I’m not surprised that White Jena residents are beginning to push back against the narrative that the Jena Six is proof of racism. I am surprised that anybody is giving their wildly biased accounts even the remotest credibility. Anybody with even a passing knowledge of the history of the American South would recognize these pieces for what they are. Historically, White southerners have been near-pathological in their denial of racism in their midst — secure in the knowledge that any account they gave would be accepted because the alternative meant believing Black people. This is how we are supposed to believe (among other things) that a high school student in Louisiana wouldn’t know that a noose has racial history, that Blacks and Whites have “always been” living together in harmony (before outside rabble-rousers began making trouble, presumably). This is why we are supposed to accept the well-publicized threat the DA gave to Black students as a “myth”, simply because the DA denies it! It’s White privilege stripped bare, nothing more.