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All my love to the bus riding hellraisers

By kellyfair

A few months ago, I heard about a site online, I can't remember what it's called, like "quiz for people who don't know what to do with themselves" or something. So of course I went there. It asks a bunch of questions about what kind of place you want to live in (fuck no, cold is not OK by me, I don't care about nightlife and there had better be some trees and stuff around) and it gives you places that match up. My number one place, even after changing a couple of maybes, was in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Now, I have never been to Louisiana. I tried to volunteer twice to go down to do free legal work after Hurricane Katrina but the organization couldn't get their shit together enough to find me a placement at all the second time, or the first time until 2 weeks before school started, which I'd give them a break for but the organization wasn't based in Louisana and should have had it together a little more. All I asked for was a building to sleep in once I got there, was that really asking for so much?
At any rate, I had an open mind about Louisiana pretty much until I started reading about this crap going on in Jena. What the fuck year is this? Nooses in a tree? White kids getting away with beating up and terrorizing black kids, but black kids being charged with attempted murder when they fight back? I am completely serious when I ask: What the FUCK?

What disturbs me almost as much as the behavior is that the law is signing off on it. The law is a very powerful tool and to quote Spiderman, (it's been a long time since I was an English major, give me a break) "with great power comes great responsibility." We're not just talking about swinging around on webs here, folks, we're talking about the power to ruin people's lives. I guess I'm still an idealistic student, but I think that those of us with the law in our hands are just plan morally required to do the right thing, even if some of us are prejudiced assholes.

Our school sent buses and I feel pretty crappy about not riding down to the protest. I was trying to arrange things so I could go when I realized that the school had an attorney on call and my semi redneck ass very well might get pissed off and arrested, which is not something I need to explain to the bar, since, as we've already discussed, I have my misspent youth and 20s and half of my misspent 30's (I learn slow) to explain already. Really though, that's no excuse and I still feel like a bum. However, here's to you thousands of people who did go down there and raise some hell on behalf of doing the right thing. People heard you and even if you didn't change much, at least you let those fuckers know what the rest of us think of them. Thanks.

---------To learn more about the events in Louisana, go to: http://www.colorofchange.org/

Full post as published by caligulawyer on September 21, 2007 (boomark / email).