The Real Heroes in Jena (UPDATED)
Via Instapundit comes an article with the best observation yet on the Jena situation. Although many seem intent on making martyrs out of violent thugs, the author suggests that there are better heirs to the legacy of Selma:
[A]ll along, Jena has had a better symbol for civil rights on offer. The anonymous black students who defied the informal segregation at the high school and sat under the perversely misnamed “white tree” are the movement’s true legatees. They have received so little attention that I don’t even know their names or how many such brave and defiant young people there were.
Why don’t we let the system deal with the violent criminals, and do some digging to learn who these real heroes are?
UPDATE: Or, conversely, to learn that the whole story is made up? Several commenters are saying that there was, in fact, no “white tree.” One points to this AP article in which some locals deny that the tree was a “white tree”:
There is, however, a more nuanced rendition of events — one that can be found in court testimony, in interviews with teachers, officials and students at Jena High, and in public statements from a U.S. attorney who reviewed the case for possible federal intervention.
Consider:
_The so-called “white tree” at Jena High, often reported to be the domain of only white students, was nothing of the sort, according to teachers and school administrators; students of all races, they say, congregated under it at one time or another.
Hmmm. Well, if I were a school administrator, I might say that even if it weren’t true.
The article also confirms something else I’d heard:
There was no connection between the September noose incident and December attack, according to Donald Washington, an attorney for the U.S. Justice Department in western Louisiana, who investigated claims that these events might be race-related hate crimes.
Look: what are you going to go with? The facts? Or the narrative?
Ok, then.
