Cross posted at Faithfully Liberal.

Via Open Left. Contrast the two videos below. One is from NBC and another is from Collateral News, an alternative media group.

Check out NBC's coverage here.

Or an alternate media source here

While there are obvious slants in both reports, the biggest difference between the two are the facts being presented. The alternative media outlet presents more detailed facts of the case and the events that lead up to the incident. It allows the viewer to make up their own mind about the horrific racial tensions that have been common in this community (and sadly it exists in others as well).

Cross posted at Faithfully Liberal

Sadly, I have heard people (in which I mean friends) say that they don't think oppression happens as much as it used to. Obviously, I refute this claim as untrue and go into a diatribe in why there is still so much discrimination and oppression.

A while back I heard about the Jena Six. And I should have written about it right then and there. Sadly, this case is the prime example of the struggle that America is still undergoing with racism and other forms of discrimination. This particular community is primarily 85% white while 12% are black. Racism still runs deep in the community according to many of the local residents.

It all began at Jena High School last summer when a black student, Kenneth Purvis, asked the school's principal whether he was permitted to sit under the shade of the school courtyard tree, a place traditionally reserved for white students only. He was told he could sit where he liked.

Most whites in Jena dismissed it as a tasteless prank, but the minority black community identified the gesture as something far more vicious.

"It meant the KKK, it meant 'niggers we're going to kill you, we're gonna hang you 'til you die'," said Caseptla Bailey, one of the black community leaders.

Old racial fault lines in Jena began to fracture the town. It was made worse when - despite the school head recommending the noose-hangers be expelled - the board overruled him and the three white student perpetrators merely received a slap on the wrist.

The fact that there was a "white only" tree is an example of the segregated past that still infects many areas of our country. The nooses were not a prank but a death threat based upon a history of lynchings that instilled fear in the black community. Most Americans would believe that we have moved past this era of hatred, but we simply have not. But the case gets worse as fights broke out during the school year between white students and black students.

As racial tension grew last autumn and winter, there were race-related fights between teenagers in town. On 4 December, racial tension boiled over once more at the school when a white student, Justin Barker, was attacked by a small group of black students.

He fell to the ground and hit his head on the concrete, suffering bruising and concussion.

He was treated at the local hospital and released, and that same evening felt able to put in an appearance at a school function.

District Attorney Reed Walters, to the astonishment of the black community, has upgraded the charges of Mr Barker's alleged attackers to conspiracy to commit second degree murder and attempted second degree murder. If convicted they could be 50 before they leave prison.

The school and the community obviously allowed racial tensions to persist, creating an atmosphere where the continuous fights lead to where we now find ourselves. The district attorney has blatantly used this case as a wedge issue in his own community. The excessiveness of the charges for the black students if beyond ridiculous and driven by racism, on top of the fact that the white students that were attackers in other fights have not been charged. These six students have been singled out resulting in an abuse of the justice system.

You can do something by signing a petition to the Department of Justice to take action.

Via Slant Truth.