In his recent op-ed piece on the Jena 6, Ryne Berthelot is ignoring history and the structural inequities in the U.S. where the socially constructed, political notion of “race” is concerned. According to law enforcement statistics in every state of the Union, even today, black youth are more likely to be stopped, rousted, arrested, charged, have their charges pressed, be convicted and sentenced to jail time than whites who do exactly the same things and are not treated the same way. This demonstrates that we have one type of “justice” for blacks and another for whites.

Berthelot says the issue is a “debate between right and wrong,” but he apparently doesn’t see the bigger picture. Additionally, he’s doesn’t realize that charges don’t equal arrests. Police typically use multiple charges for each incident of arrest because they don’t know what the prosecutors will want to use and the police are the ones to draft the charges. So Jesse Beard’s “simple battery, simple assault and simple criminal damage to property” charges were almost unquestionably related to one incident that could have been as minor as a pushing match that knocked over a lamp. Bryant Purvis’ “assault on another student” could also have been as little as a push that was Purvis’ less than stellar response to someone, “asking for it.” Carwin Jones’ “misdemeanor simple battery” probably wasn’t even a push since it was a misdemeanor and “trespassing” is one of those laws used to arrest black people for being anywhere the police show up. Mychal Bell’s fights as a teenager before he became nationally known probably wouldn’t have gotten a white boy arrested at all or even sent to the principal’s office. And his “shoplifting, resisting arrest and simple assault” charges were again more than likely the result of one incident, which could have been as minor as: he palmed a candy bar, tried to leave the store when it was noticed and pushed the clerk’s hand off his arm in his attempt to leave. These exact scenarios could produce the charges listed. We don’t know, of course, but neither does Berthelot.

Berthelot also misses another crucial point. The Jena 6 were not “activists.” They were victims of a racist prosecutor and a few whites in a town where, when one black youth was threatened by a white adult male with a shotgun, the black teenager was arrested for “robbery” — because he took the shotgun away from the man to protect his own life. The white man, of course, was not charged with anything.

Even the original fight details seem to have escaped Berthelot’s attention. A young black male sat under a tree in the high school yard that only whites were allowed to sit under. The next day there were nooses hung from the tree. When black youth protested that this constituted a hate crime, the authorities called it a “boyish prank.” As the days and weeks passed, black youth were beaten up, threatened, and baited by racists –- at the school and in the community –- who were not stopped from continually attacking and harassing blacks and reminding them how powerless they were to do anything about it.

Finally, furious and exhausted with the attacks, a group of young blacks jumped one white guy who’d been baiting them ruthlessly with the n-word. Despite the fact that there were six of them on him at once, they chose to do so little damage that after a brief trip to the emergency room to be evaluated, the “victim” went home, got dressed up and went to a dance that night at the school – while the prosecutor was drumming up attempted murder charges for the Jena 6 and assigning bail of $70,000 to $138,000 each.

Everybody has opinions. But if someone wants to publish an opinion and have it taken seriously, they need to do their homework. Context is everything. And facts are based on the whole picture.