Let me break this down further. I've been beaten by a group of my peers and knocked unconscious. The people who did it were dicks but they weren't loathsome (not because of those acts anyway) and did not deserve to be charged with a crime beyond a minor misdemeanor battery charge.
The two fights in Jena were very similar and while as I stated, this is not behaviour to be encouraged, they were still just fights. Getting sucker punched or kicked in the back of the head sucks but to consider it somehow more loathsome than some other aspect of adolescent fighting is daft. What adolescent fights have some sort of Marques of Queensbury code of honor? What the hell kind of utopia did you grow up in? You act as if the young black men committed some act more horrible than it was. I understand such fights rather well having been involved in my fair share of them growing up so it is you my friend that do not grasp the reality of the fighting in these instances.
And it isn't as if it was an unprovoked attack either. It took THREE acts of violence against these kids (four if you count the DA's shitty threat) before they finally responded with violence themselves. That shows real restraint to me and probably to most adolescents who are members of any minority that is tired of being treated like shit. At the same age and in similar circumstances I would have kicked this punks ass after the nooses were hung. These kids showed maturity in taking as much crap as they did before finally getting frustrated enough to act improperly.Apparently in order to avoid being loathsome in Mr. Catron's opinion one must suffer not only a physical assault but repeated indignities one after another from your peers and the authorities with quiet dignity. Minorities must be either MLK, Ghandi, or loathsome.
That's what this really boils down too isn't it? Improper uppity violent loathsome black kids. It doesn't matter that they were threatened by their peers, the authorities, and beaten up by their peers. They just don't get that violence is for white people and the authorities and that makes them loathsome.
I think it's a minor miracle that more minorities haven't just gotten so sick of all this racist shit that they kick white kid's asses every time the white kids look askance at a non-white face. Personally I think we should erect a statue in their honor. Maybe if every white boy who made racist threats because he knew the District Attorney "had his back" got his ass kicked unconscious for being a racist shit it would knock some sense into it.
You apparently don't know what it is like to be a minority who has to put up with creeps like Justin Sloan and Justin Barker knowing that not only is the school board going to take their side in every conflict between you and them but the Police Dept., Prosecutors Office, Superintendent, etc. will never actually hear a word you say should such a conflict arise. They will see your non-white face and hear nothing but static emanating from you. You just don't grasp what it means to NOT be able to get help from the authorities.
John Thornton