The whole Jena Six situation is finally making some real national news.  This whole situation, in what must obviously be a backward little Louisiana town, has pointed to a larger issue in American life.  Racism is alive and well.

We must come to realize the real significance of this situation:  For most of American history racism was en vogue.  Since the 1980s racism has been out of style.  Does that mean it doesn't exist?  Hell no!  Put simply, up through the 1970s most racism in this country was overt, today it is mostly covert.  But it still lives--not just survives--but lives.

Are all white people racist?  Most certainly not.  Do some black people play the race card whenever it suits them?  Most certainly yes.  But what's really frightened me here is not the fact that this happened.  No, what frightens me most is the willingness of some people on the LEFT to write this off as black whining.  You see the real race problem in America isn't that racism exists, for it exists in a much less potent and much less wide-spread form than it once did.  The real problem is white America's tendency to dismiss all racism as an invention of black people or the media.

Some instances of racism are invented.  The whole Don Imus thing was ridiculous.  Imus was stupid for saying what he said, but let's be honest here people, the Rutgers University women's basketball team had no idea who Don Imus was before that whole thing exploded.  But amazingly they were all distraught over his comments.  I know who Don Imus is and couldn't give a flying leap about anything the man says; I don't respect him enough for his words to cause me emotional injury.  As I hope is clear, I thought that whole thing was a manufactured controversy.

In this case, however, the racism was not invented.  Let us explore my assumption further, and perhaps come to a clearer understanding of what has happened in Jena, and what continues to happen in these United States.

Firstly, why in the name of Jesus Christ, Allah, Jehovah, Yaweh, Bhudda, or whoever you may pray to, would the teachers, administrators, parents, and just any damn body, let a so-called "white" tree of knowledge exist in the first place?  That tree is a crime in and of itself.  Anyone of the administrators or staff members who knew about this and did nothing should be fired immediately.   The tree was a race-riot waiting to happen.  

Secondly, the young white boy who was supposedly beaten to "within an inch of his life," was back at school that same night at an event.  I find his recovery miraculous.  Surely Christ Himself must have laid his healing hands upon the boy.  

Thirdly, why didn't the D.A. charge any of the white people involved in the fight or for that matter with the hanging of the noose in the school yard?  "There wasn't any specific crime to charge them with," you say?  How about inciting violence?  How about making a terrorist threat?  "Hanging the noose was a prank," you say?  Hitting someone in the head with a water balloon is a prank.  Hanging a noose in a goddamn schoolyard is an act of emotional and intellectual violence.  Hanging that noose was a terrorist threat just as me running through the airport scream, "I've been sent by Al Qaeda and I'm going to bomb you," would be a terrorist threat.  

Moreover, this was a fight.  It's not as if the six African American boys who have been charged with crimes, broke into the other students' houses to beat the piss out of them.  The two groups confronted each other; a confrontation that would not have happened if not for the noose.   All of these children were guilty of public brawling, but only the black children were charged with crimes, attempted murder (originally) greatest among the charges.

I know what else you will say, gentle reader, Michael Bell has priors.  Okay.  That doesn't change the fact that this situation was allowed to foment, until it festered to the bubbling hatred that erupted in the aforementioned brawl.  That, lest I'm mistaken, is an extenuating factor.  In addition, in a town where the race situation was and is obviously horrible, the trial should've have been ordered to change venues, at very least to Baton Rouge, a more diverse city.

Above, I have laid out the facts.  Here now, I will lay out the underlying problems.

To begin with, there are not enough white people who are outraged at this.  On many a "liberal," or "progressive," or whatever it is you'd like to be called, website, I've seen attention paid today to an idiot vote in the United States Senate to condemn Moveon.org for an ad attacking General Patraeus.  No one, and I'm mean NO ONE, should be talking about this vote at all except to point to the stupidity of the vote itself.  Not to say who voted yea or nay, not to complain about the GOP's never-ending ability to turn bullshit into a legislative matter.  But while I've seen people pay attention to this, scarce is the reference to what happened in Jena, except maybe to attack Barack Obama for not going down there.  He isn't the only one who should've been more concerned--every American should have been.

It angers me that some Caucasians tend to equate every cry of racism as feigned.  What angers me more is the lack of empathy from far too many.  I don't expect white people to understand what it is to be black in America, but it'd be nice if more attempted a little empathy.  I expect them to understand that not every problem in Black America is self-imposed, and simultaneously, not every problem is white-imposed.  And to the latter, some blacks must become adjusted as well.  

Writing off all calls of racism is not only dangerous but also telling.  Those who do make that write-off, dismiss the issue of race in general and particularly the long history of race in America.     To say that racism does not exist where it does is to disrespect those who fought, year in and year out, both black and white, to let justice roll down like a mighty stream.  At the same time, those who cry racism at every turn and for every personal folly, and every interpersonal slight, commit the same sin.

So, what does all this mean?  If only I were smart enough to know.  What I do know is that while we have come far on the issue of race, we have not come nearly far enough.  What I can only humbly offer is that we--and to borrow a phrase from James Baldwin--I mean we, the relatively conscious blacks, and the relatively conscious whites, don't find some kind of way to forge ahead, we will certainly destroy all the progress that we've made.

If you've ever read Baldwin's the Fire Next Time, you know that: "If we do not now dare everything, the fulfillment of that prophecy, re-created from the Bible in song by a slave is upon us: God gave Noah the rainbow sign.  No more water, the fire next time."