The Jena 6

Crossposted at Kos - Sam.

I can't sum up the events in Jena much better than MissLaura did, even though I was there. I'm still processing everything, and I'm overwhelmed by the experience - I'm a young man, and I can't remember my generation experiencing a civil rights flashpoint such as this (I was in fifth grade when OJ was acquitted, and in light of recent events, that's something I'd rather stay away from).

But I digress. Here are the photos I took while I marched in Jena. They tell an interesting story ... and I'll start with this one:

This is about one seventh of the crowd at the High School at about 11:00 AM CDT. This isn't counting the groups that were marching to the high school, marching from the high school, still on the buses, at the La Salle Parish Courthouse, at the BBQ on East Oak Street, or stuck somewhere else in town. I believe that the estimates of "over 10,000" or "about 20,000" are low. In so many ways, this was bigger than those numbers.

I'm posting this up because the narrator in this video compares the invisibility of the Jena 6 to the national firestorm created over privileged white lacrosse players. I'd say he has a pretty damn good point.