Racists In Jena Have a New Ally: David Duke

Posted by Pam Spaulding at 1:00 PM on September 24, 2007.

This post, written by Pam Spaulding, originally appeared on Pam's House Blend

Former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke's bank account must be low, so it looks like he's appealing to the "lynch the Jena 6" crowd for some scratch. It helps that his white supremacist friends have published the home addresses and phone numbers of the families of the young men.

The people of Jena, the people of Louisiana and I are not racist. We simply want justice to be done. We understand that White people in America have lost our basic civil rights. Whites are now deprived of human rights by racial discrimination in jobs, promotions, scholarships, college admissions and in many other programs. More importantly, Whites are increasingly victims of Black racial violence and hate crimes. In fact, a White person is 40 to 50 times more likely to be a victim of Black gang violence than a Black is likely to be a victim of White gang violence.

...The entire Jena scenario and the coverage of it by the media show once again that it is not the people of Jena who are racists. By voting for me and by demanding justice in this case, they have shown rightly that they believe in fairness to all and that White people are now the real victims of racism in America. Once again it is shown that we must have advocates for our rights and heritage just as any other group is permitted to do so.

May the District Attorney and the people of Jena stay strong and never give in to those who seek take away their rights of life and liberty as guaranteed by the United States Constitution.

He's crying for media attention as well:

David Duke is willing to explain to any media in the world what the real issues are in Jena, Lousiana To contact him press the contact button on the right side of the web page.

This is exactly why open discussions about race are necessary in general society. The open bigots have no shame in declaring their positions, and are quite sure of what they believe. Those who have good intentions by and large stay silent for fear of stepping on the third rail and "talking out of school." Discussions about solving racial tensions and its cascading impact are not the sole providence of blacks (or POC) who feel whites have no business talking about this difficult subject, nor does it belong with the David Dukes of the country, who are easy to point a finger at and declare "that's not me."

The resulting silence allows basic, human lack of understanding about the issues that challenge all of us on this topic to remain underground. No one learns about building bridges when they retreat to their respective corners.

dnA:

Reading David Duke reminds me of that old joke about the Jewish guy in Germany during the beginning of the Holocaust. A Jewish friend asks him why he's reading the Nazi newspaper, and he says "Because it has all the good news! We own the banks, we own the government..."

I feel the same way about Mr. Duke believing we are somehow overrepresented in higher education and high paying jobs. It's a facile rationalization for his hatred, but that perception of unequal treatment for white people (when the opposite is actually true) is only slightly refined before being blared 24-hours a day from Fox News, where it gains the kind of legitimacy he could never give it. Simply put what he's saying really isn't so different from what Bill O'Reilly says on a daily basis.

Here in my home state of North Carolina, four nooses were found hung from a tree at a school in High Point:

Scholars call it a symbol that reflects a shameful period in our nation's history. Friday, High Point police removed four nooses hung from different spots around Andrews High School.

"To get to a situation in 2007 where people can feel like this as a prank is acceptable, that tells us a lot about how much progress we've made and how much progress we've got to continue to work on," Claude Barnes, a political science professor at North Carolina A&T said.

That situation is four nooses hung from the flag pole and other locations at the High Point school. "And so the symbol here of a noose is very, very disturbing whether it was a joke or prank or whatever; whether this was perpetrated by whites, blacks, or whoever, it's not funny," Barnes said, "because it takes us back to a tragic and very shameful period is our nation's history."

Tagged as: race, racism, duke, justice system, louisiana, jena six

Pam Spaulding blogs at Pam's House Blend.