Katrina's Hidden Race War

CHECK THIS OUT!!!!!!!!!

The Nation has a new investigative report out that is frightening. It states that white vigilante justice tore through New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina... but no official investigation has ever examined the crimes.  Apparently, in the weeks following Hurricane Katrina, White vigilantes hunted down Black men who entered Algiers Point and even tried to expel their Black neighbors. Yet, even with evidence, Louisiana's broken law enforcement agencies have refused to investigate these crimes!  

Seriously. In the two weeks after Hurricane Katrina made landfall, the media created a climate of fear with trumped-up stories of Black lawlessness. Meanwhile, an armed group of White vigilantes took over the Algiers Point neighborhood in New Orleans and mercilessly hunted down Black people. "It was great!" said one vigilante. "It was like pheasant season in South Dakota. If it moved, you shot it."  As one African American victim tried to escape the vigilantes, he heard them yell, "Get him! Get that nigger!"  The man managed to get away.  Two other black victims were told by their assailants that they would be allowed to live on the condition that they told other Black folks not to come to Algiers Point. 

Here is the main article.

Here is an editorial on the subject.

Here is the tragic story of the murder of Henry Glover, 31.

Here is the Democracy Now! segment on this topic.

In the following video, reporter A.C. Thompson talks with innocent victims and ruthless vigilantes about his expose on shootings of black New Orleans residents fleeing the city in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, and police misconduct after the storm:


Here is the reaction to this story by Congressman John Conyers.

This is an incredibly important, depressing and tragic story that should make anyone interested in justice angry. This needs further and formal investigation. To DEMAND JUSTICE, please go here and sign the online petition.

And, most importantly, SPREAD THE WORD.

Florida Middle School Teacher Uses N-word Against Obama in Class

Expect more of this before election day. Dumb-ass middle-school teacher and football coach, Greg Howard, asked his students what "change" stood for in relation to the Obama campaign and then proceeded to write out the acronym "come help a nigger get elected" on the chalk board. To date, he has not been fired.

That is his photo to the right. I dunno. Pass it around, too...

Welcome to the "Post-Racial" Society

Disgusting. A white guy in Florida purposefully ran over a 25 year old black woman on her bike as he yelled, "All Black People Should Die" and other racial slurs. Watch the local tv news report on the incident here.

The beauty and wisdom of the victim: "I don't have hate in my heart for him. You know, I just wish he didn't hate me."

Tim Wise, "White Whine: Reflections On the Brain-Rotting Properties of Privilege"

The most recent dust-up over whether "the race card" has been played in the presidential campaign between Barack Obama and John McCain has underscored in my mind the treacherous path ahead for Senator Obama and the Democrats on this issue. I hope to post some resources, as well as my own thoughts, on the subject over the next few weeks. To begin, I'd like to simply place before you a provocative essay by Tim Wise, a prominent white, anti-racist activst, titled "White Whine: Reflections On the Brain-Rotting Properties of Privilege." The essay was originally published by Z Magazine on April 20, 2004. If you have not already read this essay, or if you are unfamiliar with Wise's work, read on. This is bound to get your mind going on "race" and "whiteness":

To truly understand a nation, a culture, or its people, it helps to know what they take for granted. After all, sometimes the things that go unspoken are more powerful than the spoken word, if for no other reason than the tendency of unspoken assumptions to reinforce core ways of thinking, feeling and acting, without ever having to be verbalized (and thus subjected to challenge) at all.

What's more, when people take certain things for granted, anything that goes against the grain of what they perceive as "normal" will tend to stand out like a sore thumb, and invite a hostility that seems reasonable, at least to those dispensing it, precisely because their unspoken assumptions have gone uninterrogated for so long.

Thus, every February I encounter people who are apoplectic at the thought of Black History Month, and who insist with no sense of irony or misgiving that there should be no such thing, since, after all, there is no White History Month: a position to which they can only adhere because they have taken for granted that "American history" as told to them previously was comprehensive and accurate, as opposed to being largely the particular history of the dominant group. In other words, the normalcy of the white narrative, which has rendered every month since they popped out of their momma's wombs White History Month, escapes them, and makes the efforts of multiculturalists seem to be the unique break with an otherwise neutral color-blindness.

