As I hinted to in a previous post regarding Mike Vick, I don’t think he made a wise choice and IF the allegations are true, he is a heartless soul. The operative word being IF. Innocent until proven guilty no longer applies, not that it ever did. We’ve all formed an opinion, including me. I will wait to see how it plays out in court before demanding his employer, The Atlanta Falcons, give him the boot.
For all of those rabid animal lovers who want this to happen, I have two questions.
- If you were charged with a crime and awaiting trial, would it be fair for your employer to fire you based on the demands of the general public?
- Would you be equally outraged if the victims had been human? Or a non-white member of your community?
Moving on…
Ronald Isley is due to report to prison in 3 weeks to begin serving his 3 year sentence for tax evasion. This morning on the Steve Harvey radio show, a call in guest (Can’t recall his name. Anthony? Moses?) requested listeners and fans contact your Senators, Congressman, and even the White House to ask for leniency. Ronald Isley suffers from kidney and cardio vascular disease…overall poor health and his attorney and family thinks he will die in prison.
From what I gathered from media reports is that Mr. Biggs had several chances to pay back taxes due to the IRS, voluntarily, but didn’t. Mr. Biggs’ people, or person, on the radio show, claims Mr. Biggs contacted the IRS initially regarding a discrepancy. Turns out the IRS owe Mr. Biggs $3 million and took 4 years to pay him. Mr. Biggs’ people also site some extenuating circumstances such as the death of his brother, OKelly (he’s also charged with cashing his royalty checks after his death) and the death of two accountants while in the midst of preparing his taxes.
References have been made to Willie Nelson’s tax issues. He cut a deal, paid the back taxes and penalties and didn’t do any time. So why can’t Ronald Isley have the same deal? Different set of circumstances. Different men…Nelson is white…Isley is black.
To use a line from Morris O’Kelly, “The criminal courts system has an undeniable and irrefutable history of working to the disadvantage of African-American men.” As black people, we all know the playing field is not even. We were taught this as young children, be it overtly or subliminally. Ronald Isley, I’m sure, knows this too given time in which he came of age in this country. His plight may be due to ignorance, bad advice, greed, or a combination of all three. We, the general public will never know. Does he deserve leniency given his health?
So I ask the question…is this a cause we want to lend our voices to?
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