Saturday, May 19, 2007

Racial Demons In Louisiana



I wonder how many other small towns are in the same boat.

Racial demons rear heads
After months of unrest between blacks and whites in Louisiana town, some see racism and uneven justice

TO ORIGINAL ARTICLE


By Howard Witt
Tribune senior correspondent

May 18, 2007, 10:15 PM CDT

JENA, La. -- The trouble in Jena started with the nooses. Then it rumbled along the town's jagged racial fault lines. Finally, it exploded into months of violence between blacks and whites.

Now the 3,000 residents of this small lumber and oil town deep in the heart of central Louisiana are confronting Old South racial demons many thought had long ago been put to rest.

One morning last September, students arrived at the local high school to find three hangman's nooses dangling from a tree in the courtyard.

The tree was on the side of the campus that, by long-standing tradition, had always been claimed by white students, who make up more than 80 percent of the 460 students. But a few of the school's 85 black students had decided to challenge the accepted state of things and asked school administrators if they, too, could sit beneath the tree's cooling shade.

"Sit wherever you want," school officials told them. The next day, the nooses were hanging from the branches.

African-American students and their parents were outraged and intimidated by the display, which instantly summoned memories of the mob lynchings that once terrorized blacks across the American South. Three white students were quickly identified as being responsible, and the high school principal recommended that they be expelled.

"Hanging those nooses was a hate crime, plain and simple," said Tracy Bowens, a black mother of two students at the high school who protested the incident at a school board meeting.

But Jena's white school superintendent, Roy Breithaupt, ruled that the nooses were just a youthful stunt and suspended the students for three days, angering blacks who felt harsher punishments were justified.

"Adolescents play pranks," said Breithaupt, the superintendent of the LaSalle Parish school system. "I don't think it was a threat against anybody."

Yet it was after the noose incident that the violent, racially charged events that are still convulsing Jena began.

First, a series of fights between black and white students erupted at the high school over the nooses. Then, in late November, unknown arsonists set fire to the central wing of the school, which still sits in ruins. Off campus, a white youth beat up a black student who showed up at an all-white party. A few days later, another young white man pulled a shotgun on three black students at a convenience store.

Finally, on Dec. 4, a group of black students at the high school allegedly jumped a white student on his way out of the gym, knocked him unconscious and kicked him after he hit the floor. The victim—allegedly targeted because he was a friend of the students who hung the nooses and had been taunting blacks—was not seriously injured and spent only a few hours in the hospital.

But the LaSalle Parish district attorney, Reed Walters, opted to charge six black students with attempted second-degree murder and other offenses, for which they could face a maximum of 100 years in prison if convicted. All six were expelled from school.

To the defendants, their families and civil rights groups that have examined the events, the attempted murder charges brought by a white prosecutor are excessive and part of a pattern of uneven justice in the town.

The critics note, for example, that the white youth who beat the black student at the party was charged only with simple battery, while the white man who pulled the shotgun at the convenience store wasn't charged with any crime at all. But the three black youths in that incident were arrested and accused of aggravated battery and theft after they wrestled the weapon from the man—in self-defense, they said.

"There's been obvious racial discrimination in this case," said Joe Cook, executive director of the Louisiana chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, who described Jena as a "racial powder keg" primed to ignite. "It appears the black students were singled out and targeted in this case for some unusually harsh treatment."

That's how the mother of one of the defendants sees things as well.

"They are sending a message to the white kids, 'You have committed this hate crime, you were taunting these black children, and we are going to allow you to continue doing what you are doing,'" said Caseptla Bailey, mother of Robert Bailey Jr.

Bailey, 17, is caught up in several of the Jena incidents, as both a victim and alleged perpetrator. He was the black student who was beaten at the party, and he was among the students arrested for allegedly grabbing the shotgun from the man at the convenience store. And he's one of the six students charged with attempted murder for the Dec. 4 attack.

The district attorney declined repeated requests to be interviewed for this story. But other white leaders insist there are no racial tensions in the community, which is 85 percent white and 12 percent black.

