White Louisiana Students Re-enact Jena Six Incident in Blackface

Posted by Pam Spaulding at 5:02 AM on October 4, 2007.

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

From The Smoking Gun. The fact that these people thought it was hysterically funny to do this is all the evidence one needs to confirm that an honest discussion about the third rail topic of race is sorely needed.

A group of white Louisiana college students dressed in blackface and reenacted the "Jena 6" assault while a friend snapped photos and videotaped the staged attack, images that were later posted to a participant's Facebook page. The photos, which you'll find on the following pages, were taken late last month on the bank of the Red River, where students from the University of Louisiana at Monroe giddily acted out the racial attack.

The photos (and the short video clip at right) were posted to the Facebook page of Kristy Smith, a freshman nursing student. The album of images was entitled "The Jena 6 on the River." In the video, three students with mud smeared across their bodies stomp on a fourth student, while two of the participants are heard to say, "Jena 6." One man can also be heard saying, "Niggers put the noose on."

The images were taken down, but not before other students snared the video. In subsequent Facebook postings, Smith said:

"We were just playin n the mud and it got out of hand. I promise i'm not racist. i have just as many black friends as i do white. And i love them to death," she wrote. She added in a later message that her friends "were drinking" and things "got a lil out of hand."

The Smoking Gun also points to similar racially charged images placed on Facebook by college students in Texas, Connecticut, and South Carolina.

Tagged as: race, racism, louisiana, blackface, facebook, jena six

Pam Spaulding blogs at Pam's House Blend.