Jena's Mayor Attacks John Mellencamp, But Not White Supremacists

Posted by Howie Klein at 6:15 AM on October 8, 2007.

This post, written by Howie Klein, originally appeared on Down With Tyranny!

Last week DWT presented listeners with the first opportunity to hear John Mellencamp's powerful new song, "Jena." Now it's available on YouTube and people are starting to see it all over the world-- much to the despair of the white Jena power structure. Take a look:

The images are very strong and very disturbing-- and not exactly what southern conservatives and racists want the world to see. Jena Mayor Murphy R. McMillin called Mellencamp's video inflammatory, "so inflammatory, so defamatory, that a line has been crossed and enough is enough."

Enough was enough in 1865. It is no wonder that a society which has failed to take the Civil War to heart would be angry about Mellencamp's condemnation of racism and bigotry.

UPDATE: KKK MEMBERS WON'T BE BUYING ANY MELLENCAMP T-SHIRTS EITHER

The Chicago Tribune reported a couple weeks ago that the KKK and other white supremacist groups had come to Jena-- and that the mayor-- the one who thought Mellencamp's song was "over the line"-- didn't have any problem with that. Support from all the regular kooks and nuts, from David Duke to the guy with no teeth at the gas station, started flooding in.

First a neo-Nazi Web site posted the names, addresses and phone numbers of some of the six black teenagers and their families at the center of the Jena 6 case and urged followers to find them and "drag them out of the house," prompting an investigation by the FBI.

Then the leader of a white supremacist group in Mississippi published interviews that he conducted with the mayor of Jena and the white teenager who was attacked and beaten, allegedly by the six black youths. In those interviews, the mayor, Murphy McMillin, praised efforts by pro-white groups to organize counterdemonstrations; the teenager, Justin Barker, urged white readers to "realize what is going on, speak up and speak their mind."

Mellencamp's newest musical critic has been on the same note since then, insisting, rather incredulously, that portraying Jena as racist is unfair. When interviewed by a proudly racist group from Mississippi, Mayor McMillin said, " I am not endorsing any demonstrations, but I do appreciate what you are trying to do. Your moral support means a lot."

Tagged as: racism, duke, music, jena six, mellencamp, mcmillin, kkk, white supremacists

Howie Klein is the creator of the blog Down With Tyranny!