Just Plain Injustice

Just last week, Tyrone Brown was released from prison. Click here for the full story. Basically, he was seventeen years old when sentenced to LIFE in prison for having marijuana in his system while on parole. His original crime was robbing a man for two dollars. After the story ran on 20/20, people were aware of the case and were outraged at the seemingly race fueled injustice. But the biggest outrage to me, was that he had to stay in prison for seventeen years before the public got wind of his case and did something about it. I followed the story since I first heard about it, and since then, I vowed that any lack of communication would end when things like this reached my ears. Well, this morning I was made aware of another outrageous injustice in-where else- the prison capital of the world: my home state of Texas. The facts of the case are simple: A fourteen year old girl pushes a hall monitor, who is not seriously injured at all, and is sentenced to seven years in prison, down in historically racist Paris, Texas. Both parts of that were equally outrageous. Seven years?! Prison?! Since when do we send fourteen-year-olds to grown folks prison? We don't- unless of course the fourteen year old is a minority. Duke Lacrosse players in college get accused of rape, and all I hear is "these are some good boys", but a fourteen year old black kid wrestling with his six year old sibling accidentally body slams and kills him, and he gets tried as an adult, and sentenced to LIFE in prison. Some people refuse to believe that there are two separate justice systems in America, but then again, some people think racism doesn't exist either, so I'm not surprised. As a black man, how am I supposed to have any faith in a justice system that shows such extreme double standards? Shaquanda Cotton, your cry has been heard. Blacks are 12.8 percent of America's population, but 49 percent of the prisons population. Are blacks genetically predisposed to become criminals, or is it something else? And who holds judges accountable for their decisions? That is, who makes sure justice is being administered properly? When Tyrone Brown was sentenced to life for a joint, and the same judge let Alex Wood plead guilty to murder, then violate his probation four times on much more serious charges without ever spending one day in jail, who will be the one to blow the whistle and say "something is not right here"? "All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing." You don't have to be black to be in an uproar over this particular injustice(but if you are black, you should be especially outraged), but in the name of Justice, you can not allow this to go unanswered. Free Shaquanda Cotton now.