What of the Jena Six? Have Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson gone overboard on the race thing on this one? Or have they pegged it right? Violence is a last resort, and those kids, well, they shouldn't have beaten them up. MLK would have never advocated violence. Mychal Bell, the defendant who is most prominent in the case, has a criminal record. He should go to jail, and so should the other kids, if convicted, of attacking that kid. You always have a choice. Free the Jena Six? Sorry, they beat up a kid, maybe under heavy duress, but they still beat up a kid. That's jail time. That being said, 2nd degree murder? 22 years in prison? And even when reduced to assault and battery, I'm not that great on law, but assault and battery ... is that worth 15 years in prison? For a juvenile crime at that? And all the other events in that town ... is it not a LITTLE suspect that the kid who brought out a shot gun (WITH A LASER SIGHT) was not even brought in to court? And then what struck me was that the kid was tried as an adult, when he should have been tried as a juvenile? Is the law that so complicated that trying him as an adult was clearly the way to go? I thought trying juveniles as adults was something only reserved for the most heinous of crimes? (I grant I'm not a lawyer, so maybe I'm missing something here.) Also, something doesn't strike me as right about that district attorney down there. Something strikes me about this DA as just seeking to wield his power around. He may not be racially motivated (of which i'm not sure), but with the history of racial violence, he should have been a lot more sensitive about it. Pointing a pen at kids and saying that he can end their lives with a stroke of his pen? Not the smartest thing to say in a racially tense situation, and the possibility that the comment was directed towards black students? And the South has NOT exactly been known for racial equality. There's certainly racism in the "North", but it was OUTRIGHT down there, and in some ways still is. But how do we get past this? Do we hold onto history? How does history shape the way we live moving forward? How does the history of racial injustice give us an ethic for living now? Struggling with what we are to do in 2007 ... | 
