A Product Of This Town Analysis

“A Product of This Town” “A Product of This Town” was a piece that detailed the events surrounding and unfolding from a single event in Jena, which caused a hoard of people to descend on the small town. It starts out detailing how the town was a simple town and the thing to do on Saturdays was to drive the “Loop” through the town and just hang out with your friends no matter what their gender or race. One day at the local high school nooses were hung in a tree that had been, by tradition, the ‘white tree’ where the white students would hang out. One day a few black students decided they would challenge this trend and they went to the tree to hang out. The next day there were three nooses hung from the tree. This was perceived by the black
students that they overstepped their bounds by the white students who hung the nooses. This was also perceived by the black students that if they did it again, they might be hung as in America’s dark past. Although this was supposedly done as a joke by the three white students, given America’s history of racism between white and black, this was viewed as a hate/racist act. The principal of the school wanted to expel the boys responsible, but the superintendent intervened and only suspended the boys for three days stating it was just an “immature stunt” (Eggers 206). Several people in the town thought harsher punishment should have been given and from this point things continued to head downhill fast for the town of Jena. Throughout the month acts of violence were committed, beginning with one wing of the high school being burned, schoolyard fights, and assaults on black students by white students.
The local law enforcement just overlooked the events and said it was nothing more than “testosterone-filled teenage arguments” (Eggers 206). The final event that brought the hoard of people to Jena was when the fight broke out in the lunch room between a white student and black student. The black student knocked the white student to the ground and then the white student was attacked by other black students. Five of the six black students were charged as adults on second degree attempted murder charges, although the white boy was bruised and bumped, he was still able to attend an event later that evening. How ironic nothing happened to the white boys who hung the nooses and no action was taken when the white boy pulled a gun on three black boys, which really constitutes a hate crime. The fact that these actions were not dealt with immediately, and the random acts of violence were overlooked by law enforcement, Jena ended up with this tragic event. I am not agreeing that what the boys did was right, but had the behavior been dealt with immediately and in the right manner, things may not have escalated to the level that it did. This injustice is what brought the hoard of people to the
town. I believe Garcia was trying to relate names and labels to the formation of one’s identity.
Many people identify others by their race and the color of their skin. Jena appeared to be a racist town after everything broke out. “It’s about where we’re at. The South. This is being done to us because of geographics. We’re the South, so outsiders say Jena’s a racist town” (Eggers 205). In this sentence Garcia is stating that Jena was not always racist, outsiders who came into the city made it that way. People tend to judge the people and place an identity on others because of their geographic location, and the South just happens to have the reputation of being racist. However, as that sentence suggests not everyone in the South is racist, people make it racist by their judgments and actions. “We pray for the people who come to Jena. God loves them no matter what their agenda, although we feel their agenda is misplaced. We pray for our community to be patient. We pray for everything to be back to normal” (Eggers 204). People shouldn’t place an identity on others just because of their skin color and race. This quote speaks so strongly about how the town prays for those who are racist and that God still loves them, but they need to set their priorities straight before placing judgment against another person. I strongly disagree with how this whole event was handled because it shows how little our society has changed and how people today are still
racist.