The Jena 6

Paper Summary:

This paper takes a look at the actions of the so-called Jena 6, the legal issues raised around the Jena 6, and the pending trial of some of the Jena 6, from a sociological perspective. This issue involves the placement of nooses around a campus, perceived as a racist gesture against blacks, which led to the beating of a white student by the Jena 6, a group of blacks. The paper argues that the white power structure did nothing directly to the students who had placed the nooses around campus and instead charged the Jena 6 with attempted murder for what was perceived as at most an assault. This eventually raised issues of of racial preference and misdirected prosecutorial discretion. The paper approaches the issue in terms of its social aspects, the type of society that produces such behavior. It concludes that the case reflects the predominance of an unstated, yet indefensible attitude that the black population is a threat to the white population.

From the Paper:

"Sociological theory has been developed over the years to cope with this sort of social difference and group action. One such approach is structural functionalism, a theoretical approach in which societies are seen as social systems and in which particular features of social structures are explained in terms of their contribution to the maintenance of these systems. For instance, religious ritual may be explained in terms of the contribution it makes to social integration. The term is also applied to the particular form of functional analysis developed by Talcott Parsons in the 1950s and early 1960s, coinciding, as it happens, with the era of the beginnings of the Civil Rights Movement. Parsons finds institutional patterns which carry the rules and norms governing our social structure. He begins with the system and finds that every social system is a functioning entity, or a system of interdependent structures and processes tending to maintain relative stability and distinctiveness of pattern and behavior."

Sample of Sources Used:

• "The Case of the Jena 6." Democracy Now! (10 July 2007). November 26, 2007. http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/07/10/1413220.
• Cohen, I. Bernard, Puritanism and the Rise of Modern Science: the Merton Thesis. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1990.
• Giddens, Anthony. Studies in Social and Political Theory. New York: Basic Books, 1977.
• Merton, Robert. Social Theory and Social Structure. New York: Free press, 1968.
• Parsons, Talcott. Essays in Sociological Theory. Glencoe, Illinois: The Free Press, 1954.

More papers on The Jena 6:

• Descriptive Essay # 104160 : "Juvenile Abuse at the Jena, Louisiana Prison"
• Persuasive Essay # 108278 : "Jena 6 Controversy"
• Argumentative Essay # 134859 : "Race and Civil Rights in Jena, Louisiana"

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