Sorta' like those who e-mail me on a semi-regular basis to insist, as if they have just stumbled upon something of unparalleled profundity, that there should be an Ivory Magazine to balance out Ebony, or that we need a White Entertainment Television network to balance out BET, or a NAAWP to balance out the NAACP. Again, these dear souls ignore what is obvious to virtually all persons of color but which remains unseen by those whose reality gets to be viewed as the norm: namely, that there are already two Ivory Magazines: Vogue and Cosmopolitan; that there are several WETs, which just so happen to go by the names of CBS, NBC and ABC; and that the Fortune 500, U.S. Congress and Fraternal Orders of Police are all doing a pretty good job holding it down for us white folks on the organizational front. Just because the norm is not racially-named, doesn't mean it isn't racialized.

Likewise, the ongoing backlash against affirmative action, by those who seem to believe that opportunity would truly be equal in the absence of these presumably unjust efforts to ensure access to jobs and higher education for persons of color. We are to believe that things were just fine before affirmative action, and that were such efforts abolished now, we could return to this utopic state of affairs: to hell with the persistent evidence that people of color continue to face discrimination in employment, housing, education and all other institutional settings in the U.S.

So if the University of Michigan gives applicants of color twenty points on a 150-point admission scale, so as to promote racial diversity and balance out the disadvantages to which such students are often subjected in their K-12 schooling experience, that is seen as unfair racial preference. But when the same school gives out 16 points to kids from the lily-white Upper Peninsula, or four points for children of overwhelmingly white alumni, or ten points for students who went to the state's "top" schools (who will be mostly white to be sure), or 8 points for those who took a full slate of Advanced Placement classes in high schools (which classes are far less available in schools serving students of color), this is seen as perfectly fair, and not at all racially preferential.

What's more, the whites who received all those bonus points due to their racial and class position will not be thought of by anyone as having received unearned advantages, in spite of the almost entirely ascriptive nature of the categories into which they fell that qualified them for such bonuses. No matter their "qualifications," it will be taken for granted that any white student at a college or University belongs there.

This is why Jennifer Gratz, the lead plaintiff in the successful "reverse discrimination" suit against Michigan's undergraduate affirmative action policy, found it a supreme injustice that a few dozen black, Latino and American Indian students were admitted ahead of her, despite having lower SATs and grades; but she thought nothing of the fact that more than 1400 other white students also were admitted ahead of her and her co-plaintiffs, despite having lower scores and grades. "Lesser qualified" whites are acceptable, while "lesser qualified" people of color must be eliminated from their unearned perches of opportunity. This is the kind of racist logic that people like Gratz, who now heads up the state's anti-affirmative action initiative with the financial backing of Ward Connerly, find acceptable.

This kind of logic also explains the effort of whites at Roger Williams University to start a "white scholarship fund," on the pretense that scholarships for students of color are unfair and place whites at a disadvantage. This, despite the unmentioned fact that about 93 percent of all college scholarship money goes to whites; despite the fact that students of color at elite and expensive colleges come from families with about half the average income of whites; despite the fact that there are scholarships for pretty much every kind of student under the sun, including children of Tupperware dealers, kids whose parents raise horses, kids who are left-handed, kids whose families descend from the founding fathers: you name it, and there's money available for it.

While there are plenty of whites unable to afford college, the fault for this unhappy reality lies not with minority scholarships, but rather with the decisions of almost exclusively white University elites who have raised the price of higher education into the stratosphere, to the detriment of most everyone. But to place blame where it really belongs, on rich white people, would be illogical. After all, we take it for granted that one day we too might be wealthy, and we wouldn't want others to question our decisions and prerogatives come that day either.

Better to blame the dark-skinned for our hardship, since we can take it for granted that they're powerless to do a damned thing about it.

Whites, as it turns out, take most everything for granted in this country; which makes perfect sense, because dominant groups usually have that privilege. We take for granted that we won't be racially profiled even when members of our group engage in criminality at a disproportionate rate, whether the crime is corporate fraud, serial killing, child molestation, abortion clinic bombings or drunk driving. And indeed we won't be.

We take it for granted that our terrorism won't result in whites as a group being viewed with generalized suspicion. So Tim McVeigh represents only Tim McVeigh, while Mohammed Atta gets to serve as a proxy for every other person who either has his name or follows a prophet of that name.

We take it for granted that our dishonesty will be viewed in purely individualistic terms, while the dishonesty of others will result in aspersions being cast upon the entire group from which they come. Thus, Jayson Blair's deceptions at the New York Times provoke howls of indignation at any effort to provide opportunity to journalists of color -- because after all, diversity and quality are proven by this one man's exploits to be incompatible -- but Jack Kelley's equally egregious fabrications and fraud at USA Today fails to prompt calls for an end to hiring white guys as reporters, or for scrutinizing them more carefully, or for closing down whatever avenues of opportunity have helped keep the profession so white for so long.

