I can make your life go away with a stroke of a pen

[Anita Garcia]

"The chain of events began at the start of school last September. At an assembly that kicked off classes, a black freshman asked the white principal if black students could sit under "the white tree" -- a shade tree where only white students regularly sat. The answer was, "You can sit anywhere you want."

But when black students showed up in the broiling hot yard, they found three nooses hanging from the tree's branches. After a number of scuffles, the district attorney came to the school and gathered students for a tough talk.

"I can make your life go away with the stroke of a pen," they recalled him saying. Black students said he looked directly at them. Walters denied it.

The incident was never reported to police, said U.S. Attorney Donald W. Washington. A report might have triggered a hate-crime investigation, although federal authorities rarely go after juveniles for such crimes. Washington added that if the students had been expelled, tensions might have been eased and the violence avoided." -- <http://jena6.vesana.com/articles/press/la.-town-fells-white-tree-but-tension-runs-deep.html>

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[Karenina]

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