My fundamental problem with the recent events in Jena, Louisiana is that the central figures in the case (the African-American teenagers who assaulted a white classmate) are not heroes by any stretch of the word. Victims of heinous judicial (and perhaps prejudicial) injustice...yes, but they are not heroic victims.There are not many heroes in the Jena case. The white students responsible for hanging nooses should have been expelled and punished much more severely. The African-American students who beat up one of those white students should have been tried as juveniles for their crime of assault and battery. And it was a crime. Let's not forget that. There are no innocents here.
There are serious issues of racism in Jena. That obviously needs to be dealt with. Those African-American teenagers should not have been tried as adults for attempted murder. However, Jesse Jackson and Sharpton are acting like these African-American young men are heroes for a new 21st Century civil rights movement. If that's the case, that movement is in serious trouble.
The movement loses its moral authority if these boys become the symbols used in its cause. Martin Luther King, Jr., the greatest of the civil rights leaders, would have never supported violent means to affect change. Non-violent protest was his mantra and his life work. King would never endorse these young men as the ones to pity or lift up onto a pillar of reverence.
As a Christian I believe injustice should never be met with violence. The most successful and morally legitmate battles against tyranny have been peaceful. These young men should have been guided to follow the model of Christ, Gandhi, Mandela, The Nepalese in 2005, and the Burmese monks of today on how to conquer an immoral system of racism or totalitarianism or other travesties against mankind.
Jena should be a rallying cause for those wishing to continue the fight against the horrible plague of racism. But that cause should not include lionizing people who perpetrated violence against a fellow (albeit dispicable) human being. Two wrongs do not make a right.
