The other day Jude Toche over at First Draft put it very aptly when he described Jena as being in "Cracker Louisiana, not Cajun Louisiana," and maybe the picture above gives you a little more of an idea of just where the town is located--not quite north or east enough to be considered part of the ARK-LA-MISS (the eastern counterpoint to the ARK-LA-TEX), but certainly above the dividing line of Alexandria.
To be truthful, I'm FAR more familiar with, oh, I don't know, New York City, Chicago, or Madison than with this part of my own state, but that's how it goes down here. About all I even knew about Jena until recently was that it was the location of the juvenile hall from hell--a place so bad, even by the pretty lax standards down here, that it was eventually shut down (a friend of mine who's a lawyer was part of the legal team that exposed the horrors).
Anyway--that might be one reason why I haven't posted, um, anything about the Jena 6, although...there really is no excuse...my bad. Well, it might be too little too late, but today the local paper ran a couple of stories about the upcoming march that are worth reading. This one is a fairly decent synopsis and this has some reaction to the event from Jena residents.
What's sad is that it had to come to this in the first place. Indeed, the entire series of events leading up to Thursday's march is a pretty clear indication that racism isn't something that took time to resolve, but a very serious, ongoing problem that we've not even come to grips with.
And it's not just a problem in parts of Louisiana--at the very least it's nationwide, and a more than good case could be made that it crosses borders, too.
No comments:
Post a Comment