"Jena is a place that's moving in the right direction," said Mayor Murphy McMillan. "Race is not a major local issue. It's not a factor in the local people's lives."

Still others, however, acknowledge troubling racial undercurrents in a town where only 16 years ago white voters cast most of their ballots for David Duke, the former Ku Klux Klan leader who ran unsuccessfully for Louisiana governor.

"I've lived here most of my life, and the one thing I can state with absolutely no fear of contradiction is that LaSalle Parish is awash in racism — true racism," a white Pentecostal preacher, Eddie Thompson, wrote in an essay he posted on the Internet. "Here in the piney woods of central Louisiana … racism and bigotry are such a part of life that most of the citizens do not even recognize it."

The lone black member of the school board agrees.

"There's no doubt about it—whites and blacks are treated differently here," said Melvin Worthington, who was the only school board member to vote against expelling the six black students charged in the beating case. "The white kids should have gotten more punishment for hanging those nooses. If they had, all the stuff that followed could have been avoided."

And the troubles at the high school are not over yet.

On May 10, police arrested Justin Barker, 17, the white victim of the Dec. 4 beating. He was alleged to have a rifle loaded with 13 bullets stashed behind the seat of his pickup truck parked in the school lot. Barker told police he had forgotten it was there and had no intention of using it.

hwitt@tribune.com
Copyright © 2007, Chicago Tribune

18 comments:

  1. nikki: yr a dirty, lying piece of filth you worthless fckn WHORE!

    yr a genocidal CUNT working for the god-DAMN jews if yr not a fckn kike yr-self u pathetic hunk of stinking garbage!

    DIE like a fckn stuck pIG u worthless god-damn SLAG!

    u nvr mention a site called 'svengalimedia' do u, u piece of fckn garbage?

    hunh?

    FUCK YOU! bitch..burn in HELL!

    from: here

    *******************
    On Saturday, January 6, 2007, Channon Christian, 21, and Christopher Newsom, 23, of Knoxville, Tennessee, went on a date from which they would never return. On their way to the home of another couple, they were carjacked and kidnapped. Over the next 24 hours they were beaten, gang-raped, tortured, and murdered.

    If Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom had been black and their killers white, everyone in America would know their names. Because they were white and their killers are black, their fate has been shrouded in a thick silence that has given rise to a host of gruesome rumors. Their story highlights the strange and twisted nature of race relations in America.

    The men who kidnapped and killed Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom have not yet gone to trial, so they are theoretically innocent. This account is based on documents filed in federal and state courts, and on sometimes-vague allegations in news reports.

    Miss Christian picked up Mr. Newsom in her 2005 Toyota 4-Runner. Some time just after midnight, Letalvis Cobbins, 24, along with his brother Lemaricus Davidson, 25, and George Thomas, 24, stopped the couple at gunpoint. Mr. Davidson had already been convicted of carjacking and aggravated robbery in Tennessee in 2001, but had served only five years.

    The three men tied up the two whites and took them in the 4-Runner to an apartment where Mr. Cobbins and Mr. Davidson lived. This was in a rundown rental house at 2316 Chipman Street in East Knoxville, which is overwhelmingly black. Mr. Cobbins’s 18-year-old girlfriend, Vanessa Coleman, met them there.

    All four, including, Miss Coleman, then engaged in an orgy of rape and violence. They anally gang-raped Mr. Newsom, and orally, anally, and vaginally gang-raped Channon Christian. They brutally beat both victims and poured cleaning fluid down Miss Christian’s throat. They killed Mr. Newsom, leaving him with “multiple gunshot wounds,” and set his corpse on fire.

    They also killed Miss Christian. Knoxville police refuse to say how Miss Christian was murdered, but an Assistant U.S. Attorney suggests she may have been “choked.”

