For the past couple of weeks the case of the Jena Six has exploded on the African-American blogosphere. There’s been a feature story in Newsweek magazine, and at least three black columnists have tackled the controversy.

I’ve received a number of e-mails from readers asking me if I knew about the case and if I would write about it. I faced the same question when I went into my favorite bookstore, Karibu, which features works by and about African people.

Well, part of me wants to write about the Jena Six, and part of me doesn’t. There are good reasons for both writing and not writing. So this week, I’ll tell BlackAmericaWeb.com readers why the Jena Six warrant our attention.

And next week, I’ll tell you why I was so leery.

Reason numero uno for writing about the Jena Six is Reed Walters, the district attorney for LaSalle Parish, La., and the man most responsible for six black male teens being charged with attempted murder for what amounted to a schoolyard smack down.

A little background: Jena is a Louisiana town with a population of 2,542 whites and 357 blacks, according to the 2000 census. That amounts to a white population of 85.6 percent and a black population of 12 percent. Those figures closely match the estimated 2005 racial composition of LaSalle Parish: 86.5 percent white and 12.2 percent black.

Last fall, a black student asked a vice principal at Jena High School if he could sit under an oak tree on school grounds. The vice principal, according to news reports, told him he could sit anywhere he liked.

The tree in question was supposedly a “whites only” reserve. Yes, this was 2006, but we’re talking Louisiana here. You know about Louisiana: Number four on the list of “hang ‘em high” states notorious for lynching (Only Mississippi, Georgia and Texas were worse.).

It’s the same Louisiana where, as recently as 1963, state troopers tried to hunt down the late civil rights leader James Farmer of the Congress of Racial Equality for that special brand of Southern justice. The same Louisiana where residents of certain areas refused to comply with the Civil Rights Act of 1964 until the armed brothers in the Deacons for Defense and Justice gave them a nudge.

Yeah, THAT Louisiana.

Apparently some folks in Louisiana haven’t even been dragged kicking and screaming into the 20th century, yet alone the 21st. After the black student sat under the “whites only” tree, three white students hung three nooses there the next day. They got off with suspensions.

As might have been expected, racial tensions rose from there, culminating in a December 2006 incident in which a white student was knocked to the ground, kicked and stomped. It was Walters who then charged the six black teens with attempted murder (According to news reports, whites who attacked a black student with beer bottles were charged with simple assault.).

Seventeen-year-old Mychal Bell is the only one of the Jena Six who has gone to trial so far. After a public outcry, Walters lowered the charges to aggravated second-degree battery and conspiracy to commit aggravated second-degree battery. Bell could get 22 years in prison.

According to an early August Chicago Tribune story, “there were inconsistencies in the testimony of prosecution witnesses,” during Bell’s trial. “Some said they saw Bell strike the victim in the face during a melee outside the gym, others said Bell struck the victim in the back, while still others said they were not sure Bell was involved.”

Where you and I come from, all that amounts to what’s called “reasonable doubt.” In Jena, it’s called grounds for conviction.

For Bell to be convicted of the aggravated assault charge, Walters had to prove he used a deadly weapon. What’s Walters’ idea of a deadly weapon?

Bell’s sneakers.

During the disturbances, Walters went to a school assembly and, according to the Newsweek story, told students, “With a stroke of my pen, I can make your lives disappear.” Judging from the way Walters has charged people, we know who that message was for.

Walters sounds like one of those arrogant, power-mad prosecutors of the Mike Nifong school. But, predictably, the gaggle of conservative commentators who excoriated Nifong in the Duke pseudo-rape fiasco have been silent about Jena.

Their voices aren’t needed. But neither is our outrage, which does nothing. Kudos to Chicago Sun-Times columnist Mary Mitchell for telling us what the Jena Six really need: Cash.

Mitchell advises us to forego our anger and send our bucks to the Jena Six Defense Fund, P.O. Box 2798, Jena, La. 71342.

Don’t get mad; get organized.