Friday, September 28, 2007

We’re in Savannah. Again.

And having dinner at Bistro Savannah again. Blogging will be light.

The results of anger and racial tension gone awry

I agree with Dawn, as quoted the other night on News & Notes:

I remember in my high school that there were occasionally fights in which one person was jumped by many people..and I lived in a pretty calm town. The issues were settled with suspension or expulsion from school. That is appropriate punishment for 16 year old kids. In an extreme case of battery, it may be appropriate to charge the kids with battery...in JUVENILE court.

Where were the school officials when all of this racial tension was evolving? How did they attempt to solve the problem before it turned into violence?

I don’t believe that these children should have been charged as adults. The crime they allegedly committed is the result of anger and racial tension gone awry and unchecked by authority figures. The reason we have a juvenile court system is because many Americans believe that kids have time to reform and deserve a second chance. Shouldn’t seven boys involved in a horrible school fight be given a chance to reform also?

I understand that certain forms of racist speech are protected under the 1st amendment (which is why we are even allowed to have this discussion forum). BUT, keep in mind that any school that receives federal funds is REQUIRED to protect students from racial harassment and discrimination. Nooses hanging from a tree....racial harassment. A “white only” tree....racial discrimination.

It’s pretty clear that when school officials went to the DA for help, what they got instead was inflammatory rhetoric that made matters worse:

District Attorney Reed Walters warned the students he could be their friend or their worst enemy. He lifted his fountain pen and said, “With one stroke of my pen, I can make your life disappear.”

Unfortunately, Walters is still at it.

Food Fight

Read all about it here and here. Wonderful collection of other Last Suppers here.

Jena 6: Bell out on bail

WaPo:

Mychal Bell’s release on $45,000 bail came hours after a prosecutor confirmed he would no longer seek an adult trial for the 17-year-old. Bell, one of the teenagers known as the Jena Six, still faces trial as a juvenile in the December beating in this small central Louisiana town.

But the problem continues:

An estimated 20,000 to 25,000 protesters marched in Jena last week in a scene that evoked the early years of the civil rights movement.

[District Attorney Reed] Walters said the demonstration had no influence on his decision not to press the adult charges, and ended his news conference by saying that only God kept the protest peaceful.

“The only way _ let me stress that _ the only way that I believe that me or this community has been able to endure the trauma that has been thrust upon us is through the prayers of the Christian people who have sent them up in this community,” Walters said.

“I firmly believe and am confident of the fact that had it not been for the direct intervention of the Lord Jesus Christ last Thursday, a disaster would have happened. You can quote me on that.”

The Rev. Donald Sibley, a black Jena pastor, called it a “shame” that Walters credited divine intervention for the protesters acting responsibly.

If you don’t see the problem with the DA’s inflammatory statement _ let me stress that _ then you are part of the problem too.

Why Jim Marshall Ain’t So Vulnerable

LATER: Flakattack at Tondee’s Tavern voices the more traditional liberal reaction. My take remains that one man’s “political expediency” is another’s “electability.”

Jim Wooten:

U.S. Rep. Jim Marshall (D-Macon) appears to have learned the Max Cleland lesson: Go to Washington, vote as a central-casting national Democrat and Georgians will bring you home. Marshall was the only Georgia Democrat to vote against the big-dollar expansion of the campaign-fodder health insurance entitlement. He’s in a competitive district.

While I disagree with Wooten on everything the merits of the program, I agree that’s what Marshall’s about.

So does Peach Pundit, “It may piss off the base of the party, but it neutralizes a lot of Republican opposition against him.”

SEE ALSO Jim Marshall (D-GA): still not liberal, “I’m [a liberal] steamed by the stupid liberal targeting of Marshall.”