On Ropes And Nooses

From the Times-Picayune:

Jefferson Parish will initiate disciplinary proceedings against seven supervisors after finding that a knotted rope and other items brought to light by a public works employee violated a parish policy forbidding offensive and harassing materials in the workplace.
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The report ignores the question of who owns the objects. Rather, it says the seven supervisors were in the line of authority to uphold the parish policy prohibiting offensive materials.

"These individuals were in the position to ensure compliance with parish policy and work rules, but did not do so," the report says.

I can't see why the employees who own the objects won't be held to account, but at least those in charge will pay a price for not doing their jobs.

That news coupled with this story from Jena, Louisiana, give me a window of hope for a future of better race relations in Louisiana.

JENA, La. (AP) — Minorities outnumber whites on the committee set up to examine race relations in Jena, where 20,000 people marched in September to protest what they saw as bigotry and injustice.

"We have a cross-section of people, and we want them to see if what has been said about Jena is true," Mayor Murphy McMillin said when he introduced the new Community Relations Panel on Tuesday.

Three members are white, two are black and two are from the Jena Band of Choctaw Indians. The 2000 census showed the town as 86 percent white, 12 percent black and 0.7 percent American Indian.
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"I would never use the words 'damage control,' but we want to know what problems are real and which are created by the media," McMillin said. "If we know that, then we will know what steps to take."

I don't care for McMillin's blaming the media for what happened in Jena, but at least he recognizes that race relations in the town might be a problem. The make-up of the membership of the committee seems not quite right to me, but it's better to have the group than not.