Racists Coming Out Of The Woodwork

The plight of the Jena 6 has been big news recently all over the country. Last week, it resulted in thousands of people going to Jena for peaceful demonstrations to protest the unfair actions of the local officials there. However, the story is also having another effect -- one that is unwanted by most decent people.

The story is also bringing racists back out into the open. These racist kooks have been keeping a lower profile for the last few years, but this story seems to have emboldened some of them.

In Jena, while many of the peaceful demonstrators were waiting to board buses and leave after the demonstrations, two young white men tied a couple of nooses to the back of their pickup and kept driving past the demonstrators. It was an obvious attempt to intimidate those calling for racial justice.

Jena police stopped the duo and arrested them, after finding a gun and brass knuckles in addition to the nooses. It turned out to be an 18 year-old and a 16 year-old from the area. The 16 year-old claimed to be in the Ku Klux Klan, and actually had KKK tattooed on his chest.

In another incident, the FBI is investigating lynching threats on a Virginia-based website. The website lists the phone numbers of the families of the Jena 6 "in case anyone wants to deliver justice". The website also features a swastika and is full of racial slurs. It belongs to a member of the American National Socialist Workers Party -- a right-wing racist group.

I believe the prosecutor and judge in Jena don't think they are acting in a racially-biased way, but they're wrong. They just need to look at who their supporters are and who their opponents are. They would find that most decent people think they are wrong, while the racist kooks revel in their decisions and actions.

People aren't asking them to ignore those who break the law. They just want them to be fair, and treat white and black lawbreakers equally. Why is that so hard to do?