I am passing on an exerpt of Poynter's Al Thompson news leads about the
Jena 6 today. Though I am grateful for the privilege of knowing
about/viewing a music video with extensive classic and new TV news clips
and the wonderful song, it seems to me that Al again shows his nasty
racist undertone in the post I have copied for you below.
Notice how he says that, "spineless callers have been threatening
threatening everybody from the Jena librarian to the local sheriff's
department." Funny how Al doesn't mention that the story leads with how
the relatives of the 6 African American boys are being threatened since
a white supremacist group released all their contact information to the
public.
Also Al and the story itself classify insulting phone messages (calling
Jena white media and officials "white devils") as threatening. As an
African American woman who has been viciously racially harassed by the
media (newspaper) and "fine" citizens of Durango, Colorado and Fort
Lewis College -- police did not even categorize insulting anonymous
messages as threatening So Al's more worried about the white. Even the
other message the article classifies as threatening said, "somebody
ought to put a noose around your neck," would not have been classified
as a direct threat because the harasser didn't say he/she was going to
put a noose around the white person's neck. Perhaps because anything
done to African Americans is not seen as being as serious or damaging as
any assault to those so used to White privilege.
So I would like for Al and the Town Talk writers to consider if those
messages were threatening or merely insulting and to compare them in
number and severity to those received by the Jena 6 African American
family members and allies AT HOME by MULTIPLE METHODS as a result of a
White supremist groups direct action! Again this is White privilege
rearing it's nasty head in the media and Al Thompson's news notes.
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-----Original Message-----
From: Poynter Institute [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Thursday, October 04, 2007 6:10 AM
To: E. K. Daufin
Subject: Al's Morning Meeting - Thursday Edition:
Posted, Oct. 4, 2007
'Jena Six' As a Music Video ...
By Al Tompkins
'Jena Six' As a Music Video
John Mellencamp just released a new single called "Jena."
(http://news.yahoo.com/s/thenation/20071002/cm_thenation/4239242)
He said he wanted to get it out to the public right away, so he
released it online, for free.
Here are some of the lyrics:
An all white jury hides the executioner's face
Is this how we are, me and you?
Everyone needs to know their place
And here we thought this blackbird was hidden in the flue
Oh oh oh Jena
Oh oh oh Jena
Oh oh oh Jena
Take your nooses down
At the same time, I read in The Town Talk
(http://www.thetowntalk.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071003/NEWS01/7
10030332/-1/) newspaper that spineless callers have been threatening
everybody from the Jena librarian to the local sheriff's department.
Click here (http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=2&aid=130598) to
read a Q & A I put together with The Town Talk 's editor, Paul V.
Carty.
Just two weeks after the march on Jena
(http://www.khou.com/news/local/houstonmetro/stories/khou070920_ac_jenas
ix.f0b9f764.html) , the story has already fallen off the national radar
again.
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