“Pastoral scene of the gallant south, the bulging eyes and the twisted mouth.” Billie Holiday helped pen these famous lyrics back in 1939.
The “strange fruit” she was referring to in the song where actually just a metaphor for the many bodies that where hanged during her era. Holiday’s lyrics about the violence and bigotry in the south where in stark contrast to the sleepy, peaceful images that had been painted by numerous films and country songs.
The good ‘ole south that many where used to hearing about was gone, replaced with a gritty and unforgiving song of truth.
Even Holiday herself was nervous about the song, and as many historians have pointed out the first time she performed the song there was no applause at first. That was until one lone person nervously applauded, and was soon followed by the whole audience in a standing ovation.
Now, nearly 68 years later we are faced with a situation similar to Holidays. When the whole Jena Six fiasco first began it was 2006. Now, more than a year later, the story that rocked a small Louisiana town has barely begun to break into national news.
People like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson have recently spoken out about these injustices at rallies and on news outlets like CNN and FOX News.
There have been protests held, funds raised, petitions signed, and walk outs done in support of the Jena Six. All this and more has been done over the last couple of months, but the question on my mind is this. Where was all this support a year ago?
Why is it that it took a whole year for things to start happening? Why are so called “black leaders” like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson just now being vocal about this issue? Is it because they didn’t know? Or where they to busy dealing with real problems, like the use of profanity in Hip Hop music and cartoon network shows like “The Boondocks.” For God sakes where was Oprah?!!
And another thing, where was the media in all this? Surely they weren’t too swamped with stories if they could devote 24 hours of coverage to the likes of Britney Spear, Paris Hilton, and Lindsey Lohan. Was Paris going to jail and Britney shaving her head more important than covering the events that occurred in Jena? If they where, then someone please tell me why.
It seems strange to me that it took people like Mos Def to get the ball rolling. For just like in 1939, it took a performer to shed light on a problem that happened long before they brought attention to it. In the age where information travels fast and gossip even faster, why did it take the incidents of Jena Six so long to make it to our attention? I’ll admit that I didn’t even know about the Jena Six until a close friend of mine posted a bulletin about it on Myspace back in June, and even then it was hard to find any information about it. I had to resort to things like YouTube and Blogs to find any information.
It’s a sad state when something like this can go unnoticed for so long. It says a lot about the climate of this nation when people can be oppressed for so long and nobody says a thing about it until the coast is clear. Although, I could be wrong about this whole thing. Maybe no one knew, maybe all this just flew under the radar and we missed it.
Or maybe I’m right, maybe people knew about the Jena Six and just didn’t want to touch it. It’s a scary thing to be the first person to speak out, whether in approval or disapproval, when all around you remains silent. If that’s the case, can we blame those who spoke but said nothing? It’s a hard question to answer, and a hard topic to discuss, but one that should have been given the chance to be talked about. Silence gains nothing.