    The day after the carjacking, Knoxville police found Miss Christian’s 4-Runner, abandoned near the railroad tracks. Close by was Mr. Newsom’s desecrated corpse. A fingerprint from Lemaricus Davidson inside the vehicle was the basis of a federal search of his apartment, and two days later authorities found Miss Christian’s “battered” corpse in a garbage can in the kitchen.

    Police and reporters have promoted the view that this crime was a simple carjacking that got out of hand, and that the rapists poured cleaning fluid down Miss Christian’s throat to destroy DNA evidence. This appears to be wrong on both counts. The killers ditched Miss Christian’s SUV just a few hours after they stole it, which suggests they had no great interest in it. Also, according to court documents, they had already planned on killing Miss Christian, so they could have used the cleaning fluid after she was dead. They did not bother to “clean” her vagina and anus, which were stuffed with DNA evidence. It appears to this reporter that the carjacking was just a way to kidnap, gang rape, torture, and murder whites, and that the killers used the cleaning fluid for the sole purpose of further torturing Miss Christian.

    This story has been strictly local news, but it did assume a certain limited notoriety on the Internet. Not long after the first newspaper reports, a story with the following headline began circulating on the Internet:

    “White Couple Abducted; Both Man and Woman Were Raped, Beaten, Cut Apart and Killed. Five Blacks Arrested In Case. No Media Frenzy Over ‘Racist’ Attack.”

    The report, with photographs of the victims and the suspects, continued as follows:

    “The animals pictured below raped Christopher Newsom, cut off his penis, then set him on fire and fatally shot him several times while they forced his girlfriend, Channon Christian, to watch. An even more cruel fate awaited her!

    “Channon Christian, was beaten and gang-raped in many ways for four days by all of them, while they took turns urinating on her. Then they cut off her breast and put chemicals in her mouth … and then murdered her.”

    The earliest version of this story seems to have appeared around February 21 on the web page of New York State radio host Hal Turner. Many of the details, including the amputations and urination, have not been in other reports, nor are they mentioned in court documents.

    Despite considerable effort, I have not been able to get to the bottom of this story. A local reporter said that the rumors of sexual mutilation are not true, but did not offer sources for this information.

    I asked the Knoxville police to confirm or deny Mr. Turner’s claims, or even to give the victims’ causes of death. Public Information Officer Darrell Debusk was unfailingly polite, but would tell me nothing. Were the victims mutilated? Were they alive or dead when this happened? “That is something that we have not discussed in the public and is information that will come to light during the trial…. Right now, we’re not discussing the details of the investigation.” Officer Debusk would not even give a cause of death: “Again, that’s evidence in a trial that will be presented during the trial.” (Only later did I learn that federal authorities had already announced the causes of death.)

    The claim that the “investigation is ongoing,” was plainly untrue. The suspects had all been arrested, indicted, and bound over for trial. Prosecutors bind over defendants only after the police have finished their investigation. When I asked for a copy of the Knoxville police preliminary report, which had been released to local reporters, Officer Debusk was happy to oblige—so long as I dropped by department headquarters in Knoxville. If that wasn’t convenient for someone living in New York State, I could have a local person pick one up for me, or a Tennessee resident could pay for a copy and ask that it be sent to an in-state address. Clearly, Officer Debusk just didn’t want me to see the report.

    Other Knoxville officials—at the county medical examiner’s office, sheriff’s department, and criminal court—all referred me back to the Knoxville Police Department. Police chief Sterling Owen IV ordered this stonewalling policy, and the information has been so tightly sealed we cannot even assume the trial transcript will be released to the public.

    Meanwhile, in this deliberate void of information, a different kind of rumor has grown up, notably at the black, anti-white web site, “Svengalimedia.” This site celebrates black-on-white murders, and sponsors an annual “Sexiest & Hardest Ghetto, Black, Male, Felon Bragging Rights Competition” for the most gruesome black-on-white murder. Lemaricus Davidson is this year’s frontrunner.

    Svengalimedia’s contributors have celebrated Miss Newsom’s rape: “Privileged whites deserve to feel and know our experiences and values firsthand and not just from word of mouth or by books and movies. Their families need and deserve to have terrible memories & experiences with blacks.”

