upload error with file permissions

I have the following error when uploading files. wp-content is set to 777 already. The strange question I have is the ‘..’ after public_html and before wp-content. wp-content sits in public_html, so that seems wrong to me. If I change the public_html directory to be writeable, I get two “..”‘s.

Unable to create directory /home/iinet.com/j/ja/site_name/public_html/../wp-content/uploads/2009/03. Is its parent directory writable by the server?