The Jena Tree

As weary as many people must be in Jena, Louisiana of outsiders messing with their lives, it is not likely that they will be free of their stunned and outraged critics any time soon. A genuinely repentant District Attorney might help, or at least a judge or two. Not to mention white barbers who will cut blacks' hair without anyone else's having to make a federal case for it. As for deep-down change on the part of the all-their-lives racists in the community, however, little if anything is likely to make much difference for a long time, Al Sharpton to the contrary notwithstanding. But the very worst thing that could happen to, and that could come out of, Jena would be for its critics, within and beyond, to give up trying.

My personal vision of reconciliation in Jena had a tree at its center, with the whole town standing under its branches, in the charred remains of their burnt-out school, spreading out across the school property and beyond as necessary, but also squeezing close enough together to sing and pray as one voice --- old and young, blacks and whites, parents and politicians. If Kum Bah Yah hadn't already been flipped off by the know nothings of a generation younger than mine, I would have written it into my ideal scenario as much the more realistic accompaniment than We Shall Overcome.

The tree I had in mind in my vision was the tree where all of Jena's troubles began. It was a 20-year-old oak, lovingly planted, sheltering more and more kids as it gained height and as its branches slowly spread wider and wider. Although pretty young for an oak, it had already become a lovely tree; who wouldn't have wanted to nestle under it? The problem, of course, was that the kids who did nestle were only its school's white kids. The black kids had to stand, sit, and otherwise congregate in the sun, the dirt, and the winds. At least until one of them had the temerity to ask a school official if it would be all right to sit under the tree. Encouraged by the official's response, the kid invited some of his friends to join him. And the rest is sordid history: nooses on the tree's limbs, mutually traded insults, a beating, accusations, arrests, jail, and obscene assurances that people in Jena are all just good ol' boys at heart, with nary a prejudiced gene in their double helixes.

By the end of the summer, my vision for Jena was no more. Here's how it almost died. Apparently, some of the big shots at the school where all the nastiness began came belatedly to the conclusion that it was time to dissipate the force-field of hostility and hatred that had enveloped their school and their town. It is not clear whether their primary motivation was the best interest of the students or merely keeping the protestors out of town, but at least they showed a willingness to begin addressing the issues head-on. Well, not quite. Most people committed to ensuring justice believe that a good way of working toward it is to get and keep people talking to each other, respectfully and sensitively. What this not so very august body of leaders did, instead, was to hire a timber company to chop the Jena tree down for firewood.

It is difficult to fathom just what the thinking might have been that went into this awesomely incredible plan. (I would call the plan's immediate consequence immoral, but I realize that we have not yet succeeded in extending the scope of our moral actions very far into even the animal kingdom, much less to plants. The latter will just have to keep on handling things on their own for a while.) No tree, therefore, no nooses? No congregating, therefore, no place for fresh hostilities to break out? Make a little money for the school by selling pieces of the felled tree for souvenirs? If thy tree is a source of offense to thee, pluck it up? I can hear all the answers now: "we were only trying to help."

In that Jena schoolyard, the blows that felled what now has become my tree were blows struck for a truly perverse kind of justice. It is the kind of justice that, when believed impossible to render everyone, is denied anyone. It is the kind of justice that is blind to human beings' genuine needs, pressing problems, and God-given capacities to deal with both, constructively and together. But you know what, Jena? Your tree is still alive, because peoples' vision for you still is. How about we keep tending both?