Historically, it has been posited that "all men are created equal." That simple phrase holds basis for the hope of all Americans born in this country over the past half century. With the flurry of legislative leaps of the 60s and the improbable implementations of executive enforcements of the 70s, that basis for hope catapulted the country forward 100 years. Unfortunately, the masterful mauling of those gains by the likes of The Moral Majority of the 80s provided fuel for covert coalitions, making way for Christian conservatives to crash the hopes of inherent equality for all men.

How many of us have misused the "all men are created equal" phrase? We use it as if it’s an application rather than an ideal. We, in our honest examination of empirical evidence know better; we know truth. Factually speaking, the penalties for misconduct are delivered unevenly - racially unevenly - even after decades of statistical data confirming this fact.

I sat back, listened, and pondered the trial and conviction of longtime baseball great Barry Bonds, baseball's all-time home run king. Though he was not convicted of using steroids, he was convicted in pursuit of steroid use. The vast majority of Americans believe that many major leaguers, like Bond, used steroids during the 90s. Marian Jones, who also became embroiled in a federal probe of steroid use, was ultimately convicted of perjury. Jones was sentenced to six months in jail, and stripped of her Olympic medals.

Here's the question: Why weren't players like Mark McGwire pursued and prosecuted? Why weren't McGwire and Jose Conseco—both visibly swollen by steroids—adjudicated by the long arm of the law? My answer: They avoided the scourge of disgrace because of the skin they’re in; their skin color is just the right hue.

Aside from the baseball incident, I've observed entertainers and compared their crimes and punishments. What I see is parallel prosecution for Blacks and whites. The verdict: dissimilar and unequal disposition.

Look at Wesley Snipes' case. Snipes was convicted for non-payment of income taxes, and was speedily sentenced to three years in federal prison. I think about the scores of Wall Street brokers and financiers who diverted their earnings into offshore accounts—with government knowledge. In an August 12, 2008 article, the Associated Press reported that two-thirds of U.S. corporations paid no federal income taxes between 1998 and 2005. The data, according to a Government Accountability Office report, also noted combined sales of $2.5 trillion dollars for the companies cited.

While that article highlighted government-sanctioned corporate welfare through 2005, fast forward five years later to the report released by Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, the sole Socialist Party member in the U.S. Congress. The updated report named ten giant U.S. companies that paid little or no income tax for the 2011 IRS tax-filing season—Exxon Mobil, General Electric (whose CEO Jeffrey Immelt leads the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness), Chevron, Boeing, Goldman Sachs, and others.

How many of those corporations were headed by Blacks? One? Two? You get my point? Those “white collars” received no prison sentences—let alone prosecution! I think about the numerous executives who did what Wesley Snipes was convicted of doing. Guess who is not going to jail?

Remember, Martha Stewart? What awaited her release from prison? A reality show, of course, more money and a job! And then, there’s Michael Vick. Two years in prison?! You’ve got to be kidding me!

I contend that even the lowly, infantile antics of celebrities such as Lindsay Lohan seem to be tolerated by the courts. Sentenced to a 90-day jail term for probation violations that stipulated attendance in drug education classes - not treatment but education classes—hardly seems too harsh to bear. Thousands of Black males currently languish in U.S. prisons for the crime of marijuana possession - for amounts less than the threshold amounts states establish for distribution or trafficking charges.   

I don’t know the whereabouts of a study to confirm my empirical evidence, but suffice it to say, you (Black people) cannot do what they (white people) do. The consequences for you [us] are often life in prison or along the margins of society through lifelong probation (e.g., exclusion from access to federal college financial aid, public housing, job opportunities, and disfranchisement). More empirically sound than I [am] is Michelle Alexander who, in her book, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness (See all African-American Studies Books) , eloquently and outstandingly expounds on why you can’t do what they do.

BlackCommentator.com Columnist, Perry Redd, is the former Executive Director of the workers rights advocacy, Sincere Seven, and author of the on-line commentary, “The Other Side of the Tracks.” He is the host of the internet-based talk radio show, Socially Speaking in Washington, DC. Click here to contact Mr. Redd.