Girl shoves hall monitor, gets 7 years; Girl burns down a house, gets probation

[someguy]

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0703120170mar12,0,1435953.story

To some in Paris, sinister past is back

In Texas, a white teenager burns down her family's home and receives probation. A black one shoves a hall monitor and gets 7 years in prison. The state NAACP calls it `a signal to black folks.'

By Howard Witt
Tribune senior correspondent
Published March 12, 2007

PARIS, Texas -- The public fairgrounds in this small east Texas town look ordinary enough, like so many other well-worn county fair sites across the nation. Unless you know the history of the place.

There are no plaques or markers to denote it, but several of the most notorious public lynchings of black Americans in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries were staged at the Paris Fairgrounds, where thousands of white spectators would gather to watch and cheer as black men were dragged onto a scaffold, scalded with hot irons and finally burned to death or hanged.

Brenda Cherry, a local civil rights activist, can see the fairgrounds from the front yard of her modest home, in the heart of the "black" side of this starkly segregated town of 26,000. And lately, Cherry says, she's begun to wonder whether the racist legacy of those lynchings is rebounding in a place that calls itself "the best small town in Texas."

"Some of the things that happen here would not happen if we were in Dallas or Houston," Cherry said. "They happen because we are in this closed town. I compare it to 1930s."

There was the 19-year-old white man, convicted last July of criminally negligent homicide for killing a 54-year-old black woman and her 3-year-old grandson with his truck, who was sentenced in Paris to probation and required to send an annual Christmas card to the victims' family.

There are the Paris public schools, which are under investigation by the U.S. Education Department after repeated complaints that administrators discipline black students more frequently, and more harshly, than white students.

And then there is the case that most troubles Cherry and leaders of the Texas NAACP, involving a 14-year-old black freshman, Shaquanda Cotton, who shoved a hall monitor at Paris High School in a dispute over entering the building before the school day had officially begun.

The youth had no prior arrest record, and the hall monitor--a 58-year-old teacher's aide--was not seriously injured. But Shaquanda was tried in March 2006 in the town's juvenile court, convicted of "assault on a public servant" and sentenced by Lamar County Judge Chuck Superville to prison for up to 7 years, until she turns 21.

Just three months earlier, Superville sentenced a 14-year-old white girl, convicted of arson for burning down her family's house, to probation.... (click link for the rest)

The judicial system can be screwed up sometimes.

[Vong]

I blame the lawyers....blood-sucking night-crawlers....

[Lynn7]

Sounds like if it is the same judge there needs to be an impeachment and removal. I know our legal system is nuts but this does sound racial.

[Thrizzle]

Disgusting; this needs national attention.

[jolanar]

How in the hell is it even possible to get 7 years in prison for a scuffle with a teacher?

[Scarfather]

God Bless America!

[<3mekthx]

No highlights for lazy readers? :P

The system's a mess.

[The Postmaster General]

It could be racial, or it could be a separation of classes type thing. Did the white girl have a good lawyer while the black girl had a public defender? I cite the case of California vs. OJ Simpson.

Also - would someone be tried as severely when their "victims' are their own family member?

Did the white girl seek counseling while the black girl fought to contend she did nothing wrong?

About the white guy -- did he actually intend to kill that woman? When people are let off routinely on criminal negligence while operating - are we being lead to believe he would have somehow fried had the victims of his accident been white? Did the girl who pushed the hall monitor do so on accident? The hall monitor was white? It would have been different if they were black?

I believe injustices do occur, but I also believe in the press' ability to not report two sides of a story in order to proclaim a singular point. This story has more holes in it than Dick Cheney's Mayo parking pass.

[someguy]

Even if it's not a racial issue, there's no denying that the judge is horrible at his job.

[bowieee]

Everything is bigger in Texas.

Especially the amount of Ignorance.

[The Postmaster General]

Originally posted by someguy
Even if it's not a racial issue, there's no denying that the judge is horrible at his job.

No doubt - what a maroon!

He probably is racist, but the story really did seem slanted. It's weird because I'm usually among those who are the first and fewest to cry racial injustice (I supported Kanye) but to me this article plays more off stereotypes and fears -- while this particular local government may be shit, I don't like the sweeping allegation that a place is as corrupt as it's history. The article was published by the Chicago Tribune - should I assume the writer is just trying to stir racial tensions because Chicago was home to one of the largest race riots in US history? No, that would be unfair. Just like we can look at the judge and say he might of had his own agenda, we can sure as hell say it about the writer of the article.

Still sucks to hear about things like that happening, but the writer didn't seem too concerned other than the girl was black.

BTW - why didn't he use the terms African-American and Caucasian?

[someguy]

Bubba, ask the writer of the article yourself about the cases and how slanted he wrote it. His e-mail is listed at the end of the piece. hwitt@tribune.com

[Brando @$$ Fat]

I'd expect this kind of thing to happen in Mississippi, but Texas? Oh well, racism is all around, and this kind of shit just adds fuel to the fire. You'd think a society where everybody has opposable thumbs would be more evolved than this.

