What religion could say about Jena, Louisiana
September 20th, 2007 | by Jones of the Nile |“It demands great spiritual resilience not to hate the hater whose foot is on your neck, and an even greater miracle of perception and charity not to teach your child to hate.” – James Baldwin
Reading the news articles stemming out of Jena, Louisiana these last two months, it’s hard to believe we’re living in 2007, and not 1967. Like a scene out of Mississippi Burning, the blatant and systemic racism bursting forth from this small, 3,000 resident timber town in central Louisiana is reminding us once again that we’ve failed to deal with racism in any sustainable and meaningful way in this country.
The details have been played out in many an AP, NYT, Reuters and CNN story since July, including this Newsweek piece that seemed to break the story nationwide. The basic details: a black teenager sat under a tree on a high school campus that had informally been branded a “whites only” tree. The next day, three nooses appeared on the tree. Shortly thereafter, a scuffle at a party between a group of blacks and whites resulted in a white student being charged with battery. A few days later, the white student charged with battery was beaten up and sent to the hospital, where after two hours of treatment he was released; a group of six black students were accused of the assault.
Only they weren’t charged with battery. They were charged with attempted second-degre e murder, a charge that could have resulted in three decades worth of prison time. Through last week, that’s what most of the accused were looking at, until charges against three of the defendants were reduced to aggravated second-degre e battery and conspiracy. One of the other defendants had his charges thrown out, though the District Attorney is appealing that to the Louisiana Supreme Court.
One white student, charged with battery. Six black students, nearly handed a second-degre e murder charge for a similar crime.
What’s the appropriate response when the racism so prevalent in our culture – especially that within our criminal justice system – rears its head? A rally, organized by Rev. Jesse Jackson, Rev. Al Sharpton, the NAACP, and many more is scheduled for September 20 (around 60,000 people are expected to descend on the town). David Bowie gave $10,000 earlier this week to the “Jena 6” defense fund (“Jena 6” is the term given the six black defendants in this case). Barack Obama, John Edwards, and Hillary Clinton have all weighed in with comments, calling it everything from a “teachable moment” (Hillary) to “so wrong that the right words are hard to find” (Edwards).
Are the right words really that hard to find though? Perhaps, because if you look at the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Christian Coalition, the Family Research Council, or the Catholic League, you won’t find even the faintest mention of Jena, Louisiana, let alone much (if anything) about racism. (You will find the Catholic League’s statement on Kathy Griffin’s Emmy comment about how Jesus had nothing to do with her award. Nice to know the Catholic League has its priorities “right.” Literally.) Their collective silence reminds me of the Martin Luther King Jr. quote: “We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people.”
The truth is that religion could have much to say when it comes to Jena 6, and indeed, the support that numerous individual churches have shown has been astounding (from interfaith services, to Baptist churches in Detroit organizing buses to travel down to Louisiana, to…my personal favorite…t he “radical Catholic mom” who circulated a Jena 6 petition on her blog). But there may be good reason why most mainstream religious organization s (and of course, most of us) have stayed quiet on Jena 6 and the issue of racism as a whole. And on that note, this blog entry will both begin and end with James Baldwin.
“I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.” – James Baldwin
Tags: BIO, catholic, christian, Faith, jena louisiana, racism, reading, religion
