JagBytes

Issue date: 12/10/07 Section: Opinion

Ron Gamble

It seems like yesterday when I began contemplating how to approach the situation in Jena, Louisiana and discussing ideas with Maggie Balough, my instructor, and my J409 (media management) classmates.

I wanted to give an accurate account of the ordeal, while at the same time offering my opinion about this entire injustice-and thus giving birth to my commentary section. To my pleasure, that Jena 6 piece was warmly received by many.

From the Jena 6 story all the way up to my most recent commentary about social boundaries, I have made every attempt to present honest and informative work that is relevant to our community. With the Jena 6 commentary, my main points of argument were about inequality of sentencing of minorities, the selection of information that is newsworthy by the news media, and, last but not least, the lack of unity within the African-American community and how that can prevent internal growth.

Prevention of another situation like Jena 6 was my reason for the coverage of the Arsenal Tech story. After all, it was almost a year before we knew about the tree incident in Jena that sparked everything and the nooses hung by insensitive individuals whose motives were to provoke and insult members of the black community. The threats of a KKK march in the Tech situation turned out to be a hoax.

It is unrealistic to perceive these kinds of acts as jokes, especially in the wake of incidents recently at Virginia Tech and the Ohio shooting, not to mention the fulfilled threat from Osama Bin Laden on 9/11 more than five years ago. My objective was to emphasize preventing disaster instead of cleaning up the aftermath of something that could've been prevented.

Encouragement can be a stimulus to initiate a positive change in a person and help that person to reach full potential. This was the significance behind the conference called "Investing In The Black Male: Empowerment Through Education" in the fall. There were celebrity keynote speakers; workshops and networking affairs that went in-depth trying to give an explanation to the lack of success in the African-American community.

The workshop was conducted by Dr. Fred A. Bonner, Associate Professor of Higher Education administration in the Education Administration & Human Resource Development at Texas A&M University. Dr. Bonner targeted the retention rate of black males in college and why those black males became dropouts within their first year.

Continued...

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