22-08 03:31 PM
Response to Reply #14
16. I used to know a woman lawyer who moved into a largely
white suburb, enrolled her kid in kindergarten, and then promptly pulled the kid out when she realized there were Hispanic children in the school, most of whom lived in a nearby apartment building. She also fought against the opening of a "Boys and Girls Club" in the area because she was sure it would bring in "bad elements." And the kicker is she votes Dem.

Was at dinner at a restaurant in Marina Del Rey with an old high school friend who is married to a Latino. She looked uncomfortable, and when I asked if something was wrong, she leaned across the table and apologized for her choice of restaurant explaining, "I didn't realize there would be so many blacks here." I almost fell out of the chair.

At a book club meeting right after Katrina one woman said she was planning to go to New Orleans as part of an animal rescue group. I said that was great, and asked if she was going to do anything to help out people as well. She laughed and said, "They could have gotten out if they wanted to, but they were too dumb." Floored me.

Just a couple of examples. Could go on for pages.

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coalition_unwilling Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-22-08 03:50 PM
Response to Reply #16
17. That's why I didn't shed too many tears over the wildfires in
Orange County this past summer. Figured some of the people getting burned out had to be from the same group who showed so little empathy and so much covert and not-so-covert racism to the victims of Katrina.

I would just say, "They (whites in Orange County burned out of their homes) were too dumb and built in areas obviously prone to wildfires." At least the folks in Orange County (or most of them) had vehicles and could flee.

I too could go on for pages. Grew up in SW Missouri so experienced a lot of this stuff first-hand. Most memorable: white mothers pulling their kids out of the town pool when black railroad workers came for a swim one very hot summer day.
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joeglow3 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-22-08 12:12 PM
Response to Original message
10. This is an interesting situation
I hate racism and find it disgusting. However, I hardly find 6 people (of any race) beating the shit out of one person a “simple schoolyard fight.”
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flashl Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-22-08 01:02 PM
Response to Original message
11. The people tell the real story in Jena
The real story of what happened in Jena on Monday didn't come from a podium or megaphone but from the lips of the hundreds who came to either celebrate slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. or oppose him all together.

Some shouted "White power!" and others "No more nooses! We want justice!" The brisk weather, in which the temperature dipped as low as 22 degrees Monday morning, according to the Bank of Jena's electronic sign, didn't keep people away.

...

Jena resident Dennis Kees walked up the street in front of the courthouse with a long, thick rope in his hand. When asked if it was a noose, he laughed and said, "It's my dog's leash," referring to his small Chihuahua-terrier mix, Brown.

...

Tioga residents David Dupre and his son David Dupre Jr., made their message clear on their belts — each had two handguns on them during the rally they were supporting — the Nationalist Movement's.

"Black people are known to be armed and violent, so I wanted to be armed for protection," the senior Dupre said as he walked back to his truck. He grabbed a rope fashioned into a noose and tucked it into his belt right by one of the guns. Dupre also had the small red flag of the Ku Klux Klan passed out by the Nationalists tucked in a pocket.

Shreveport Times
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NoGOPZone Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-22-08 01:35 PM
Response to Reply #11
12. "Black people are known to be armed and violent"
said by a guy with a Klan flag. How hypocritical can you get?
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flashl Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-22-08 01:42 PM
Response to Reply #12
13. And with guns. n/t
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