    Other contributors have proposed novel theories about the crime. One is that Channon Christian had driven into a black neighborhood “to buy drugs.” Another, which has piggybacked on the sexual mutilation rumors, claims that Miss Christian staged the carjacking and cut off her own breasts. According to this fantasy, Miss Christian wanted to die from black sexual torture, and arranged everything herself. Svengalimedia contributor Waldorf Carathers even hinted at the existence of a “death by sexual torture sex video directed by Channon Christian,” noting that cell phones had been found at the Chipman Street house, and might have been used to record the killing.

    Fantasies as obscene as these are even found in the “respectable” black mainstream. Last November, in the federal carjacking and weapons trial of Dedrick Griham, defense lawyer Emory Anthony Jr. claimed that the victim, a white Birmingham woman who works as a lawyer, had “staged” a carjacking and was a willing participant in her own rape and sodomy. Mr. Griham claimed that the white victim had gotten in touch with him with the help of an (imaginary) prostitute named “Puddin” or “Pumpkin” through whom she had offered him money to fulfill the victim’s feverish fantasies. The jury didn’t buy this story, and convicted Mr. Griham, who had 13 previous felony convictions, on all counts. The judge sentenced him to life plus 84 months.

    Likewise, it is not uncommon for blacks to be indifferent to, and even show “Svengalian” satisfaction in the face of cruelties done to whites. In 1973 and 1974, the Nation of Islam carried out a series of black-on-white killings in San Francisco known as the Zebra Murders. Blacks killed at least 16 whites and injured another 8 or 10 in what was, again, a spectacular crime wave that was little reported outside its local area. Clark Howard recounts in his classic 1979 work, Zebra: The True Account of the 179 Days of Terror in San Francisco, that in 1974, at the height of the white panic, two teams of San Francisco Examiner reporters and photographers could not find a single black resident who expressed any sympathy for the white victims.

    Similarly, during the 2002 Washington, D.C.-area serial murder spree by the Black Muslim John Muhammad and his teenaged protégé, Lee Malvo, before the pair killed a black man, a black female psychologist on a Fox News talk show remarked, with great satisfaction, that whites now knew what blacks put up with all the time.

    What does this Knoxville crime—horrible enough without the unsubstantiated elaborations—tell us about race and crime in America? As noted above, if the races had been reversed, this would have been a media extravaganza on the scale of Rodney King or James Byrd Jr. Second, the police would have laid all their cards on the table, and the press would have savored every lurid detail.

    But because this was a particularly repulsive black-on-white crime, the police and national press have been tight as clams. In the absence of details, some racially conscious whites have been prepared to believe gruesome rumors. Anyone who is aware of the underreported horrors of past black-on-white crimes is unlikely to be surprised by anything: The Wichita Massacre was replete with sexual torture (see AR, August 2002), blacks cut off a living man’s penis during the Zebra murders, the Yahweh Cult killers in Miami during the 1980s were ordered to bring back a head, finger, or ear to prove they had dispatched a white person.

    At the same time, the media stir up anti-white hatred and promote the fantasy that white women lust for black fulfillment. This only feeds the degeneracy that ends up in places like Svengalimedia—and federal courtrooms.

    Perhaps when the killers go on trial later this year or early next year, the media will be shamed by the enormity of what they hear to write the truth. Or perhaps they will continue to pay lip service to the pious and pathetic myth that only whites can commit “racist” crimes, and will continue to suppress inconvenient facts. Until our country wakes up to racial reality, we will be treated time and again to shameless trampling on the public’s right to know

    *******************

    ReplyDelete
  2. White man kills his own children, then himself. No outrage from white supremacist.

    I can post 100s of similar stories.

    Like I have always said, white supremacist don't care about white people who get murdered, they only care when it's done by a non-white.

    White supremacist don't give a damn about Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom. They are merely exploiting the crime for their own purposes. Notice all the accused are facing either life in prison or the death penalty.

