Prometheus 6

I'm going to be honest and admit I'm not a big sports page reader. In my youth I could play ball with particular people. My two younger brothers and I were difficult to beat, but that was because of them, not me. I knew them well enough to feed them, set pick and get open where they could see me. But I couldn't beat the brother immediately younger then me. Lucky to get a tie once in a while. And I could only beat the youngest because I was five years older than he and much taller. And even with that I wouldn't try claiming more than half the games we played. My sports were swimming and gymnastics (until I got too tall...I could grab the high bar without leaving the ground). 

All that to say I'm not real familiar with sports pages or sports writers. So I have to ask those who are into it two questions about Mr. Whitlock that, because of the way he came to my attention, mystify me.

1. Does he know anything about sports?
2. Does he ever write about sports?

Take this mess, which dnA at Too Sense wrote about. The first half was about Miss Teen South Carolina and a football player that abandoned his obscenely expensive vehicle after getting in an accident, and sentence or two involving Tank Johnson. 

Then.

Again, it's not just pro jocks who feel like they're owed something. It's not just pro jocks who have their failures rationalized and excused. It's a societal problem, brought on by the fact that our pursuit of a bigger house, a fancier car and a splashier vacation has short-circuited our commitment to parenting. At the end of the day, only your parents can truly hold you responsible for your misdeeds. Coaches can't. The media can't. A judge can't. Teachers don't stand a chance.

This belief crystallized for me over the past couple of months as I tracked and researched the case involving the "Jena Six," a group of Louisiana black boys who have been charged with a very serious crime after jumping, beating and stomping a white boy on school grounds. 

He researched, he says. I'll get back to that. First, the reason I had to ask my opening questions.

The "Jena Six" are becoming a cause célébre for Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson and the media. At least two or three times a week for the past three months, I have received an e-mail from someone asking me to support the "Jena Six."

Is Jason a stalker? Because he does this every time the Reverends speak to any significant issue. 

This is usually the case, and if Mr. Whitlock researched the case, he knows it was true in this case. There was practically no media attention given to the case at all until the Reverends showed up. And without the media attention, there would be no redress of a situation he himself says

Before I go any further, let me state this: The prosecutor should've never charged these boys with attempted murder. The entire school board should be replaced for stopping the noose-hanging kids from being expelled.

...is wrong. If justice was his concern, he would be thanking the Reverends Jackson and Sharpton, just in this case. No, this is what bothers him.

No one mentions that Mychal Bell's clueless public defender was black.

But NBC broadcast his face on television.
target="_blank">Check this clip at 1:25. Not that it has any bearing on the case.

No one mentions that there were no black jurors because of the 50 people who responded to the more than 100 summons, none were black.

...which has no bearing on the case.

No one mentions that Bell was already on probation for battery relating to a Christmas day incident in 2005.

...which has no bearing on the case.

No one mentions that Bell was adjudicated (convicted) of two other violent crimes in 2006 and one charge of criminal damage to property.

...which has no bearing on the case.

No one mentions that Bell's father acknowledged he moved back to Louisiana in February (after seven years in Dallas) to supervise his son because of the "Jena Six" mess.

...which is a good thing.

No one mentions that Bell starred on the Jena High football team while constantly jeopardizing/violating his seemingly flimsy probation.

That he's a local football star has been reported all over the place.

And here's how he describes the events that lead to the non-issues that bother him so much he skips writing on the topics he was hired to cover.

Unless he IS writing on the topics he was hired to cover...

Anyway, here's the deal as Mr. Whitlock sees it.

On the surface, the story sounds like a horrifying tale of Emmett Till-style justice. At a predominantly white high school in a segregated town (Jena), a black student sat under a shade tree that was traditionally used by white students. The next day three white students hung nooses from the tree, sparking racial tension and a sit-in (under the tree) by black students. The principal attempted to expel the three white students, but the school board overruled the principal and the students were given a suspension, which sparked more racial tension.

Police patrolled the school's hallways. The town's district attorney visited the school for an impromptu assembly, allegedly looked at the black students and said he could end their lives with one stroke of his pen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A little more than three months after the noose incident — and just days after two off-campus fights/heated exchanges involving a black student and white former students — the "Jena Six" punched, beat and stomped a white kid who made fun of a black kid for getting whipped in a Friday-night fight.

The white kid was knocked unconscious. After a three-hour hospital visit, he was released. The town prosecutor initially charged the "Jena Six" with attempted murder. Mychal Bell, the first of the six to stand trial and a Division-I football prospect, was convicted of aggravated second-degree battery and conspiracy by an all-white, six-person jury, a white judge and a white prosecutor. His public defender did not call a single witness in his defense. Bell could be sentenced to 22 years.

That huge space in the middle is no typo or accident. I added it in the name of accuracy. He left out the rifle incident. Which makes crap like this

Shame on the parents of the "Jena Six" for blaming white racism for the cowardice of a six-on-one attack.

...easier to write.

And yes he blamed the school board and the white parents and white students. He had to...the situation is too egregious. But even in this obvious case he can find reason to assign at least equal blame to the Black people in Jena.

He disturbs me.