Race baiters apologize for lying about Jena 6 incident

Ooops, wait. I made a mistake. There was no apology.

But they did lie about the incident being racially motivated, which I have been saying for a long time ( I wrote a January 2008 column about it and a blog post here that contains a link to a great column about the incident by Charlotte Allen)

Five of the six black high school students charged with attempted murder in 2006 for allegedly beating a white classmate pleaded no contest in a Louisiana court Friday, closing the book on a racially charged case.

The men agreed to plea deals that settled lawsuits filed against them by Justin Barker and his family the year after the December 4, 2006, incident in the town of Jena, population 3,000. The case was referred to as the "Jena Six."

To refresh your memory, the six African American yutes beat the crap out of a white boy because they claimed he hurled racial epithets at them. Then all sorts of tall tales erupted, not the least of which were the three nooses hung from the "whites only tree of knowledge" which painted this case as not one of thuggery (which it was) but of the black victims rising up against their white oppressors (which it was not).

The case drew national headlines when the teens were charged with attempted murder and conspiracy to commit attempted murder.

After the charges triggered protests from critics who said they were too strict, a judge reduced the charges against Shaw, Jesse Ray Beard, Robert Bailey Jr., Carwin Jones and Bryant Purvis to battery and conspiracy.

The sixth defendant, Mychal Bell, pleaded guilty in December 2007 to a misdemeanor second-degree battery charge and was sentenced to 18 months in jail.

At the hearing, attorneys representing the five men read a statement expressing sympathy to the Barkers and acknowledging that Justin Barker did not use a racial slur. They also apologized to the residents of Jena for the uproar caused by the case.

For those of you taking notes, those of you who may understandably be a bit confused in navigating these ever-changing waters of what is and and is not racist, this incident is not going to offer much clarity for you. Questioning the legitimacy of the racial aspect of this incident was in and of itself considered racist during the time it was happening. If you weren't cheering on the "modern civil rights movement's" version of Montgomery, Alabama or denouncing the continued prominence of the Jim Crow south in this day and age, then you were a racist. Even if you were a white person who had no opinion on this incident, you probably were harboring an "undercurrent" of racism.

Now, just like the Duke Lacross rape case, the false charges of racism will be quietly swept under the rug so that the race baiters can use their same weapons another day.

Nope. There's absolutely no need to correct the record. Move along. There's nothing to see here.

H/T to Wyatt at Support Your Local Gunfighter.