Thursday, April 4, 2013

Justice Served?

While looking into the these NFL free agent signings I came across one that made me stop in my tracks. Before I get back into the more household names I felt like this guy deserved a page to himself. My post today is about Brian Banks..A man now but a child at the time of the incident, who persevered through a travesty that I'm struggling to even put into words... The beauty of the story is he has just been offered a contract from the Atlanta Falcons...The ugly? The injustice, the major fault and irresponsibility of  the judicial system. As a young black man I would be blowing smoke if I was to say that race doesn't play a factor to me just a tad bit. But in the bigger picture it leaves me to wonder how many other of these cases were handled incorrectly? How could someone be serving time for a crime they did not commit? Black, White, Hispanic, Asian, Indian, and any other race I left out, no human being deserves to be wrongly accused and taken away from their family and lively hood to serve time in prison. While ESPN and any other major sports broadcast via radio or TV is quick to announce the breaking news of a football player or any athlete that has been arrested for gun possession or a d.u.i charge, how about this one on the complete flip side. A man stripped of receiving major football scholarships, the privilege of being healthy, young and the opportunity to have a maturation process around your peers as well as the freedoms of everyday life we take for granted .Yes this is ultimately a football story but I have to go back to the bigger picture because these things continue to happen in our society to everyday people and a majority happen to be minorities which is simply a fact. Fitting a "stereotype" and being falsely accused and convicted without a fair trial is part of our rights last time I checked and their should be no flaw in that process. I salute and admire the many that tackle these type of issues on a daily basis as I am merely an outsider with a perspective looking in with my full backing on putting an end to these type of injustices. And getting back to the football side as it pertains to Brian Banks, a 6'2 250lb linebacker, I hope he goes "Waterboy" on these dudes and has a nice little tenure at playing the game he never thought he would play again.....

It's also proof that faith in God can give you piece of mind and can get you through any obstacle thrown your way, but I'm not going to go all Rev T.Hill on ya.

Please check the story out if you haven't already read or heard about it: http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/03/us/georgia-football-player-exonerated/index.html