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Excerpt from the World Socialist Web Site
http://www.wsws.org

The trial of the Jena Six demonstrates that in the United States, the stoking up of racial animosity and the violation of the civil rights of blacks is hardly a thing of the past. The democratic gains made by the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s remain fragile, and by no means irreversible. Just three months ago, the US Supreme Court ruled that race cannot be considered in public school integration plans—an attack on the landmark 1954 decision against racial segregation, Brown v. Board of Education.

Notwithstanding the end of Jim Crow segregation, sections of the American ruling elite, most particularly those connected to the Republican Party, have promoted and cultivated right-wing forces steeped in racism. The promotion of racial antagonisms has a long history in the United States, and has been used to divide workers of different races, pitting them against each other.

After its massive defeat in the presidential elections of 1964, the Republican Party moved consciously to base itself on racist elements in the Southern states—a perspective embodied in Nixon’s “Southern Strategy.” This strategy has remained largely unchanged, if generally unspoken. As recently as 2002, then-Republican Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott expressed regret that Strom Thurmond did not win the presidency in 1948, when he was running on a segregationist platform.

The Bush administration owes its victories in the 2000 and 2004 elections in no small part to discrimination against black voters in states such as Ohio and Florida. Behind the recent US attorney firing scandal lay an attempt to put in place attorneys who would facilitate such machinations and sanction the gutting of civil rights enforcement.

After remaining silent for months on the frame-up of the Jena Six, Bush was obliged to address the issue when he gave a Washington press conference on Thursday, even as the demonstrators were marching in Louisiana. Asked about his reaction to the case, Bush merely said that the “events in Louisiana… have saddened me.” Without indicating his attitude to the trial itself, Bush said, “The Justice Department and the FBI are monitoring the situation down there, and all of us in America want there to be fairness when it comes to justice.”

While the immediate circumstances behind the case of the Jena Six raise most prominently the role of race in American life, both the underlying cause of the injustice and the underlying source of the anger that has provoked mass protest are not fundamentally racial in character.

As the American ruling elite pursues an ever more reactionary and anti-democratic agenda, it will increasingly move to resort once again to racism as an ideological buttress for its rule. It is class interests that are driving the promotion of racial demagogy.

At the same time, the protest in Jena expressed oppositional sentiments building within American society that transcend the specific issues that the demonstration addressed. Mounting opposition to social inequality and war is fueling what will increasingly take the form of mass protest and social struggle.

The officially-sanctified leaders of the demonstration—Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, the NAACP, and others—were largely bypassed in the initial plans for demonstrations against the prosecutions. Their role has been to direct the growing anger into the politically safe channels of the Democratic Party. On Thursday, Jackson announced that he was teaming up with Democratic representatives Maxine Waters, Sheila Jackson Lee and William Jefferson to try to pressure the House Judiciary Committee to launch an investigation.

The issues raised in the Jena Six prosecutions cannot be resolved within the framework of the Democratic Party, which is entirely complicit in perpetuating the social conditions that underlie the renewed attempt to stoke racial divisions. The layer of black businessmen and entrepreneurs represented by figures such as Jackson is indifferent to the enormous social problems confronting workers of all races.

All charges against the Jena Six should be immediately dropped. Those who should be brought to justice are the individuals who orchestrated the racially motivated prosecution of the black students.

An end to racism and all forms of discrimination cannot be realized within the framework of a political and economic system based on ever-growing social inequality. It must be based on the development of an independent movement of the working class, uniting workers and youth of all races, religions and nationalities to fight for their common class interests in opposition to the capitalist ruling elite and its two-party system.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/sep2007/jena-s21.shtml

Take your numbers and ask why instead of saying “For whatever reason(s)”

It’s what I meant by “looking beneath the surface”? It wasn’t an empty insult.

Make up your mind, Did you want me to respect your observations for being, “plain and simple”, or did you feel I needed to look beneath the surface of the myth of institutionalized racism so wrongly apparent to all privileged white folks, and understand that blacks are inherently “uncivilized barbarians”? The latter seems very back wards to me, but I guess it’s possible that you did mean this instead of just slinging “I know you are but what am I”?

The “typical” comment is ironic….if you could explore it, maybe you’ll see yourself better. Maybe you’ll get lucky and one day have a black grandson that will force you to face your contradictions. There’s a life I sincerely hope you get.

This is a very easy one to see injustice as well as cause and effect, so my guess (correct me if I’m wrong), is that doing so here would challenge beliefs you are not willing to part with. Does it have anything to do with defending Ron Paul come hell or high water?

People who act out hatred against others because of group membership, such as the “pranks” with the nooses, just don’t seem to comprehend that their behavior is dangerous both to themselves and to society. The “good folks” of Jena have learned that now. Even if they are unable to acknowledge the wrong done, they can’t ignore the condemnation of their behavior by a large part of the nation.

I want to say “Thank You” to those who went to Jena.

6 kids beating up another guy doesn’t make the racism leave the issue and no one is defending beating people (unless it’s a good natured beatdown of an uppity black kid at the hands of young Theodore Cleaver).

Look at who walked free concerning beatdowns and pulling weapons on people all related to the nooses hung at that school

Look at who walked free for hanging the nooses

Look at who the man was that let them walk free

The Civil Rights Movement was predicated upon non-violence; not upon stomping someone in the head. Flip the situation around, and imagine six whites stomping on one African American.

When we try to defend African Americans who behave poorly, we harm the cause of improving racial relations.