This video from the USA is about the ‘Jena Six’.
From ABC News in the USA:
Jena Mayor Calls Song Inflammatory
John [“Cougar”] Mellencamp‘s Song About Jena, La. Gets Mayor Upset; Calls Song’s Video Inflammatory
A video in which rapper-actor Mos Def asked students around the country to walk out Oct. 1 to support the “Jena Six” escaped comment by this town’s mayor. But when John Mellencamp sang, “Jena, take your nooses down,” he took issue.
“The town of Jena has for months been mischaracterized in the media and portrayed as the epicenter of hatred, racism and a place where justice is denied,” Jena Mayor Murphy R. McMillin wrote in a statement on town letterhead faxed on Friday to The Associated Press.
Well, Mr Murphy R. McMillin, that is hardly a surprise; if people consider your reaction to US arch racist and neo nazi David Puke Duke‘s and his ilk’s involvement in the Jena scandal.
A brief note from Mellencamp posted Thursday on his Web site says he is telling a story, not reporting. “The song is not written as an indictment of the people of Jena but, rather, as a condemnation of racism,” it says.
Nooses hung briefly from a big oak tree [in the US South, a death threat to African American people, in the murderous Ku Klux Klan tradition] outside Jena High School a year ago, after a black freshman asked whether black students could sit under it. A white student was beaten unconscious three months later, in December.
Six black students, four of them 17 years old and legally adults, were arrested. Five were initially charged with attempted murder, although that charge has been reduced to aggravated second-degree battery as four of the older youths have been arraigned. The only youth tried so far was convicted, but that conviction was overturned on appeal and the case was sent to juvenile court.
Mellencamp’s song opens, “An all-white jury hides the executioner’s face; See how we are, me and you?” As he sings, images of Jena, the high school and the tree are followed by video from the 1960s, including civil rights marchers, police beatings, and President John F. Kennedy and the Rev. Martin Luther King speaking. Still images include one of a protest sign reading, “God demands segregation,” a stylized drawing of people in Ku Klux Klan robes and an older image of a black man in shackles, begging.
Watch the video here.
Update 17 October 2007: here.
13 November 2007: here.
30 November 2007: here.
US GOPers That Ducked Black Debate Took Money From Firms Accused Of Racism: here.
DNA Surprise! White Supremacist Finds Out He’s 14% Black: here.
John Mellencamp: On My Mind: The State of the Music Business: here.
Related articles
- Area Museum To Feature Paintings of John Mellencamp (wncx.cbslocal.com)
- John Mellencamp To Release 19 CD Box Set (kool.cbslocal.com)
- John Mellencamp 1978-2012 – 19 CD Box Set (extravaganzi.com)
- 30 Years Ago: John Cougar Mellencamp Releases ‘Uh-Huh’ (ultimateclassicrock.com)
- Rock legend Mellencamp opens art exhibit at Butler Sunday (vindy.com)
- First Clip from Stephen King and John Mellencamp’s Ghostly Musical (io9.com)
Dear Kitty. Some blog 
Six on one,who is the brave.
LikeLike
Hi Jerry, your comment avoids the wider issue of death threats in the context of the racism in the US South; what the public prosecution in Jena did and did not; etc.
LikeLike
Black Teen Marked With ‘KKK’ At Deaf School
CBS 5
October 04, 2007
A group of students at a Washington high school for the deaf scrawled “KKK” and swastikas on a black student’s body with a marker while holding him against his will, police said Wednesday.
District of Columbia police are investigating the Saturday night attack as a possible hate crime, Chief Cathy Lanier said. The incident began in the dorms of the Model Secondary School for the Deaf, on the campus of Gallaudet University.
Seven students – six white and one black – took part in holding the black student, Lanier said.
University officials would not say whether they had been disciplined, but in a campuswide e-mail Wednesday, Katherine Jankowski, dean of the center that includes the high school, said the seven were sent home.
The school discussed the incident at an assembly Monday and has worked with students on issues of diversity and race, said Stephen Weiner, provost of Gallaudet.
“We do not tolerate any kind of action, any kind of behavior of this type,” Weiner said.
Lanier said the attack began when two groups of students, one white, one black, were “horsing around” in the dorms. The groups eventually separated, but the seven students took the black student and held him for about an hour.
The student who was held contacted Gallaudet authorities, who called police early Sunday. He is at home with his family, the provost said.
No charges have been filed, but police said they have identified all seven students involved; they range in age from 15 to 19. “We take it very seriously,” Lanier said.
Gallaudet, the nation’s only liberal arts university for deaf students, was founded in 1864 by an act of Congress. The university offers 40 majors and had about 1,800 students last year.