    The majority of white people murdered are murdered by other white people. So if they really cared about white people being murdered, they would worry about the group who is doing most of the murders of white people.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Tears for nooses by Nikki and crew but nothing for the victims of the Knoxville murders.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Funny Vonbluvens,

    I don't see you complaining when a white murders another white. Or when a white man rapes a white child. I guess you feel it's okay when white murders and rapes other whites.

    When that one released pedophile in Florida raped and killed that child, you didn't say a word.

    But you sure do complain when a black man does it. By the way, it's far less common for a black man to murder a white then it is for a white to murder another white.

    Hypocrite.

    You don't care one bit about the victims of that murder in Knoxville. You're just perverting the memory of them to promote your agenda.

    Pretty sick if you ask me.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Diamond500schwartzer thinks he's immune from TNB 'cos his dick's been 'docked'!

    Cobbins & Davidson would no doubt hv kindly asked him to drop his dacks before dishing out Christian/Newson treat-ment!

    (pull up on the pædophilia bull-shit will ya? most of that shit's 'trial by accusation': @ least, it is here in Oz; from wht i hear: it's not too dffrnt in the US either!)

    ReplyDelete
  6. No matter how hard they try to spin it--there was/is a race hatred motive to the murders in Knoxville.

    The way in which the victims were murdered is so unusual and so hateful--goes to intent. It makes the Carr Brother murders in Wichita look like some sort of mercy killing.

    I love how Schwartz tries to compare apples to oranges.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Blevins,

    All murder has intent in it. Duh

    And you saying it was racial motivated but yet you have no evidence of this, you're just making up things out of thin air. You just assume that when a murder involves two races, it is racism.

    City leaders of Knoxville have already said the murders were not based on race. This link also shows a lot of crime statistics.. like that whites murder whites at much higher rates than blacks who murder whites.

    The murder was horrible and is getting way more coverage than most double homicides get in the media. The five who are charged with the crime will either get executed or life in prison. I don't know what more racist want.

    The details of the murder will come out in trial. This murder could have been the result of a drug deal gone bad. It could have been a random act of violence (although that would be rare). We don't know and it is wrong to speculate on something until the facts are presented into court.

    But like I have said before, to be a white supremacist means

    ( ) Denial of facts

    ( ) Lies

    ( ) Mental Illness.

    With Blevins, it's obvious it's all three.

    You are jumping to conclusions. And you don't care about the white victims, you just want an excuse to justify your irrational racism. Pick and choose crimes while ignoring the majority of them.

    It must be the seroquel or depokote.

    ----------
    Here is another double homicide. Notice Vonbluvens doesn't care about this one either.

    Double homicide in North Platte, NE

    ReplyDelete
  8. Jimbo,

    Statistics show that I should be a lot more concerned about a white man committing an act of crime against me than a black man. If I were to be murdered, more than likely it would be a white man whom I know.

    Like I said, to be a white supremacist means.

    (x) Denial of Facts.

    ( ) Lies

    (x) Mental illness

    In one post, Jimbo demonstrates two of the three.

    ReplyDelete
  9. I would be interested in Nikki's (or anyones take on this website).

    http://mexica-movement.org/

    ReplyDelete
  10. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Schwartz, this isn't just ANY murder.

    Look at HOW they were murdered. Sexually abused for days (with other details that sickens and suprises even jaded ol'me) and cut into little peices. What would motivate someone to go to this sort of extreme? I contend it is race hatred.

    There is a lot of talk against rac ism here but only the white variety. I guess there are some racist more equal than others.

