Disagrees With Jena Editorial

As you probably know, the noose incident and the fight occurred about three months separate from each other, so it isn’t a stretch that Reed Walters would attempt to de-link the two incidents.

[Letters To The Editor]


I read your Jena 6 Editorial titled “Jena Six DA’s Odious Op-ed”, and I disagree with a few of the conclusions that you arrived to as it relates to what Reed Walters wrote in his New York Times op-ed (although I do agree with the majority of what you wrote). I believe that you failed to show objectivity in arriving at two of your conclusions.   


First, your op-ed stated that Walters’s op-ed implied that the Jena 6 targeted the wrong boy when you stated that Walters “unwittingly”
tied the noose incidents and the beating.  I think Walters did that unwittingly merely to show that the events were not related.  As you probably know, the noose incident and the fight occurred about three months separate from each other, so it isn’t a stretch that Reed Walters would attempt to de-link the two incidents.   

Second, I think you really make a stretch when you accuse Mr. Walters of playing the race card in relation to the hypothetical scenario he sets up for the  “white readers” of his op-ed regarding how they would feel if they were attacked on a city street in the manner that Justin Barker was.  I think it is very possible that Reed is just trying to convey to his readers that what happened to Justin was not merely a fight, so I didn’t read anything racially presumptuous into the scenario that Reed set up.    

Respectfully,  

LaMetrius Jackson

Madison Heights, MI

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