Saturday, October 6, 2007

Musicians fishing in Jena come home hungry

Mos Def DummyTo put the incident in Jena in the same league as those who were murdered in the 1960s cheapens their sacrifice and insults their memory.... Jena Mayor Murphy R. McMillin
Itinerant preachers Jesse and Al aren't the only ones trying to cash in on events in Jena. Musicians want some love, too. Hit-hungry John Mellencamp released a song and video about Jena so deliriously devoid of facts that the mayor calls it “...inflammatory, so defamatory, that a line has been crossed and enough is enough." The video attempts- unsuccessfully- with old news footage to somehow put today's issues on a par with the civil rights movement of the 1960's.

You Tube carries CNN video of mumbling, inarticulate rapper Mos Def rambling on live in Jena. This guy later called for an enormously ignored October 1 nationwide walkout in public schools in support of the thugs who stomped a fellow student unconscious. Speaking of the prosecutor, Mos Def said:

If someone in a position of public trust like that cannot see that the responsible thing for them to do, is the fair thing to do and the right thing to do as opposed to the legal thing to do, then that person doesn't need to hold that position. These are positions of public trust, they're not positions where people can use them as their own personal platform to push their own ideas and sentiments... it has to be dealt with in the right and humane way, not just in terms of what is legally acceptable...

Presumably he'd prefer that the prosecutor push a personal platform which involves rewriting the law on the fly to suit the ideas and sentiments hip-hop musicians want to impose on the community.

Meanwhile Jena plugs along just fine on its own, working quietly toward a solution. The Town Council voted unanimously on Tuesday to create an interracial committee to study racial relations and suggest solutions to any problems.