    ReplyDelete
  12. schwartzer: u can 'pull up' on the 'mental illness' malarkey too, pal!

    un-less the symptoms r obviously 'florid', then psychiatry (especially 'the Freudian school') is basically as dodgy as a $3 bill!

    call me a liar or 'a denier' if u like: but: pleezzz.....don't try some Mickey Mouse 'diagnosis'....me back's playin' up & i can't handle a fit of laughter right now (i might do me-self an 'injury'!)

    but: speakin' of 'liars': i think u might be one: u say yr more @ risk from 'white ppl' than niggz!

    umm....but most jews(u r a jew, ain't u?) live in some-thing resembling 'gated communities' don't they?...usually AFA pssbl from niggz!

    quite frankly: i don't believe you!

    u talk a lot of diversity/equality talk but i'm gunna call yr bluff, buster!

    i rckn u pack a piece and keep as large a distance as pssbl between u & the nearest nigg'!

    'deny' that if u want!

    i got nuthin' against you personally(seein' as how we've never actually met!)....but why 'come across' as a hypocrite, eh?

    i make no bones & no apologies for who i am and wht i am!

    Non, je ne regrette rien!

    ReplyDelete
  13. Vonbluvens,

    Again your a broken record. I've posted several crimes about children who were raped, tortured, then murdered. And again, you ignore these murders because it's white on white. But when blacks do it, you want to jump up and down.

    Where's your outrage about white children who are murdered in this fashion? It's more common than what happened in Knoxville. Black on white types of this crime are very rare.

    And again, the truth is, the majority of whites who are murdered are murdered by other whites.

    And again, you don't seem to be bothered by this fact at all.

    And again, if someone were to murder you Blevins, it almost will certainly be a white male whom knows you in some way. It would be rare for a black man to randomly kill you.

    What you (and others) have done is pick one rare type of crime and tried to slap the racist label on it. You seem to act like these murders happen everyday but you just admitted it was an "extreme crime" It's not working.

    It was a horrific crime but the majority of these types of crime are done by white on white. Just google for them. Children being raped and killed... bodies being dismembered into several pieces. Come on man, open your eyes, and realize it's not a black on white crime problem but a crime problem period.

    The people who murdered those two victims in Knoxville will never be free again. Nor should they be regardless even if the two white victims were trying to buy dope in a drug ridden neighborhood. The facts aren't in but I'll guess this was not just a violent act against a random white couple. There's more to this that will come out in trial. Doesn't justify the crime at all.

    But again, you don't give a damn about the Knoxville murders, you just want a reason to justify your irrational racism.

    If you really cared about the white race, the best way to care about them is to care about all people, regardless of race or religion.

    Everyone wins when you do that, including white people.

    And as far as black racism, if you have read my other threads on here, you'll see me blasting Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, and especially Louis Farrakhan for their previous remarks also.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Mike - I have been to that site that you reference. I think they make a powerful argument that this anti-immigration movement is about race - and those on your side of the fence have helped them make that argument.

    I don't agree with them on several points. However, I also understand why they feel as they do. It's a reaction to some very unjust things that are going on.

    Now, before you start screaming that I am anti-American, or some such crap, let me say that I believe we must have some sort of immigration reform - but coming up with something that is fair and just to all parties just isn't that easy.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Looks like Vonbluvens is begging Bill White for a leadership position within the ANSWP

    Proof

    So much for being independent eh Bluvie?

    ReplyDelete
  16. Schwartz, I am not a member of the ANSWP.

    I was assigned a co-commander position in the ANSWP but resigned--a long time ago I might add (about the same time Gary left).

    ReplyDelete
  17. Do you even know how to read links Vonbluvens?

    You're begging Bill White for a leadership position within the ANSWP.

    In your own words and your own vote, if you can't understand that, it's just not mental illness that is driving you. It's mild mental retardation

    Oh, yea, looks like the NSM has discovered Bill White's past homosexuality

    ReplyDelete
  18. I voted in a poll a while back...I think they keep a list of all polls and it shows up when a new poll is initiated.

    All I am trying to say is that I haven't been a member of the ANSWP for a VERY long time.

    Didn't you see the resignation letter on VNN?

    ReplyDelete

All comments must remain civil. No threats, racist epithets, or personal attacks will be tolerated. Rational debate, discourse, and even disagreement are all acceptable as long as they remain on point and within the realm of civility.