Has Claiming ‘Racism’ Gotten Out of Hand?
In a June 10, 2007, Associated Press article posted to MSBNC.com, Wesley Snipes, who was indicted for failure to file a federal income tax return for the years between 1999 & 2004 among other charges, stated that he was being “selectively targeted for prosecution on federal tax evasion charges because he is black”. When the dog fighting charges were originally brought against Michael Vick, Earnest Hardy Sr., Michael Vick’s neighbor in Surry County, Virginia called the case, in an AP article dated August 3, 2007, “a witch hunt targeting a successful black man”. During the O.J. Simpson trial, Eleanor Holmes Norton, then a delegate from the District of Columbia was quoted in a Time Magazine article by Jill Smolowe saying “for many blacks, every black man is on trial”. Is it always racism, or is the fact that the defendant in black just a coincidence?
Without disregarding racism and the repeated evidence that it still exists in America, it is possible that racism, particularly what has come to be known as “the race card”, has become the mantra for the African American community whenever one of us runs afoul of the law or of European-born citizens of the United States. In many instances, African Americans, of which I am one, tend to cry racism whenever another one gets in trouble, even before all of the facts of the case, or for that matter the person, have come to light. It was this repeated behavior that caused me to want to know if African Americans too quickly cry “racism” and if it has gotten out of hand.
I would be the first to admit that racism is real. In 1986, within a month of my hire with Major Video, a video rental company based out of Las Vegas that had just branched out into California, I was told by no less than the president of the company that he had heard that I was the best new employee in the company. Despite this endorsement, I would be passed over ten times for a promotion, each time the selection being a white employee. In April of 2007, I was interviewed via telephone for a position with a company in Shreveport. After conducting two successive phone interviews, each time with higher ranking officials in the company that the previous interview, I was invited scheduled for a face-to-face interview with the head of the department that I would be working for and the vice president of the company. Two minutes into the interview, I was told that the company had several other interviews to conduct and that they would contact me, which they never did. It was obvious to me that they were extremely interested in me, but it was equally obvious that the interest waned upon their meeting me in person. These two incidents, and many others like it have convinced me of the existence of racism, but they did not convince me that it is the reason for all of the ills affecting the African American community.
The MSNBC article from June 10, 2007 cites the October 17, 2006 indictment that charges actor Wesley Snipes with fraudulently claiming refunds totaling nearly $12 million in 1996 and 1997 for income taxes already paid and failure to file returns from 1999 through 2004. According to the article, Snipes conspired with American Rights Litigators’ founder Eddie Ray Kahn and tax preparer Douglas P. Rosile Sr. to file false refund claims based on a bogus argument that only income from foreign sources was subject to taxation. Snipes, through his attorney, claims that the “prosecutors filed additional tax evasion charges against him and not against two co-defendants because they are Caucasian, while Mr. Snipes is African-American”. It is entirely possible that not filing a federal tax return for five years was enough for the Internal Revenue Service to want to discuss your finances. It is also possible that it might have been racism, but if the crime had not been committed, then it would be less likely that the IRS would be pursuing Mr. Snipes.
Mr. Hardy, in discussing Michael Vick, summed up his opinion of the dog fighting indictment very simply by referring to Vick as “a hundred-million-dollar black man”. Alton H. Maddox, a New York civil rights activist, in an MSNBC article by Alex Johnson, held a similar view when he stated that Vick was being singled out because “he is not an assimilationist”. Maddox compared Vick to Tiger Woods when he said that “in sports, they are both performing a ‘white man’s job.’ Vick, however, is doing it on the Black side”. In the National Football League, where one of the quarterback’s primary functions is to throw the ball down the field and let the other more athletic players run with the ball, Michael Vick plays the position of quarterback more as a runner than as a passer in what is considered the “black” style of playing the position. Maddox believes that this factor, not because operating a dog fighting ring is illegal and that Michael Vick was involved in illegal activity.
When Michael Vick, O.J. Simpson, Mike Tyson and Mychal Bell from the Jena 6 case were arrested in what would become their most widely publicized criminal offenses, cries of “racism” would flood African American radio stations. Other than the fact that each of these men, except for Bell, is or was a prominent African American athlete who revolutionized their respective sports with their extraordinary ability, each of these four men had been in trouble numerous times before making news with their highly publicized cases. All four men had been trouble several times for offenses similar to the ones that made them infamous, yet the African American community cried that white America was out to get these men.
Simpson had been arrested several times for spousal abuse, yet black America was surprised and shocked when he was arrested and charged with killing the wife that he had been brought in for beating several times and that he had divorced with his wife citing an abusive relationship. Mike Tyson, according to the abridged version of his rap sheet from CBC Sports, had been had run afoul of the law on at least eight separate occasions before being convicted of rape. Vick was accused of transporting drugs through an airport with a water bottle that contained a false bottom but the charges were dropped and Bell was awaiting sentencing for a probation violation relating to battery charges involving another white student when the ‘Jena 6’ beating took place. The beating just prior to the 6-on-1 was Bell’s fourth arrest under the age of 16, but black America only sees racism and not the fact that these are either bad people or are severely misguided. Unfortunately, in a CNN Article dated October 12, 2007, after Bell was sent back to jail, civil rights activist Al Sharpton, denounced the decision to send Bell to jail as “revenge by the judge”, never once mentioning Bell’s previous offenses.
From the advent of slavery until today, acts of racial inequality have littered the landscape of American history. From prominent acts like the lynching of slaves and freed black Americans in the south during the time of the Civil War to acts that fly well under the radar like my being passed over ten times for a promotion, racism exists and should not be discounted in any way, but there is a point where, as Popeye the Sailor was fond of saying, enough is too much. Tavis Smiley, host of the show that bears his name on PBS and the author of How to Make Black America Better: Leading African Americans Speak Out, states in Jill Smolowe’s Time piece, "When people yell racism when in fact there is no racism, they become like the boy who cried 'Wolf!' Ultimately, it comes back to haunt you." There will come a time when black America cries racism in an instance where racism is actually taking place, and the media, the legal system, and society in general will have become so desensitized through the repeated use of this cry as a means of curing the ills of black American society that when help and attention is truly needed, it will not be available.
# posted by Eric E. Jenkins @ 1:55 PM
