Exposing Bigotry
By John McWhorter

Today, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton are down in Jena, Louisiana leading a protest.

Many will roll their eyes. I typically do at the theatrics of aforesaid Messrs. But there are times when it’s time to take out the old whistle and blow it on good old-fashioned bigotry.

At Jena High School, black students have traditionally gathered on certain bleachers, while white ones have gathered under a certain tree. At a school assembly last year, a black student jokingly asked whether he was allowed to sit under “the white tree.” He and his friends then did so. The next day there were three nooses hanging from that tree.

In the months after this, assorted black-white altercations culminated in six black teens beating up a white one who taunted them.

Five were first convicted of assault, but District Attorney Reed Walters upped the charges to second-degree attempted murder. These boys could have been in jail into their fifties. Jena’s black community rose up in indignation.

This month, the conviction of one, Mychal Bell, was overturned since he was under 18 at the time of the attack and should have been tried as a juvenile. Most of the others’ charges have been reduced to battery as well.

The Jena story, it must be said, does not show the school’s black teens in their best light. In protest against the nooses, a large group staged a sit-in under the tree, and later a larger one tried to address the school board about the incident.

The nooses, though, were a prank. Mean, but a prank. Humor and mischief are all about pushing the envelope: witness Kathy Griffin’s comments about Jesus at the Emmy Awards last week.

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