If the author were to do a bit more investigation, he would have come up with the following already available timeline from the friends of justice to provide further context for the situation. For example-

-Members of the Jena six *were * involved in convening a peaceful protests after the noose incident. One of the responses to this sit in was an assembly where the 'District Attorney Reed Walters warned black students that additional unrest would be treated as a criminal matter. According to multiple witnesses, Walters warned the black student protestors that, "I can make your lives disappear with a stroke of my pen."'

-One of the Jena six was *ASSAULTED* by a 22 year old male at a party not simply threatened: "a black student was assaulted by a white adult as he entered a predominantly white partly held at the Fair Barn (a large metal building reserved for social events). After being struck in the face without warning, the young black student was assaulted by white students wielding beer bottles and was punched and kicked before adults broke up the fight. It has been reported that the white assailant who threw the first punch was subsequently charged with simple battery (a misdemeanor), but there is no documentary evidence that anyone was charged."

-Of the witnesses at trial to the infamous beatdown of Justin Barker (which hm...didn't include beer bottles like the other fight did), none were black, and you would think, given the presence of both black and white students at this event that a black student might have been called.

I'm not excusing the fight or saying that there should be no punishment for the students involved, but 90K bond for a high school fight where the victim, even though he went to the hospital was seen at a party the *same* night? And Mychael Bell is *still* in jail, and has been for the last NINE months? You've got to be kidding right?

But again, we resort to looking at this through the lens of white fear of black rage: ignoring peaceful protest, ignoring the parents of the black students who were involved in helping the students form a proper response to the terroristic noose threat, ignoring that viewing a tennis shoe as a murder weapon is ridiculous, and on, and on....

Have we all forgotten Billy Holiday's Strange Fruit? Pictures of burned and disfigured black bodies swinging in the summer breeze, while happy whites posed for the camera below the tree?

Strange Fruit swinging from the cotton trees

PS- I'm not even going to touch self segregation, even though it happens everyday for every race (Chinatown? Japantown? The exclusive country club?). While sticking with your own isn't going to bring us closer to racial harmony, each party and each individual has to be ready to come out peacefully and thoughtfully and have difficult conversations. As we can see from the case in Jena, everyone isn't that open minded...