We take it for granted that we will never be viewed as one of those dreaded "special interest" groups, precisely because whatever serves our interests is presumed universal. So, for example, while politicians who pursue the support of black, Latino, gay or other "minority" voters are said to be pandering to special interests, those who bend over backwards to secure the backing of NASCAR dads and soccer moms, whose racial composition is as self-evident as it is unmentioned, are said to be politically savvy and merely trying to connect with "normal folks."

We take it for granted that "classical music" is a perfectly legitimate term for what really amounts to one particular classical form (mostly European orchestral and piano concerto music), ignoring that there are, indeed, classical forms of all musical styles, as well as their more contemporary versions.

We take it for granted that the only controversy regarding Jesus is whether or not he was killed by Jews or Romans; or whether the depiction of his execution by Mel Gibson is too violent for children, all the while ignoring a much larger issue, which is why does Gibson (and for that matter every other white filmmaker or artist in the history of the faith) feel the need to make Jesus white: something he surely could not have been and was not, with all due apology to Michelangelo, Constantine, Pat Robertson, and the producers of "Jesus Christ Superstar."

That the only physical descriptions of Jesus in the Bible indicate that he had feet the color of burnt brass, skin the color of jasper stones, and hair like wool, poses a slight problem for Gibson and other followers of the white Jesus hanging in their churches, adorning their crucifixes (if Catholic), and gracing the Christmas cards they send each December.

It is the same problem posed by the anthropological evidence concerning the physical appearance of first century Jews from the so-called Middle East. Namely, Jesus did not look like a long-haired version of my Ashkenazi Jewish, Eastern European great-grandfather in his prime. But to even bring this up is to send most white Christians (and sadly, even many of color) into fits, replete with assurances that "it doesn't matter what Jesus looked like, it only matters what he did."

Which is all fine and good, until you realize that indeed it must matter to them what Jesus looked like; otherwise, they wouldn't be so averse to presenting him as the man of color he most assuredly was: a man dark enough to guarantee that were he to come back tomorrow, and find himself on the wrong side of New York City at the wrong time of night, reaching for his keys or his wallet in the presence of the Street Crimes Unit, he'd be dispatched far more expeditiously than was done at Golgotha 2000 years ago.

But never fear, we needn't grapple with that because we can merely take it for granted that Jesus had to look like us, as did Adam and Eve, and as does God himself. And indeed, most whites apparently believe this to be true, as suggested by the images found in most every picture Bible for kids made by a white person, all of which present these figures in such a way. A good example is the classic and widely distributed Robert Maxwell Bible Series for children, popularly known as the "blue books" that are found in virtually every pediatrician and OBGYN's office in the U.S. In Volume I, readers learn (at least visually speaking) that the Garden of Eden was in Oslo: a little-known fact that will stun Biblical scholars to be sure.

It would all be quite funny were it not so incontestably insane, so pathological in terms of the scope of our nuttiness. What else, after all, can explain the fact that when a New Jersey theatre company put on a passion play a few years ago with a black actor in the lead role, they received hundreds of hateful phone calls and even death threats for daring to portray Jesus as anyone darker than, say, Shaun Cassidy?

What else but a tenuous (at best) grip on reality can explain the quickness with which white Americans ran around after 9/11 saying things like, "Now we know what it means to be attacked for who we are?" Now we know? Hell, some folks always knew what that was like, though their pain and suffering never counted for much in the eyes of the majority.

What else but delusion on a scale necessitating medication could lead one to say -- as I saw two thirty-something whites do in the wake of the OJ Simpson "not guilty" verdict -- that they now realized everything they had been told about the American justice system being fair was a lie? Now they realized it! See the theme here?

That's what privilege is, for all those who constantly ask me what I mean when I speak of white privilege. It's the ability to presume that your reality is the reality; that your experiences, if white, are universal, and not particular to your racial identity. It's the ability to assume that you belong and that others will presume that too; the ability to define reality for others, and expect that definition to stick (because you have the power to ensure that it becomes the dominant narrative). And it's the ability to ignore all evidence to the contrary, claim that you yourself are the victim, and get everyone from the President to the Supreme Court to the average white guy on the street to believe it.

It is Times New Roman font, one inch margins, left hand justified. In other words, it is the default position on the computer of American life. And it has rendered vast numbers of its recipients utterly incapable of critical thought.