About 170 students attend the Model Secondary School, with roughly 100 living in dorms on campus, Weiner said.
It is part of Gallaudet’s Laurent Clerc National Deaf Education Center, which also includes an elementary school. The center works on developing courses and teaching methods for deaf and hard of hearing students.
The school was temporarily closed last year when students protested against the appointment of a school president who was deaf but grew up speaking.
Copyright © 2007 CBS 5, All Rights Reserved.
LikeLike
Tennessee student sues for the right to wear a ‘Free the Jena Six’ T-Shirt
Associated Press – October 10, 2007 6:23 AM ET
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) – A Tennessee student is suing her suburban Nashville high school for the right to wear a T-shirt with the words “Free the Jena (JEE’-nuh) Six” on it.
And she wants damages for being sent home to change the shirt when she tried to wear it to class.
The T-shirt refers to a Jena, Louisiana, case in which three white students were suspended for hanging nooses from a tree at their high school. Six black students were later prosecuted for allegedly beating a white student.
Danielle Super showed up at her Nashville school wearing a Jena Six T-shirt after attending a march but was told it would “cause a problem.” So she went home and returned wearing another shirt.
Super wants an injunction allowing her to wear the shirt. And she wants damages, though no amount is listed.
School officials say they don’t think the school was in the wrong and think things will “play out” in its favor.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press.
http://www.newschannel10.com/global/story.asp?s=7192457
LikeLike
Fight racist terror in Jena, La.!
The Nationalist Movement have gotten the green light to spread their message of racist terror by local and statewide authorities which should be condemned by all progressive activists of nationalities. Fascistic groups like the Nationalist Movement should not have the right to free speech in order to spread their vile, hateful venom especially against Black and other people of color.
Historically, extra-legal terrorist groups like the KKK and the Nationalist Movement have been encouraged by the U.S. government to raise their ugly heads especially during periods of deepening economic crisis which is happening at this very moment in the U.S. after millions of people face foreclosures, evictions, loss of jobs and much more. It is also not an accident that these racists targeted Jena, where tens of thousands of mainly Black students from around the country marched last Sept. 20th to express their support of the heroic Black youth known as the Jena 6.
The Jena 6 defended themselves against racist white youth who hung nooses on a “white” tree outside of Jena High School in September 2006.
By hanging these nooses, these racist youth were saying that Black people deserve to be lynched which has been terror tactic of groups like the Nationalist Movement and the KKK since the end of the Civil War. Five of the Jena 6 will be standing trial for assaulting one of the racist students. Mychal Bell, one of the Jena 6, is still imprisoned for an old charge.
The Martin Luther King March Against Racism Coalition in N.Y. which includes Fight Imperialism, Stand Together (FIST), Troops Out Now Coalition and International Action Center stands in solidarity with the Jena 6, the Black people of Jena and the anti-racist demonstration that is being planned in Jena on Jan. 21st which will gather at 9 a.m. in the Jena City Park for a rally, just off route 84 followed by march to the courthouse.
Down with the Nationalist movement! Smash racist terror! Unity and solidarity forever!
Free the Jena 6!
Donate to help send Martin Luther King March Against Racism Coalition activists to Jena: http://troopsoutnow.org/donate.shtml
For updates and more information, see: Januaryinjena.blogspot.com
LikeLike
DVD: The Jena 6
Narrated by Mumia Abu-Jamal
“This is not the story of the lynching noose. It is the story of the DA’s pen.”—Mumia Abu-Jamal
In a small town in Louisiana, six families are fighting for their sons’ lives.
Two nooses are left as a warning to Black students trying to integrate their playground, fights break out across town, a white man pulls a shotgun on Black students, someone burns down most of the school, the DA puts six Black students on trial for attempted murder, and the quiet town of Jena becomes the site of the largest civil rights demonstration in the South since the 1960s.
The Jena 6 is the story of racism and violence becoming visible. It is a powerful symbol for and example of, how racial (in)justice works in America—where the lynching noose has been replaced by the DA’s pen.
30min, color, stereo
LikeLike
Pingback: Chuck Berry against McCain using his song | Dear Kitty. Some blog
Pingback: Bob Dylan arrested by US police | Dear Kitty. Some blog
Pingback: US nazi David Duke arrested in Prague | Dear Kitty. Some blog
Pingback: United States House majority whip’s links to nazi David Duke | Dear Kitty. Some blog
Pingback: Donald Trump not condemning Ku Klux Klan | Dear Kitty. Some blog
Pingback: US President Trump and the extreme right | Dear Kitty. Some blog