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The Tampa Tribune

Published: September 29, 2007

Obvious Inequities

I read Wayne Parlow's Sept. 24 letter to the editor regarding the 'Jena 6,' the African-American students who assaulted some white high school students who had hung nooses from a tree that a black student wanted to sit under.
Parlow stated that 'no one has said they were wrong,' referring to the black students' fighting, and 'all they say is racism is behind this,' regarding their supporters.

For those readers, including Parlow, who either haven't read all the facts or haven't grasped the point of all the uproar, it is that a black high school student was tried as an adult for attempted murder, while a white student who hit a black student in the head with a beer bottle was charged only with battery and released on probation, and white students who hung nooses in the tree were only briefly expelled.

Is the inequity so invisible that I need to point it out?

GEORGE PETRICK

Riverview

Saddened By Tensions

It saddens me to see our brothers and sisters, black and white, side by side fighting for our freedom in Ira,q and here in our own backyard we are still witnessing racial tensions. How could we let this happen to our young people? What happened to 'United we stand, divided we fall?'

AGNES MULARONI

Thonotosassa
Predictable Reaction
I can't say that I was shocked to hear how the events in Jena unfolded.

Black kid challenges the social order by sitting under a tree. White kids respond with a message from the Michael Richards school of 'we would have stretched your neck back in the good old days' (but I'm not a racist). After white kids embark on a pattern of intimidation, including threatening black students with a rifle and beating another, black students beat a white student.

Now, all of a sudden, the legal apparatus springs into action, and maybe it overreacts by charging the students with attempted murder.
Letter writers Angelo Anello (Sept. 23) and Wayne Parlow (Sept. 24) seem to be incensed that Jena not be allowed to handle things in their own retro way. Anello's analysis that this was a local story about black violence in a school is the best rationalization and revision of history I've ever seen. The highly creative 'poverty pimp racists' tag is a classic. Shouldn't we then call religious right activists 'Jesus pimps' just to be consistent? I get that the Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson act is wearing thin, but don't confuse the messenger with a valid message.

In a region of the country where black men could end up on the business end of a rope with no due process, a noose is a powerful reminder of the past. It's a fairy tale that we have evolved into a colorblind society. And getting upset and the use of selective memory and name calling when issues like this arise only keeps us from progressing. ROBERT WOODARD

Lutz

Claims Belie The Facts

Once again the Jena 6 controversy has given Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton another opportunity to declare blacks as being victims of oppression and treated unfairly under the law, ironically, this time, when six black teenagers violently attacked a white high school student. Thousands of black protesters rallied on the little Louisiana community demanding 'justice' and the release of the black teen. The scene was reminiscent of civil rights demonstrations that took place in the 1960s. The liberal press gave front-page coverage, and as to be expected, brought out fringe crazies responding on the Internet.

The claims of Jackson and Sharpton belie the facts. The Jim Crow era has long passed in America. The U.S. Bureau of Justice has reported that the majority of interracial crimes are blacks against whites.

The press, however, prints the claim that (1) half the people murdered in the United States are black and (2) blacks are disproportionately victims of violent crime. This continues the distortion that blacks are somehow victims of stereotyped white racism. In reality, in ninety percent of the cases, black victims were murdered by fellow blacks.

It's unfortunate, in America, 40 people are murdered every day. In the last five years over 75,000 citizens were victims of homicide. Where is the outrage?

GEORGE MOON

Lake Placid

Terror Of Mob Violence

First off, I am not racist, bigoted or anything like that. But if you have ever been attacked by more than one person, you will understand the panic that goes through you, from possibly dying to being hospitalized.

I myself got caught in the wrong end of the Newark riots 40 years ago. I thought I was going to die when a few of my co-workers who happened to be black stepped in and saved me. I was beaten severely.

Bottom line is when one person is attacked by a group (in this case, Jena), then this group should be arrested and charged, no matter what color they are.

FRANK PEPPACENO

Sun City Center

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