Only by rebelling against it, and insisting on our own freedom from the mental straightjacket into which we have been placed as whites by this system, can we hope to regain our full humanity, and be of any use as allies to people of color in their struggle against racism

If you thought that essay was interesting, here is a clip of Wise speaking about "whiteness":


And here is a little bit longer lecture by Wise on "white privilege":


Ok, after checking out some of those resources, what do you think? What do you make of whiteness? What do you think of Wise's arguments?

Water Kept from Central Ohio Black Community for Decades, Jury Finds

According to AP:

Residents of a mostly black neighborhood in rural Ohio were awarded nearly $11 million Thursday by a federal jury that found local authorities denied them public water service for decades out of racial discrimination.

Each of the 67 plaintiffs was awarded $15,000 to $300,000, depending on how long they had lived in the Coal Run neighborhood, about 5 miles east of Zanesville in Muskingum County in east-central Ohio.

The money covers both monetary losses and the residents' pain and suffering between 1956, when water lines were first laid in the area, and 2003, when Coal Run got public water.

The lawsuit was filed in 2003 after the Ohio Civil Rights Commission concluded the residents were victims of discrimination. The city, county and East Muskingum Water Authority all denied it and noted that many residents in the lightly populated county don't have public water.

Coal Run residents either paid to have wells dug, hauled water for cisterns or collected rain water so they could drink, cook and bathe.

Here is the link to the full story at CNN.com

More on the Communist Plot (aka Obama campaign)

Lunacy reigns supreme across the political landscape. The National Review has come out into the open with their racism. Check this beauty out:

Lisa Schiffren, "Obama's Political Roots"

Dag, it is hard to know where to start given the amount of total BS in this piece. Jews are a separate "race," apparently to Shiffren. She has no idea how Obama's parents met, but then goes on to wildly speculate about it. She relies primarily on anecdotal evidence from her youth in NYC, but doesn't understand that Hawaii is a little different political milieux. I'm sure that was a representative sample, too. And most ridiculously, perhaps, she claims that inter-racial marriage wasn't an issue in the U.S. until the late-60s. And I could go on and on and on...

Her key point is to suggest that Obama is the spawn of a Communist plot to make biracial children. Now, 40-some years later, it is all finally coming to sinister fruition. (cue creepy, maniacal laughing) Of course, this dot connects to the other red-baiting: his commie mentor and father figure; his visit to former SDS radicals in the 1990s; etc...

Those other right-wingers had it wrong apparently. Obama isn't a stealth Muslim candidate... He is a stealth Commie!

Sheesh! What the heck has happened to standards in journalism. This is pathetic. Don't they vet this crap before publishing it? Don't answer that...

Strange Fruit?

Take a moment. Click the above map to enlarge. Spend some time looking at this "op-chart" from the NYTimes which depicts recent noose incidents around the U.S...

...seriously...

What the *%#@^!&?

Jena Rally Sparks White Supremacist Rage, Lynching Threat

WARNING: THIS POST HAS DISTURBING INFORMATION IN IT, INCLUDING RACIST LANGUAGE. PLEASE PROCEED WITH CAUTION.

This is sad and disturbing, but probably not surprising. For all those out there who believe America is "beyond race," read this and weep... literally. The racists are getting riled up over the amazing, positive, non-violent protest in Jena yesterday:
Hatewatch article about racist response to Jena 6 protest on Thursday

Here is the white supremacist website that suggests the Jena 6 should be lynched:
Racists suggest Jena 6 should be lynched

Here is the follow-up piece that includes the addresses of the Jena 6 and their families:
Racists publish Jena 6 addresses

In a separate incident:
"Two Arrested in Noose Incident Near Jena, LA"

And, to add insult to injury:
"Court Rules 'Jena 6' Defendant to Stay Behind Bars"

But, here is a more nuanced story about the situation in Jena:
"Black and White Becomes Gray in Louisiana Town"

Underwriting Whiteness: The Legacy of "Red-Lining"

Ever wonder why most American suburbs are more white and affluent while central cities are more black, brown and poor? Part of the reason is found in this 1936 Home Owners Loan Corporation map of Philadelphia. (click on the map to see a larger, more readable image)

During the New Deal era, the federal government instituted a revolutionary change that put homeownership within reach for millions of Americans for the first time. The feds decided to back up, or insure, loans made for the purchase of a home. This new social welfare policy meant that instead of putting down, say 50% or more of the cost of the home as a down-payment and paying the loan back over a short term at a high rate of interest, individuals could now put only 10-20% down and repay the loan over a long term, often 30 years, at a much lower rate of interest. This federal subsidy of homeownership was critical to the growth of a white middle class in the United States following WWII. This remains the basic outline of the lending system today...

