Before this slips too far away

Those who want to insist - and, depressingly but not surprisingly, they do exist - that there was nothing racial involved in the case of the Jena 6 have something else to dismiss now, as reported by CNN on Friday:

Authorities in Alexandria, less than 40 miles southwest of Jena, arrested two people who were driving a red pickup Thursday night with two nooses hanging off the back, repeatedly passing groups of demonstrators who were waiting for buses back to their home states. ...

The truck was circling around town, repeatedly driving past groups of demonstrators, the [police] report said. The officers pulled the pickup over and arrested two after searching the vehicle. ...

An entry in the report lists "Bias Motive: Racial Anti-Black."

The driver was 18, his passenger 16. The driver was charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor, DUI, and inciting to riot.

The passenger told police he and his family are in the Ku Klux Klan and that he had KKK tattooed on his chest, the police report said. He also said that he tied the nooses and that the brass knuckles [found in a cupholder on the dashboard] belonged to him, the report said.

Whether that's true or if he's saying that to shield the older boy (since he, at 16, is a juvenile) doesn't really matter to me. I also don't care if they were trying to make a serious threat of a lynching or if they just decided it's be real good fun to go scare themselves some darkies and for the moment I'm not concerned with what would be proper legal penalties. I'm concerned with the fact that it is vile.

To his credit, Alexandria Mayor Jacques Roy came out to apologize to the crowd and later said he is looking into whether the incident was a hate crime.

Which brings up something else that should be noted: Perhaps some are, but I am not, saying that every white in the area, or every white in Jena, is a racist. However, I am saying that there is racism there, racism is involved in these events, and those people who close their eyes to it, who refuse to confront it, while they perhaps are not as guilty as the actual racists, neither are they excused.

Then again, some people are just outright guilty. The Washington Post said on Saturday that

FBI agents are looking into a neo-Nazi Web site, which has listed the home addresses and phone numbers of the six black teenagers charged in the beating of a white schoolmate in Jena, La., a bureau spokeswoman said last night.

The Thursday posting on the site that lists the information also encourages readers to "get in touch, and let them know justice is coming."

The FBI is investigating to see whether the posting violates federal laws, special agent Sheila Thorne said from New Orleans.

The website is the work of a peace of shit named William White who heads a white-supremicist group based in Roakoke, VA. He's apparently well-known in the area, as indicated by this from the Roanoke Times:

White has a penchant for inserting inflammatory rhetoric into racially charged incidents that attract national attention, as the Jena Six case has done this week.

"He has done this kind of thing routinely, but probably never in such an outrageous way as this," said Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate groups.

"It's appalling, but it's not surprising."

Appalling, yes, but not as appalling as the fact that according to a report at Bay Area Indymedia, CNN had White on, on Friday, during which time it

allowed him to broadcast a specific threat or call for attack against the Jena 6.

This, I suppose, is what passes for "balance" in the news: Cover a demonstration condemning racism and then interview someone celebrating it. If this report is accurate, that is almost a definition of appalling.