Close of Jena Six case shows it was not about racism

The Jena Six school beating case came to an end last week and a statement from the defendants shed new light on a incident used by some to polarize America’s white and black communities.

The case stems from the beating of a student at Jena High School that led to six of the victim’s classmates being arrested and charged with attempted murder. One of the six accused students, Mychal Bell, eventually pleaded guilty to second-degree battery and was sentenced to 18 months in jail.

The final five on Friday pleaded no contest to misdemeanor simple battery charges and were sentenced to seven days unsupervised probation and fined $500. By pleading no contest, the five do not admit guilt but acknowledge prosecutors had enough evidence for a conviction.

The most enlightening part of the proceedings came when one of the defense lawyers read a statement from the five defendants in which they said they knew of nothing the victim had done to provoke the attack.

“To be clear, not one of us heard (victim) Justin (Barker) use any slur or say anything that justified Mychal Bell attacking Justin nor did any of us see Justin do anything that would cause Mychal to react,” the statement said. It also expressed sympathy for Barker and his family, and acknowledged the past two and a half years “caused Justin and his parents tremendous pain and suffering, much of which has gone unrecognized.”

Those words coming from the defendants underline the point that Barker was not the symbol of hate, as many liberal factions painted him and the town of Jena. This was not a fight of equality where one faction was defending honor. Many stories were told in the years after the December 2006 incident of racial unrest in Jena and the placing of nooses on a tree at the high school campus.

Barker’s beating had nothing to do with that. We know this now because the defendants said so Friday. This was a fight where one student was left unconscious and an overzealous district attorney reacted poorly to the brutal nature of the action by charging six students with attempted murder.

The district attorney overreacted first and then those who use racial unrest as a platform to seek personal gain seized on the opportunity to galvanize many in this nation still dealing with the sting of everyday racism.

I was working in Jonesboro, which is northwest of Jena, when the civil rights march was organized in support of the defendants charged in Barker’s beating. I witnessed the lines of cars and buses that passed through Jonesboro on U.S. 167 en route to Jena.

It was a truly amazing sight. Seeing thousands of people take time out of their day to support a cause they believe in is what makes the United States a special place. However, the statements made by the defendants Monday shed more light on the situation.

This was not a case of the prosecuted rising up against the system. What happened was one student was beaten savagely. One of his classmates admitted his role in the fight and dealt with an 18-month prison sentence because of it. Although they never said they were guilty, the final five defendants acknowledged prosecutors had enough evidence for a conviction.

A local district attorney and national opportunists blew this beating out of proportion.

Today the criminal and civil cases associated with the fight ended. Unfortunately, the wounds shown clear in the national public consciousness are far from healed.

STEPHEN HEMELT is city editor of The Daily Iberian. He can be reached at stephen.hemelt@daily-iberian.com.