I found the Official Jena Narrative v2.5 via NPR's News and Views blog. I'd try to wrap my response in elegance, but I need to write something about taxation (Rep. Rangel is talking about overhauling the tax code and though the image of icebergs in hell leap to mind, there's a couple of issues I can rant about, so I will)

Anyway, the boy, who lives in Jena and identifies with the white community there, says there are twelve “myths” in the media's reportage which can be exposed by ignoring and inflating targeted events. But some of his case is just not knowing how humans work.

Myth 1: The Whites-Only Tree. There has never been a "whites-only" tree at Jena High School. Students of all races sat underneath this tree. When a student asked during an assembly at the start of school last year if anyone could sit under the tree, it evoked laughter from everyone present – blacks and whites. As reported by students in the assembly, the question was asked to make a joke and to drag out the assembly and avoid class.

I remember when the movie The Exorcist opened...the original, Linda Blair one that scared the hell out of the nation. I remember people who told me how scared they were laughing at particularly grisly scenes.

I do not really expect every journalist to be up on the latest neurological research, nor do I really expect someone who identifies with the population whose racism is currently being exposed to do much more than launch a massive self defense effort. But that laughing is NOT a sign the question wasn't serious.

You must read American Lawbreaking at Slate.

This series explores the black spots in American law: areas in which our laws are routinely and regularly broken and where the law enforcement response is … nothing. These are the areas where, for one reason or another, we've decided to tolerate lawbreaking and let a law—duly enacted and still on the books—lay fallow or near dead....