In 1935, the Home Owners Loan Corporation began making maps of more than 200 U.S. cities that indicated the “level of security” for real estate investments in each area surveyed (see map). The darker dotted line encircles the major housing inventory in the city. The grey area underneath the two large “A”s is the main industrial zone for the city. Federal assessors ranked areas of the city based on a four-color scale. The neighborhoods that received the highest, or best rating (and were thus most likely to receive federally subsidized loans), were colored blue (called “desirable” or “best”). These areas were racially homogenous (meaning “white”), usually more affluent, and often newer developments on the edges of the city. Neighborhoods that were in transition, particularly racial transition (so were mixed), were colored yellow (called “declining”), which made it more difficult to get a loan there. Poorer and older urban neighborhoods that were less affluent and were predominately black or brown were colored red (“hazardous”) and received very few loans. This process came to be known as “red-lining.”

These maps, along with Federal Housing Authority underwriting manuals, which similarly categorized neighborhoods along lines of race and class, and real estate practices, like “block-busting,” promoted racial and economic segregation. The maps became the basis for lending decisions, not just by the federal government, but also by private financial institutions, which used the HOLC maps and FHA underwriting manuals as their own guides. In short, “red-lining” funneled billions of tax dollars toward newer, affluent, white suburban neighborhoods and away from poorer, or more integrated, urban neighborhoods. It shifted public wealth toward one group in one area over another in other areas and, in the process, reified racial inequality. In fact, between 1934 and 1962, the federal government backed $120 billion of home loans… more than 98% went to white homebuyers! Talk about massive redistribution of wealth!

This policy made possible the segregated, all-white suburbs that sprang up all across the country after WWII. Further government subsidies to municipal services in these areas only increased their values even more, which in turn fueled commercial investment there. So, not only were affluent white suburbanites able to access federally subsidized loans to buy homes, the value of that property steadily rose over time as a result of these other public supports. And, as public policy subsidized "white flight," business and other economic development followed to the fringes from downtowns.

Conversely, African Americans and Latinos remained confined to older and poorer urban neighborhoods where property values continued to decline as a direct result of these public policy decisions. Urban renewal plans and highways construction plans during the 1950s and 1960s exacerbated these problems by destroying housing stock in central cities and displacing poor residents. As these areas became associated with racialized poverty, welfare policies increasingly dumped poorer residents in them, adding to the woes already there. Denied home loans, inner-city residents were unable to purchase new homes, upkeep existing houses (which were often older stock, and, as a result, in need of repair), and thus were not able to accumulate wealth through home equity as whites were doing. And, in reality, this situation meant that most brown and black people didn't own homes at all, but rented property from white slum landlords who lived outside the community.

The result of all of this has been that American society has systematically subsidized the wealth creation of white families and undermined the wealth creation of families of color. Even today, when the more egregious dynamics of this system are outlawed, the results of past discrimination persist and grow as wealth (or lack of it) accumulates from one generation to the next. As sociologist Dalton Conley points out in the excellent 3-part documentary, “Race: The Power of an Illusion,” a family's net worth is not simply the finish line. It's also the starting point for the next generation. Those with wealth pass their assets on to their children - financing a college education, lending a helping hand during hard times, or assisting with the down payment for a new home. It also provides financial security in retirement. Not surprisingly, the racial wealth gap - and the head start enjoyed by white families - appears to have grown since the gains of the Civil Rights Movement.

Because it is hidden in institutions and public policies, these processes are largely invisible to the average white person, who does not realize she/he is participating in such a racist and unequal system. After all, they simply walk into a bank and apply for a loan. Consequently, because they don't see the racial advantage they are receiving, they don't view their position in society as the result of discriminatory social welfare policies, but rather the result of hard work and merit. In turn, they often look at poor urban neighborhoods and associate the conditions they see with the character of the people living there rather than with a rigged system. Black people (or brown people) themselves become associated with poverty and its symptoms. Black people (and brown people) become, in many white minds, synonymous with poverty, urban blight, run-down neighborhoods, delapidated housing, failed public schools, crime, violence, drug use, etc.

This is one reason it is very important to shine light on the system as it actually works, not as people believe it works, or wish it worked. By rendering the invisible visible, perhaps we are better able to think constructively about truly egalitarian and just solutions to the ongoing inequalities in our society.

