The small rural town of Jena (pronounced Jeena) Louisiana has recently been subject to a massive dose of what I charitably call "civil rights fertilizer." There seems to have been racial tensions among high school students in Jena, a town with a population of somewhere around 2800, of which something like 12% is black. It's interesting that most of the older folks don't seem to be having problems with each other--it only seems to be the youngsters. I'm curious about what they might be teaching in the government schools there.

For the last year or so there seems to have been an ongoing history of scuffles and taunting between the kids. Probably youngsters of both races have said things they shouldn't have. High schoolers are not overly noted for discernment when they get ticked off about something. The upshot of the whole situation, and the thing that brought Jena, Louisiana to everyone's attention was when a white student, who reportedly taunted one of the black students, was attacked by six black students and knocked down. Witnesses said the black students "continued to stomp and kick him on the ground." The white student was taken to the hospital and treated, had a nasty bruise over his eye, but reportedly was released the same day.

The parish district attorney, Reed Walters, charged each of the black students with one count of attempted second degree murder, which may well have been a bit heavy-handed. He has since reduced the charges. And all this involved a bunch of high school students. Though one is tempted to wonder, if the black students had a major problem with this white student, why didn't they pick one black student to confront him rather than all six of them jumping on him. That seems a bit heavy-handed too.

Worth noting is the fact that had six white students jumped a black student and done the same thing there would have been national screaming and howling about a "hate crime" being committed against a poor black. Why have I not seen any mention of it being a hate crime when six blacks do it to a white kid? Do hate crimes only go in one direction in this country? To answer that question you get three guesses and the first two don't count!

The one black student who has been tried thus far, Mychal Bell, was tried as an adult, but then the Third Circuit court ruled that the battery conviction should not have been dealt with in the adult court system and so they sent the case back to juvenile court. They originally had set Bell's bail at $90,000, but even that caused a problem when it came out at the bond hearing that bell already had four past "adjudications" as a juvenile. It seems he has two charges of battery and two charges of criminal damage to property already pending against him. So this young man already has a history of problems with the law. I wonder how many of the other five have had problems akin to his. If the media has its way we will probably never know. All we get from them is how these six poor black kids are the victims of "white racism."

Need I say it, but this whole situation was tailor-made for such prominent "ambulance chasers" as Je$$e Jackson and "Rev. A." Sharpton of Tawana Brawley fame. Both of these august men of the cloth showed up in Jena as part of a mass demonstration on September 20th. It seems they bused in thousands of civil rights wannabees from all across the country and the town of Jena was basically shut down for the whole day. Some folks, no doubt wanting to protect their property, put up Confederate flags and "no trespassing" signs on their lawns. And the "unbiased" media didn't fail to mention that. If I'd lived in Jena I probably would have done the same thing. Now they are talking about a demonstration in Washington in front of the Justice Department in October. More civil rights fertilizer!

These six black kids have drawn support from the NAACP, the Nation of Islam, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and a couple other similar outfits. With that kind of support, as well as promotion by Je$$e and Al, you can tell exactly where this whole thing is going. Now, the civil rights wannabees are howling about there being "Jena's all over the South." (There are probably even more up North, but that doesn't fit the agenda.) So the black racist witch hunt is about to begin. Many are trumpeting a "new era in the civil rights struggle" (it's called class struggle, honey, and it ain't new). And on and on ad nauseam!

A big part of what this amounts to is that the civil rights ambulance chasers have had things too quiet of late. Donations are probably down and they need another golden goose to pluck, a few new photo ops to keep their faces in front of the party faithful that may not have been kicking in enough donation cash as they would like. Now, with the Jena situation they feel they can put forth a new civil rights "dragon" to slay that may help them keep the financial coffers full of long green, because for these guys, in the final analysis, that's what it's all about.