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The curse of the black athlete

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WHY are the faces we see in the media in continuous and seemingly unrelenting attacks mostly of black athletes?
Are they more susceptible to moral failures, criminal activity or going afoul of the laws and rules of the leagues and society?
Former bodybuilder Bertil Fox was imprisoned in 1998 after he was convicted of the murder of his former fiancée, Leyonca Browne, and her mother, Violet Browne.
Both were shot to death on September 30 1997, on the island of St Kitts. Initially, Fox was tried and a hung jury allowed him to go free.
Public outrage, however, led to a retrial, where Fox was convicted and sentenced to the death penalty.
Later, the sentence was deemed unconstitutional, and Fox has been in a St Kitts prison ever since.
Retired NBA player Charles Smith had a notable basketball career at Georgetown University, with the 1988 United States Men’s Olympic Basketball Team and in the pros with the Boston Celtics and Minnesota Timberwolves.
His promising career, however, was interrupted in 1991 when he was involved in a hit-and-run incident that killed two students on the campus of Boston University.
Smith was convicted of vehicular homicide, sentenced to four-and-a-half years in prison, and served 28 months.
More recently, in 2010, Smith was shot in Maryland.
The incident prompted police to search his home, during which they found cocaine and evidence of a gambling operation.
Clifford ‘The Black Rhino’ Etienne enjoyed a successful boxing career in which he had 29 wins in 35 fights.
Interestingly enough, he began boxing while serving a prison sentence for armed robbery.
After earning numerous awards for his post-prison boxing career, Etienne found himself back behind bars in 2006 on charges of armed robbery, kidnapping, and the attempted murder of a police officer during a crazy cocaine-fuelled bender that involved robbing a business, carjacking, and kidnapping a family and trying to shoot two cops.
He was swiftly sent back to prison for 150 years without the chance of parole.
Mike Tyson, a former undisputed world boxing heavyweight title holder was arrested in 1991 for the alleged rape of 18-year-old Desiree Washington, who at the time was Miss Black Rhode Island.
Tyson was convicted of rape on February 10 1992 after the jury had deliberated for about 10 hours. He was sentenced to six years, followed by four years probation, but was released in 1995 after serving three years.
Tyson converted to Islam during his time in incarceration.
Once a promising football player with the UCLA Bruins and the Los Angeles Rams, