It's All A Game
Powerful Essays in the Game of Survival
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THE GAME OF CAPITAL PUNISHMENT “Execute JUSTICE, Not People!” In 1972, the United States Supreme Court decided that the death penalty was unconstitutional because it discriminated against minorities and because it constituted cruel and unusual punishment. In Furman v. Now, we have another death penalty. This time about 60% of all those on death rows are African American and 90% of them were sentenced for murdering whites. What has happened is that the percentages of African Americans receiving a death sentence decreased in comparison with whites but the focus of the death penalty changed to the color of one’s victim. At the same time, fewer than 5% of all African Americans that kill other African Americans ever receive the death penalty. This means the death penalty has also become a penalty of race, “the race penalty.” In any case where the death penalty applies as a possibility for the offense committed, if a person is poor and of color, he is very likely to receive the death penalty. Ninety-nine percent of all Blacks that receive the death penalty are poor. For the same cases and circumstances, a white person will likely receive a sentence ranging from as little as ten years to life imprisonment. A state spends an average of ten thousand dollars per day to prosecute a death penalty case. That same state will give a court appointed attorney a total of five hundred dollars to defend a person facing the death sentence. This is designed to get a conviction whether a person is guilty or innocent. Instead of being innocent until proven guilty by the state, the person bears the burden to prove his innocence and he has five hundred dollars while the state will spend whatever it takes to get a conviction. This means that along with being “the race penalty,” the death penalty becomes “the economic penalty.” The Game of Pimping Black Athletes “Still Getting Paid from Black Bodies” With all the problems and traps able to ensnare today’s high-profile African American athlete, the athlete is desperately in need of guidance. Without it, he’s bound to lose his focus and might continue to be labeled and exploited for his athletic ability. Guidance for Black athletes has been lacking for years. The athlete, as a part of the billion dollar collegiate sports industry, is positioned to be victimized by a system that pats itself on the back for being one of the few areas of American society where African Americans have found opportunity and equality on a level playing field. However, African American athletes are increasingly criticizing the sports industry,
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About the Book
In life all types of games are played. From the moment we are born as children we are conditioned to playing games, from hide-and-seek and hopscotch to Junior Pro football and Little League baseball. As we reach adolescence and continue to adulthood, the games continue. There are dating games in male-female relationships to the vicious games played in corporate America. The following statement is dually true for African Americans. For the games we are playing are often times used against us and as tools for our oppression and control in this society. The purpose of this book is to analyze and take a look at all the various games that are played in our lives. It is out of looking at all the different types of games that are played in our lives, that the book is purposely entitled, It’s All A Game. It is hoped by analyzing these games that we learn about these games such that we can win the game as a people. And now without further hesitation, let the game begin!
About the Author
Jerry Ingram
Rahssan Malik Robinson was born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1971, grew up in west Tennessee and has lived throughout the Midwest including Detroit, Cleveland and Washington, D.C. He was a founding member of Nashville’s first "views paper," the Third Eye, in 1990. A graduate of Tennessee State University, Mr. Robinson is presently a computer contractor. Additionally, he is an avid reader and writer. It’s All A Game is his first publication.