[The Postmaster General]

Originally posted by someguy
Bubba, ask the writer of the article yourself about the cases and how slanted he wrote it. His e-mail is listed at the end of the piece. hwitt@tribune.com


What point would there be in doing that? What am I supposed to ask them? The title of the piece supports my view that the writer was using specifics about assorted cases to paint a picture of a town plagued by racism, and that's what the article was about. How can you seriously imply otherwise?

To me, slinging mud about the judges actions are one thing, but to sling mud at history is just bad blood. Whether or not the writer really is slanted takes a back to the fact that they are painting a picture of a region based on the actions of a few. The history of Paris is no more a basis for racism than the history of Chicago is no basis for creating racial tension.

It does bring good issues to light, but how they brought them forward just seems like polarization to me --- more of a "that's how they are THERE" instead of "Look, things like this still happen." It's all about tone for me, and I don't like the tone this article takes.

Don't get this confused with me not thinking its messed up, or even that racism was involved - Just to me, this would have been as if Kanye West had instead said white politicians don't like black people. The tone of the article -what it implies - is too broad to be productive or informative. I would have just as soon read an article about the history of the judges family. It's not like you are your town's history, or vice versa. This article is pretty much themed as if that were the case.

[someguy]

Talk about being on the offensive here bubs, I thought you had some decent points made on the article and that it would add more to see what the writer thinks. Nothing bad meant with it.

[The Postmaster General]

THIS IS SPARTA!!!

[Jim H]

I'm curious what the minimum sentence he could give was. It may not be *entirely* the judge's fault.

[The Postmaster General]

Do I stand alone in thinking it's weird to compare the sentencing of a girl burning down HER FAMILY'S home to a girl who shoved a school official? That really doesn't seem like a fair comparison.

Still not enough to make me want to correspond with the writer over, but it does somewhat bother me. That probably more-so than the history thing. Maybe if I can conjure a non-confrontational way to ask, but like a said, it seems to obvious that the writer has their mindd made up - dunno them tho...

[dman476]

It's that name I tell you...

Paris, Texas.

;)

[The Postmaster General]

The sad thing is that more than anything, this story reminds me of how often the movie Paris, Texas has been recommended to me.

[bigred760]

That's just bullshit. I remember fights in my high school where all the kids got were detention (black or white). A hall monitor gets pushed, or at the very least knocked down, at the kid gets 7 YEARS!!?? That's just freakin' WRONG!! This does require national attention. Somebody should get Paula Zahn on this or something.

[The Postmaster General]

Originally posted by bigred760
That's just bullshit. I remember fights in my high school where all the kids got were detention (black or white). A hall monitor gets pushed, or at the very least knocked down, at the kid gets 7 YEARS!!?? That's just freakin' WRONG!! This does require national attention. Somebody should get Paula Zahn on this or something.


Yeah if it was another student, I would agree, but it was a 58 year old teacher's aide. When you and I were kids, no one would even think of touching an adult much less shoving one - the kids who did were the ones on the way to the DOC anyways.

I'd like to compare the opinions on this thread to the ones in a past thread about the guy who got maced for not listening to authority figures.

[Brando @$$ Fat]

Originally posted by BubbaStrangelove
Yeah if it was another student, I would agree, but it was a 58 year old teacher's aide. When you and I were kids, no one would even think of touching an adult much less shoving one - the kids who did were the ones on the way to the DOC anyways.

I'd like to compare the opinions on this thread to the ones in a past thread about the guy who got maced for not listening to authority figures.

Ok, even though you seem to have your mind made up, don't you find it at least a BIT suspicious that this happened in a town with a strong history of racial conflict?

[The Postmaster General]

Originally posted by Brando @$$ Fat
Ok, even though you seem to have your mind made up, don't you find it at least a BIT suspicious that this happened in a town with a strong history of racial conflict?


Well don't you find it a bit suspicious that our entire education system has recently become overtly touchy about school violence?

I mean, doesn't this entire country have a history of racial conflict? I mean we had a war over race-based slavery. Should I go ahead and assume the girl shoving the teacher's aide was racially motivated?

My only comments have been concerning that I think you guys are letting this girl's sentence distract from the fact that she did something very wrong, and something that the whole country has been touchy about since Columbine - violence in schools. Since '99, we've heard all sorts of overblown punishments for acts in schools, like the white boy who was thrown out of school for folding paper into a gun and "shooting at people." -- would that have been a racist act if the kid and teacher weren't both white?

I'm really not sure what you guys are trying to get me to say here. It's not like I've ever made the case that racism isn't still a virus in our society. It's not like I haven't said the judge was a boob, or have even defended him. I just think that we are minimizing what this girl did for the sake of reinforcing that there is racism in the country, and I think what people are forgetting is that shoving someone has always been something you could go to jail for.