The society in which we live is ever-changing, but it seems that even as it progresses, some prejudices-as archaic as dinosaurs-survive. Hate is still prevalent, and segregation-if not de jure, then de facto-still persists. One cannot be fooled into believing that the world has rid itself of racism.
Blindness to human suffering is everywhere, but is specifically evidenced in the underwhelming American response to the typhoon that struck China this week and in the general ignorance and apathy to the ongoing struggle of the “Jena Six.” It should not take horrible acts before abuses of power and disregard for human civil rights reach the eyes and ears of the general population.
Such is the nature of the American psyche that we no longer wish to tune into the world around us unless the topic is sensational and graphic. The Jena Six news story is now sensational enough to garner the attention of not just major news networks, but the American population at large. It is unfortunate that only the stories that cast the American way of life in a rather unflattering light typically seem to catch our attention, but this particular story deserves attention.
The fact that a prosecuting attorney, Reed Walters, can misuse his power in the legal system to charge these six young men with attempted murder is absolutely undermining the idea of a safe, just and free legal system. The young men in Jena, La., were charged with attempted murder after being part of what could best be described as a tussle, wherein the supposed “victim” attended a social function later on the day he was attacked. The charges seem questionable at best.
Jena, La., has seen its share of race-related encounters. In Sept. 2006, three nooses showed up hanging from the school’s purported “white tree.” The issue here is not just that there were nooses hanging from the white tree after some black students asked an administrator’s permission to sit under it, but rather that there is a tree on the school’s campus-or anywhere in a supposedly free country-that is known as “the white tree.” The idea that there are people in this country who do not, cannot or will not release their lingering racism and hate, but would rather submit the innocent to the unjust wrath of ignorance, is frightening.
The actions of the district attorney in the Jena case are more than frightening; they are embarrassing. Here is a man who is supposed to be holding up the ideals of the American laws, but instead he is threatening the minority youth of America with statements like, “With a stroke of my pen, I can make your lives disappear.” He is not exactly reassuring the American public that he is upholding our virtuous legal system, but is instead using his position to perpetuate the ignorant attitude of a bigot.
Race-related injustice or violence is something that is foreign to many people north of the antique Mason Dixon Line, but the misdeeds of those in power supercede any territorial boundaries. The abuse of power must be abandoned, and soon-if we are to ever recover faith in the American legal system. Perhaps once we have recovered the dignity of the legal system, we can begin repairing the relations between people of every race. The race issue is not simply a black/white issue, but something that encompasses everyone living in the United States.
The embarrassing hate that flows from ignorance can be stopped only by social and individual moral education. All children have role models, and no role model is more important for a child than that child’s parents. Parents influence their children’s thought processes and conceptions of other people, and their interpersonal relationships for life. Racism must be eradicated one generation at a time, and though it was nearly 40 years ago that the fight for equal rights and equal justice lost one of its greatest champions, the fight must go on.
The fight for fair and equal treatment of all people, not just in Jena, La., or in the South, but in the entire country and indeed the world is brought to our doorstep every day. Every day we must choose to take up that fight and preach as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., did those many years ago: “Free at last, free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”
