Don't Leave Race Out Of Jena Dialogue

I would like to take up D. Pierce Nixon?s invitation to ?meaningful discourse? from his column on Tuesday (?Jena Rhetoric Stops Progress, Stifles Debate? THE HOYA, Sept. 25, 2007, A3). Putting aside Nixon?s apparent lack of research into the facts of the Jena Six case ? and his penchant for terse, dismissive sentences which insult the views of those who disagree with him ? I find that many of the points he makes in his piece to be seriously deficient in both clarity and insight.

Nixon claims to believe that race is an arbitrary and completely ludicrous social construction, and I don?t disagree with him. To claim, however, as Nixon does, that the best way to deal with race is to not write about it is absurd.

If Nixon really believes race is so caustic, then he should take any opportunity to raise awareness of the racism and discrimination still being practiced in our society. To my knowledge, no pressing social problem ever went away because good-intentioned people were unwilling to talk about it. To then state that ?anyone who takes a position on issues of race presupposes that there is a qualitative difference between the actions, beliefs and values of people from groups of different colors? insults the people here on campus and elsewhere who have taken the position that racism exists and that we all have a moral obligation to stop it. Truly there is no qualitative difference between races, as Nixon asserts, but there exists and has existed a qualitative difference in the treatment, rights, respect and basic humanity afforded people based on the color of their skin. To deny this is to essentially deny world history for the past six centuries or so ? perhaps a feat of revision too substantial even for our happy columnist.

Nixon?s further assertion that true debate and discussion in the Jena Six case has been ?saturated by racial overtones? is equally ridiculous, and if he truly understood what the Jena Six protests were about ? rather than assuming that they were typical grandstanding by race-baiters Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson ? he would know that the case is entirely about race. But to read Nixon?s article, one would think that this case was about the vicious beating of a student by six of his classmates and about the ?allegedly racially-motivated events? which preceded the fight and may or may not have been contributing factors. You know, ?allegedly racially-motivated events? like hanging nooses, white students brandishing firearms at black students, and the district attorney?s comment that he could make the lives of black students disappear with the stroke of his pen. Little stuff. Then, because the assailants were black and the victim was white, reverse racists and apologists for violence descended on the sleepy hamlet of Jena and demanded justice in a case in which justice was already being served. After all, according to Nixon, anyone who beats someone unconscious should go to prison. It?s black and white ? no pun intended.

What Nixon, of course, fails to realize, is that this case is not about the fight at all. It?s about the fact that in the aforementioned ?allegedly racially motivated events? ? including a hate crime, the flashing of a shotgun and another fight involving both black and white assailants ? the white students got lighter punishments or no punishment at all, while the Jena Six were charged with attempted second-degree murder of a victim who spent two hours in the hospital and was well enough to enjoy a school function later that night. The deadly weapon? A tennis shoe. All of this in a town with a long history of racial tensions that overwhelmingly supported former Klansman David Duke for governor.

But let?s not make this about race.

Nixon?s attempt at ?meaningful discourse? would be humorous were he not so cavalierly dismissive of the fact that six individuals? lives were destroyed by a racial double standard. Or, if his views did not reflect the general ignorance and apathy of the average Joe or Jane Hoya. Or, if THE HOYA did not think that publishing Nixon?s version of ?journalism? ? which is patently disrespectful of the black community at Georgetown and Hoyas of color who have felt the slight of racism and bigotry ? was an appropriate way to address the Jena Six case.

In the end, both minority and white students at Georgetown who understand the danger in Nixon?s way of thinking need to demand change: a change in both the myopia of the average Hoya and of our student newspaper that continues to marginalize important issues.

Sebastian Johnson is a sophomore in the College.