Journey to Jena, justice is long, misleading

Jason Whitlock
FOXSports.com,
Source
Forgive me. This column is going to ramble and stumble a bit before I get to my main point. Real Talk is like that sometimes. Good conversations don't always fit in a tight package. They wander from time to time, and the wandering provides context to the point.

My dad once explained to me that absolutely everything you accept from another human being comes with a responsibility whether stated or not. He was a bit tipsy and the conversation took place around 2 a.m. He drifted, bad-mouthed some of his best friends, bad-mouthed a couple of my friends. I was 17. I've never forgotten his message, and repeat it at least two or three times a year.

I'm already meandering. Stick with this column; you'll enjoy the journey to Jena.

We're in this age of whining and bitching about the lack of accountability among professional athletes and wannabe pro jocks when it comes to bad behavior. The message sells. I've sold it.

But America's accountability crisis extends well beyond the sports world and bad behavior. You know that. Wednesday afternoon, I surfed the 'Net and came across the video of Miss Teen South Carolina absolutely butchering a relatively easy question about why one out of five Americans can't find the USA on a map.

Lauren Caitlin Upton's response was unintentionally hysterical, a piece of comedic gold that must be viewed to be appreciated. Her fourth-place finish in the Miss Teen USA pageant and the subsequent Today Show pity party thrown in her honor say all you need to know about how we treat our "beautiful people."

They can do little wrong, little we can't excuse, and we hold them to the lowest of all standards in nearly every regard.

The 40-plus contestants who finished behind Miss Teen South Carolina should all file lawsuits. The clip is literally making millions laugh, but her rambling, incoherent soliloquy didn't really hurt her in the pageant standings. Short of calling a group of women's college basketball players "nappy-headed hos," I'm not sure how the 18-year-old could've answered the question any worse.

Lance Briggs left the scene after crashing his new Lamborghini early Monday morning. (Jonathan Daniel / Getty Images)

I clicked from the Miss Teen video to stories about Chicago linebacker Lance Briggs' one-Lamborghini, hit-abandon-n-run accident early Monday morning.

Briggs, a Pro Bowler, met with reporters Tuesday and fed them a line of (spit) that they pretty much refused to swallow. He claimed he "panicked" and ditched his $350,000 vehicle because he didn't want to create a "big scene."

Good move. By running, Briggs avoided a sobriety test, and left the police with no choice but to hit him with a few misdemeanor traffic citations. More important, Briggs handcuffed commissioner Roger Goodell, the discipline dean of the NFL. An arrest for driving under the influence could've potentially landed Briggs in the league's substance-abuse program and in Goodell's suspension crosshairs.

Instead, Bears coach Lovie Smith quickly announced that the club planned to take no action against Briggs, and Lovie grew angry when reporters asked if Briggs had been drinking.

Well, this is the organization that lost Tank Johnson to guns, pit bulls and a driving-while-sober traffic stop. I'm sure Lovie feels like his roster is owed a get-out-of-Goodell's-office free card.

Again, it's not just pro jocks who feel like they're owed something. It's not just pro jocks who have their failures rationalized and excused. It's a societal problem, brought on by the fact that our pursuit of a bigger house, a fancier car and a splashier vacation has short-circuited our commitment to parenting. At the end of the day, only your parents can truly hold you responsible for your misdeeds. Coaches can't. The media can't. A judge can't. Teachers don't stand a chance.

This belief crystallized for me over the past couple of months as I tracked and researched the case involving the "Jena Six," a group of Louisiana black boys who have been charged with a very serious crime after jumping, beating and stomping a white boy on school grounds.

The "Jena Six" are becoming a cause célébre for Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson and the media. At least two or three times a week for the past three months, I have received an e-mail from someone asking me to support the "Jena Six."

On the surface, the story sounds like a horrifying tale of Emmett Till-style justice. At a predominantly white high school in a segregated town (Jena), a black student sat under a shade tree that was traditionally used by white students. The next day three white students hung nooses from the tree, sparking racial tension and a sit-in (under the tree) by black students. The principal attempted to expel the three white students, but the school board overruled the principal and the students were given a suspension, which sparked more racial tension.

Police patrolled the school's hallways. The town's district attorney visited the school for an impromptu assembly, allegedly looked at the black students and said he could end their lives with one stroke of his pen. A little more than three months after the noose incident — and just days after two off-campus fights/heated exchanges involving a black student and white former students — the "Jena Six" punched, beat and stomped a white kid who made fun of a black kid for getting whipped in a Friday-night fight.

The white kid was knocked unconscious. After a three-hour hospital visit, he was released. The town prosecutor initially charged the "Jena Six" with attempted murder. Mychal Bell, the first of the six to stand trial and a Division-I football prospect, was convicted of aggravated second-degree battery and conspiracy by an all-white, six-person jury, a white judge and a white prosecutor. His public defender did not call a single witness in his defense. Bell could be sentenced to 22 years.

Whew!

Before I go any further, let me state this: The prosecutor should've never charged these boys with attempted murder. The entire school board should be replaced for stopping the noose-hanging kids from being expelled.

OK, having said that, much of the mainstream reporting on this story has been misleading, irresponsible and inflammatory.

No one mentions that Mychal Bell's clueless public defender was black. No one mentions that there were no black jurors because of the 50 people who responded to the more than 100 summons, none were black. No one mentions that Bell was already on probation for battery relating to a Christmas day incident in 2005. No one mentions that Bell was adjudicated (convicted) of two other violent crimes in 2006 and one charge of criminal damage to property. No one mentions that Bell's father acknowledged he moved back to Louisiana in February (after seven years in Dallas) to supervise his son because of the "Jena Six" mess. No one mentions that Bell starred on the Jena High football team while constantly jeopardizing/violating his seemingly flimsy probation.

This was all talked about in open court during a bond hearing for Bell, and a newspaper in Alexandria, La., wrote about it. Just about everybody else has pretty much ignored the "other side" of the story. Including the fact that not one witness — black or white, and there were 40 statements taken — connected the jumping/beatdown of the white student (Dec. 4) to the noose incident (Sept. 1).

No one mentions that a black U.S. Attorney, Donald Washington, investigated the "Jena Six" case and held a town-hall meeting explaining that there was no evidence connecting the jumping/beatdown to the noose incident.

Only after the prosecutor overreacted (or tired of letting Bell and others skate once the successful football season was over; Bell wasn't the only football star charged) did the "Jena Six" blame the attack on the nooses and the white shade tree.
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Rather than report the truth, flames have been fanned by lazy or cowardly or agenda-driven members of the media. Because the white kid regained consciousness and survived the attack with only a swollen eye, defenders of the "Jena Six" have called it a typical "schoolyard fight." Would anyone call it that if six white football and basketball players jumped one black kid?

I've mulled this topic for months, and I keep coming back to one question: Where in the hell were the parents — all of the parents, white and black?

Shame on the parents of the kids who hung the nooses for hiding behind a seemingly racist and insensitive school board when their kids were inexcusably wrong. Shame on the parents of the "Jena Six" for blaming white racism for the cowardice of a six-on-one attack.

And shame on the prosecutor, the media and Al Sharpton for not rising above the ignorance and distortions, and seeking a truth that will set everyone in Jena free, including the "Jena Six."