The Jena Six -- and Other Scams

The Jena Six -- and Other Scams
By Patrick J. Buchanan

While some $500,000 has been raised for the Jena Six defense, its whereabouts is unknown. Bailey did pose on the Internet grinning, however, with $100 bills in his mouth. Bell's mom is said to be driving a new Jaguar, and Bailey's mom a new Beamer. Two other Jena Sixers, Carwin Jones and Bryant Purvis, appeared in rapper attire on Black Entertainment Television as presenters of a Hip-Hop Award.

"(S)ome Americans do not understand why the sight of a noose causes such a visceral reaction," declared President Bush to the White House gathering for Black History Month.

As The Washington Post rushed to remind us, President Bush was "responding to news coverage of such episodes as the 'Jena Six.'"But if history is about truth, not myth, that news coverage deserves another look, before the Jena Six enter the history books alongside Emmett Till and "the Scottsboro Boys."

By now, most folks know the media story. White students at Jena High in Louisiana hung nooses on a tree to warn black students not to sit under it. After a fistfight over this racist outrage, black kids in the fight were indicted for attempted murder, while the white racists who hung the nooses walked away with a verbal spanking.

Last September, 20,000 traveled to Jena to march against this prosecutorial outrage. Fortunately, however, there are still a few real journalists around. Among them are Craig Franklin, assistant editor of the Jena Times, whose wife teaches at Jena High, and Charlotte Allen, who wrote an extended piece for The Weekly Standard. According to Allen and Franklin, here are the facts and chronology you have been denied by the Mainstream Media.

more...

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/PatrickJBuchanan/2008/02/15/the_jena_six_--_and_other_scams