As a white, upper middle class girl growing up in the West, words like “segregation” and “hate crime” were not a part of my vocabulary. My grandmother used to talk about living in DC, and how when she went to the movies, she sat down in front, while non-whites sat in the balcony, and talked about the “whites only” drinking fountains. I remember staring at her as she told me these stories as a child, thinking that surely she was completely crazy, because nothing that bizarre could ever exist. You could argue that I’ve lived a sheltered life, and you’d be correct. Still, I would say that nobody who grew up in my childhood neighborhood ever had to face something like this, the uproar that is surrounding the Jena 6.
The Jena 6
By Heather Oman
