The Jena Six.

[Fifthfiend]

Originally Posted by Arlia Janet

Yeah! Fuck people who judge a large mass of people with indiscriminate hate because of preconceived notions and by projecting the ignorance of a few onto millions. Seriously, how do you not see the irony in that statement?

He said he hated the South, not southerners, which seems like an important distinction. I mean, I figure a person can hate the South because there are crazy racists there, without necessarily believing that all Southerners are crazy racists. Or at least that's how I took the statement.

[Roy_D_Mylote]

Originally Posted by ¡El Diablo Quinto!

He said he hated the South, not southerners, which seems like an important distinction. I mean, I figure a person can hate the South because there are crazy racists there, without necessarily believing that all Southerners are crazy racists. Or at least that's how I took the statement.

Yes, exactly.

[Sesshoumaru]

First off:

Quote:
"Here in LaSalle Parish, whenever a black man is offered a plea bargain, he is innocent. That's a dead giveaway here in the South."


Racism isn't just from whites, it's sometimes from blacks.

Damn straight. FYI, prosecutors all over the friggen nation routinely offer plea bargains because its a hella lot easier than going through trial (with varying results, sure it can get jail time when a conviction is unlikely, usually due to witnesses not cooperating, but it can also allow someone who should have been put away for felonies to be out with misdeamoners, such as the Stockyard school shooter, who had numerous plea bargains on his record for violent offenses that would have been felonies). Of course, another use of plea bargains is as a bargaining chip, or as a way to put pressure on suspects, which is how it leads to abuses like this (if, indeed it was an abuse, which is not clear from the article due to missing information).

Also, the article explecitly states that the attempted murder charges were dropped and replaced with aggratvated assault (I beleive I quoted that part), so please actually read my argument in the future instead of switching straight into 'righteous rant fury' mode (although in your defense, as well as aeveryone else thats been 'righteous ranting,' it appears to me that such a knee-jerk reaction is exactly what that article was trying to evoke, hence my skepticism about its claims).

[Loyal]

Originally Posted by Sesshoumaru

Also, the article explecitly states that the attempted murder charges were dropped and replaced with aggratvated assault (I beleive I quoted that part),

Correction: The charges were lowered for one man. The others are still being charged with 2nd-degree Murder.

[Zilla]

I hope (and though the article doesn't say so, I read into it as such) that it's only a few of those white students who are being racist like this. I hope the majority of the student body has nothing to do with this. What's really shocking is the district attourney's behavior. People like that should not hold that position (Jack Thompson included).

[42PETUNIAS]

Well, it's clearly not just a few students who are helping the problem. The fact that the school staff let this go on unpunished, as well as the other students for turning a blind eye.

[Arlia Janet]

Racists are everywhere. Saying "I hate the south because there are racists there" is a very myopic view of the world.

[Zilla]

If it was about the entirity of Jena, would the story be called "Jena-side"?

[Krylo]

In so much as that IS amusing, Zilla, off the cuff jokes aren't really discussion material, unless you also have actual discussing to do.

[Fifthfiend]

Originally Posted by Arlia Janet

Racists are everywhere. Saying "I hate the south because there are racists there" is a very myopic view of the world.

Flaming is flaming however you try to dress it up. Calling people "fanatics" or "extremists" or whatever other similar epithet is no more acceptable than calling them stupid or crazy.

I'm pretty sure myopic qualifies, FYI.

I'm not going to call this a warning or whatever, honestly the only reason I'm even going there is because I was about a hair a way from responding by calling you pedantic, but then I stopped and said now see Arlia's certainly not going to appreciate that kind of response at all and things would almost certainly just snowball from there so instead let's just stop that right there.

Suffice it to say it can be very solidly argued that there is a distinct strain of racism in the American South that is manifestly more egregious in its prevalence, in the openness and vehemence and indeed violence of its expression, and the degree to which it is tolerated if not condoned by the institutions of Southern society, as compared with America's other various geographical regions. I don't exactly have systematic quantitative research ready to hand, but I can certainly offer any amount of what I consider to be prima facie evidence supporting this view. Roy's statement of dislike for the South as a distinct social and political region was due to his conviction in the veracity of the aforementioned arguable assertion, and was not intended as a slur against the entirety of the populace of American southerners, simply those who do practice racism, which in his observation they do to a degree that one's overall experience of that society would unfortunately be appreciably tainted.

I guess I should have maybe cautioned Roy at the outset, as though I don't really consider his statement to to be any kind of outright flame, I can see how the manner of his expression was probably bound to elicit a negative response from someone and so was probably at least flame-bait. I guess I personally just have a degree of difficulty in judging a person on the degree to which he personally is enraged by, well, racism. That said, Roy, I personally would appreciate it if, in the future, you would please do try to consider more how others will take your words.