or are we already in a state of reverse polarity? Will stirring the pot like this make us repel each other even more?http://www.mellencamp.com/

Mellancamp Music Video: ‘Jena, Take Your Nooses Down’


JENA, La. (AP) - A video in which rapper-actor Mos Def asked students around the country to walk out Oct. 1 to support the "Jena Six" escaped comment by this town's mayor. But when John Mellencamp sang, "Jena, take your nooses down," he took issue.
"The town of Jena has for months been mischaracterized in the media and portrayed as the epicenter of hatred, racism and a place where justice is denied," Jena Mayor Murphy R. McMillin wrote in a statement on town letterhead faxed on Friday to The Associated Press.

He said he had previously stayed quiet, hoping that the town's courtesy to people who have visited over the past year would speak for itself. "However, the Mellencamp video is so inflammatory, so defamatory, that a line has been crossed and enough is enough."

Mellencamp could not comment immediately because he was on a plane from California to Indiana and had not heard about McMillin's comments, publicist Bob Merlis said late Friday.

A brief note from Mellencamp posted Thursday on his Web site says he is telling a story, not reporting. "The song is not written as an indictment of the people of Jena but, rather, as a condemnation of racism," it says.

Nooses hung briefly from a big oak tree outside Jena High School a year ago, after a black freshman asked whether black students could sit under it. A white student was beaten unconscious three months later, in December.

Six black students, four of them 17 years old and legally adults, were arrested. Five were initially charged with attempted murder, although that charge has been reduced to aggravated second-degree battery as four of the older youths have been arraigned. The only youth tried so far was convicted, but that conviction was overturned on appeal and the case was sent to juvenile court.

Mellencamp's song opens, "An all-white jury hides the executioner's face; See how we are, me and you?" As he sings, images of Jena, the high school and the tree are followed by video from the 1960s, including civil rights marchers, police beatings, and President John F. Kennedy and the Rev. Martin Luther King speaking. Still images include one of a protest sign reading, "God demands segregation," a stylized drawing of people in Ku Klux Klan robes and an older image of a black man in shackles, begging.

"I do not want to diminish the impression that the hanging of the nooses has had on good people," McMillin wrote. "I do recognized that what happened is insulting and hurtful."

But, he said, "To put the incident in Jena in the same league as those who were murdered in the 1960s cheapens their sacrifice and insults their memory."

At McMillin's request, the Jena Town Council voted unanimously on Tuesday to create an interracial committee to study racial relations and suggest solutions to any problems.

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On the Net:

http://www.mellencamp.com/

http://www.jenalouisiana.com/toj/index.html

At McMillin's request, the Jena Town Council voted unanimously on Tuesday to create an interracial committee to study racial relations and suggest solutions to any problems.

What is your problem with people sitting down and having dialogue to solve their problems. My bad I forgot you want your own nation minus anything black. Do you drink coffee, tea or just milk.

Peace.

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E.Pluribus Unum

People of power have NO good will and people of good will have NO power.

If you think Education is Expensive try Ignorance.

I got a laugh at the ironic lyrics "we got rules here, and you must fit in" - made me think of the tyranny of all the Grand Racial Inquisitors we have in our society, who, puffed up with phoney self-righteousness, screech "racist" at anyone who doesn't follow the PC regime on race down to the letter.

Sorry dude, you have no room to talk here. You go way beyond not "following the PC regime on race down to the letter." Your blanket statements about minorities speak for themselves. I swear every time you open your mouth a bunch of crap falls out. Then, when someone says something stinks, you're the first person to whine that people are too PC. Get a life.

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Blind acceptance is a dangerous practice.

You can't, with facts and logic, refute a single thing I've ever said touching on race. You have no arguments - you're basically a PC Robocop frantically zipping through forums screeching "You're a racist! And you're one too! Hey, you over there - you're a racist!" You're a one-trick pony - and everone's tired of your trick.

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Blade: "more educated and literate people than Justabubba"

Justabubba: "that would include everyone"

http://politicalforum.com/showthread.php?t=27847

I think you're confusing things, friend. If you don't have something against black people, then prove me wrong. Why all the hateful comments? Go ahead; redeem yourself...

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Blind acceptance is a dangerous practice.

I don't have to prove anything - YOU are the defamer - YOU prove your accusations. You would have made a good prosecutor in the USSR: "Prove you're innnocent, comrade."

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Blade: "more educated and literate people than Justabubba"

Justabubba: "that would include everyone"

http://politicalforum.com/showthread.php?t=27847

This is getting ridiculous. Your words prove your prejudice. If you're blind to that then that's your own problem.

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Blind acceptance is a dangerous practice.