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It isn’t until we notice that the sentencing for Ryan LeVin, a 36 year-old Porsche driver, was just two years of house arrest after killing two people in a hit-and-run accident.

When you contrast that to Plaxico Burress and Michael Vick, you understand the racial inequity that exists in America’s justice system.

As we all know, and won’t defend, Plaxico Burress went to jail for shooting himself in the leg in a nightclub. Michael Vick went to jail for running a dog fighting operation.

In theory, we all understand that jail is for those that break the law, but in practice, we know that jail is supposed to be for dangerous people. Jail is supposed to be for people that we may need to have locked away from the rest of us for our own safety.

Then we see a man that actually did harm people—not only harmed them, killed them—sentenced to house arrest, while a guy whose only crime was against dogs and another man that shot his own fool self in the leg do hard time.

The logical justification for this stems from the very American ideology that this country had done so much for the Negro.

Now, I’ve always regretted the fact that Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation and for two reasons:

1) I believe that if things had played out along the course they were going, what with the proliferation of riots and slave revolts, Black people would have liberated themselves eventually.

2) Being granted your freedom makes you eternally indebted to your grantor for your freedom.

The second of those two things is what causes some Americans to say things that are so run-naked crazy.

You hear them use the word “we” in funny ways; like “we” fought the Civil War to free you people; and “we” fought against discriminatory practices such as Jim Crow and back-of-the bussing.

Sometimes, when the gin hits your spirit you’re almost tempted to ask them exactly who they were fighting against!

But at the root, that “we” is the reason that America loves putting Black men in jail.

America can’t see beyond all the wonderful things it has done for Black people.

Yet we still have the nerve to occasionally commit crimes?

Such ingratitude!

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