The Civil Rights Act of 1968 and the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 were aimed at the most egregious aspects of this system. "Red-lining" is technically illegal now in the United States. But, lest we think this is all ancient history, a recent study by ACORN (2005) found, "when buying or refinancing a home, borrowers of color, and African-Americans in particular, receive mortgages with much less favorable terms than whites receive. African-Americans have been segregated into the subprime market where they receive loans with higher interest rates, larger fees, and onerous features such as prepayment penalties." The cycle continues...

For the full study, see:
ACORN report on predatory lending practices at Wells Fargo

So, again, why are those suburbs mainly white and affluent and those urban neighborhoods disproportionately poor and black or brown?

More resources can be found here:
Resources on "red-lining" today
Insurance Red-Lining: Still Fact, Not Fiction"
Documentary website: "Race: The Power of an Illusion"

Take action in your community:
ACORN campaign to stop predatory lending practices
Consumer Action Guide: "Stop Housing Discrimination in Your Community"

"Free the Jena Six," pt. III: Hundreds March in Jena

Democracy Now! has the latest on the Jena case, including coverage of the march and demonstration there yesterday:

Democracy Now! story

"Free the Jena 6", pt. 2: NPR report

NPR has a nice story on the Jena, Louisiana, case today:

NPR: Beating Charges Split La. Town Along Racial Lines

For more info, scroll through the archives of this blog (on the left side) and click on my previous post about this disturbing situation.

It's a "White Thing"

One of the most difficult dynamics of race in America is the invisibility of whiteness to most white people. Because whiteness is normative to white people - the water that we swim in as fish in this society - most whites fail to "see" their own racial identity or the ways they gain advantage and privilege from their racial designation. As a result, for most white people, if they think about race at all, they see it as a black thing, or a brown thing, or a yellow thing, or a red thing... but definitely not as a white thing. Race is removed from white people. It is "those people's" problem. Whites are thereby not invested in the problem of race directly and they thus don't often feel compelled to act to rectify this ongoing problem; There is no immediacy to racial issues for most whites because of this disconnect. But, we might remember that Martin Luther King and James Baldwin both eloquently made the point that the problem of race in America is, in fact, not a problem with black people, it is a problem with white people. The problem of race is the problem of white supremacy. Whiteness is at the root of this issue. Always has been. As a result, to overcome this historic tragedy, white people need to wake up to their racial advantage. The first stage in this process is rendering visible that which is too often invisible - at least to whites - in American society.

I'd like to blog more on this issue down the line, but for now I'll leave it at what I've just written. The reason I bring this up now is that the Jena 6 case is deeply rooted in the issue of whiteness and white supremacy. As my mind has been turning on this case, I was reminded of two recent articles on the subject that I think make sense to post near the Jena 6 stuff.

Check out articles here:

"Whites Just Don't Understand the Black Experience," by Margaret Kamara in Diverse: Issues in Higher Education

"The Reality of Race: Is the Problem That White People Don't Know or Don't Care?," by Robert Jensen for www.Alternet.org

Free the "Jena 6": White Supremacy in Jena, Louisiana

"All white jury sitting before white judge agrees with white prosecutor and all white witnesses and convicts black youth in racially charged high school criminal case."

This tragic case speaks for itself:

"In a small, still mostly segregated, section of rural Louisiana, an all white jury heard a series of white witnesses called by a white prosecutor testify in a courtroom overseen by a white judge in a trial of a fight at the local high school where a white student who had been making racial taunts was hit by black students. The fight was the culmination of a series of racial incidents starting when whites responded to black students sitting under the "white tree" at their school by hanging three nooses from the tree. The white jury and white prosecutor and all white supporters of the white victim were all on one side of the courtroom. The black defendant, 17-year-old Mychal Bell, and his supporters were on the other. The jury quickly convicted Mychal Bell of two felonies - aggravated battery and conspiracy to commit aggravated battery. Bell, who was a 16-year-old sophomore football star at the time he was arrested, faces up to 22 years in prison. Five other black youths await similar trials on second-degree attempted murder and conspiracy charges."

And it gets worse... Check out the full story at Truth Out:
"Injustice in Jena as Nooses Hang From the 'White Tree'"

Here is the Chicago Tribune story referenced in the previous story:
Racial Demons Rear Heads

Here are two reports on the case by Democracy Now!
Democracy Now!, pt. 1
Democracy Now!, pt. 2

Here is an article on the case from Counterpunch:
Counterpunch article

Here is a website dedicated to supporting the "Jena 6":
Friends of Justice

To sign an online petition to support the "Jena 6" go here:
Online Petition