Thousands Rally in La. to Support Jena 6

Thousands Rally in La. to Support Jena 6: "He said he didn't charge the white students accused of hanging the nooses because he could find no Louisiana law under which they could be charged. In the beating case, he said, four of the defendants were of adult age under Louisiana law and the only juvenile charged as an adult, Mychal Bell, had a prior criminal record."

Boy, I hope there's more to this story than sfgate has reported, because I certainly don't understand how thousands of people can rally in support of criminal behavior.

"'We all have family members about the age of these guys. We said it could have
been one of them. We wanted to try to do something,' said Angela Merrick, 36,
who drove with three friends from Atlanta to protest the treatment of the
teens."

I have a family member - a teenager - who is, shall I say, morally underdeveloped along with being socially underdeveloped. In less polite terms, I might call him a budding sociopath. When I read about a child criminal/young adult criminal, I do not say "It could have been him - I should go march in support of that criminal"; I say, geez, I hope counseling and strict supervision is helping him. (Apparently, today's private religious schools have been infiltrated by the same "ego building" theories of education, permissive, non-involved parents, and entitlement-mentalitied children as the public schools suffer from.) I think we do our children no favors when we say "well, the crime must have been justified" and our children know that we will listen to them and believe them and empathize with them, the support we show for another criminal tells them "it's okay if you do it, too, because I'll understand when you explain that it was justified." For the good of society - but, more importantly, for the good of our own children - we need to keep them from committing crimes, even justified crimes (killing in self-defence is not a crime, killing in a crime of passion is a justified - though I would say rationalized - crime which typically results in prosecution).

If parents want to try to do something for their family members "about the age of these guys", educate them, give them good values, and put them on the path to a productive, happy life. I'm not supporting or opposing affirmative action when I say this - when white folks see black folks integrating into American society - taking on the language, work ethic, and values of the overriding culture - racism will be a moot point. And when the black community comes out in support of black children (teens? adults?) beating up a white teenager (ah, imagine if the races were reversed?), it FOSTERS the sense that the black community and white community are separate communities working towards different goals in support of different values. It fosters a sense of us - and - them - as different. It creates racism where none previously existed.