When I walk through the hallways, what do you see?
Do you see the skin that happens to be black? Or what’s inside of me?
When one of your white friends die, will you pin the murder on me?
Or will you sabotage me and make fun of me jokingly?
You say that you aren’t a racist.
However, is it really true?
When I walk with my head held up high on the pathway to success, you mimic me and say that I’m a no-for-good, ghetto thug.
Stop looking at the color of my skin! Judge me by character, not by what influential stereotypes surround you.
It’s okay I understand. How could you anyway? When you discriminate against my “kind” because all of your friends send your personality and mind into a disarray.
Jena 6 is a group of six black teenage men who were charged with the beating of a white teenager, Justin Barker, at Jena High School in Jena, Louisiana. The case was followed by several white students of Jena High hanging painted nooses on a tree at the Jena High campus site. So as a protest, black students of Jena High took a specific day to sit under the tree with the nooses.
The Jena, Louisiana white youths were being treated too nicely when it came to racial discrimination. I don’t understand how, for example, when a black student commits racial discrimination against a white student and get charged with above and beyond consequences. However, when a white student commits racial discrimination against a black student it is taken very lightly. This brings me to the question of, are Dr. Martin Luther/Coretta Scott King’s, Rosa Parks, Malcolm X, Bessy Smith, Robert Williams, and many other black activists work in-vain?
I think that we have not really come to a change as a society, as we think we have. If you look around you will see that there still are discriminatory acts against many different ethnicities occurring each day. When will we see that this is useless and extremely dumb?
*Treat others the way you want to be treated* This is a rule i commonly think we should abide by. If we take this rule and apply it to our everyday lives, i think that it’ll help us realize that discrimination against any type of people is wrong. Whether they be black, white, Asian, Indian, Native American, Puerto Rican, yellow, purple, red, blue or what ever ethnicity, discrimination of any type is just plainly wrong.
6 comments
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March 26, 2008 at 3:50 pm
floppyears57
I think discriminination of any kind is wrong. No group deserves to be punished through racial slurs. I have to agree with the writer, times haven’t changed. Look around you, there is descrimination everywhere. I don’t think it matters what we do, Mexicans, Black people, white people, asians and German Psychos will all be descriminated against sometime in their life.
March 27, 2008 at 3:06 am
casaletto
Well it seems to me that it wasn’t (or at least you haven’t given evidence) that the jena six beating the white kid was racial, but even so, why are you focusing on some angry racist hanging a noose? Sure the ignorance and malice that the individual may hold is terrible;however, the jenna six were tried for ganging up on the kid and beating him pretty badly.
Also, I happen to disagree with your statement about how we haven’t chnaged as a society, right now a black man is a front runner to be president, PRESIDENT, to lead our country. I doubt that could have ever happened in King’s days, this is just an example that I felt is indicative of opinion change in everyday Americans.
I Really liked your opening, the poem indulged the reader into the subject matter and it was well written, good job.
March 27, 2008 at 5:53 pm
thealchemistsaint
That’s incredibly disappointing. How recent is this?
I’m originally from Canada, where racism is actually illegal. When I learned more about the Civil War, etc., I was actually terrified to discover these kinds of things really happened. However, my glorious little piece of hope relied on the fact that it was over now and people were through with overall overt acts of racism in this country.
Do things like this still happen?
If they really beat the kid up without decent cause, then I can understand some outrage, but bringing up an issue like lynching for white people to parade around in protest…
I’m just terribly disappointed.
That’s all I can say.
March 28, 2008 at 12:11 am
mzleilae
I think this is a very well written article!!! I liked the way you started the article with the porm which was the 1st thing that drew my attention to ur article! I already knew a little something about the Jena 6, but not as much as I wouldve like to know, but after reading this article I know lots more. Just try wording your words better! But overall good article
April 2, 2008 at 7:49 am
angelahh
This is a pretty good post.
But I heard about this event a while ago. and it’s so disappointing. I’m just glad that at our school, we don’t live and act like that. And there are still some people who discriminate because of race in this world.
And I don’t understand it.
What’s the point of not talking to someone because of their race.
You could miss out on so many great people and personalities.
April 3, 2008 at 1:18 am
taurtaur430
Discrimination is a very major issue today, and I think the Jena 6 situation was a sad event for America. It is bad to see such discrimination still going around. A noose hanging in a tree is not something that I want to hear about, being a minority in America. Although racism is still an issue today, there is no reason why the opposing party should not have been punished for displaying such hate.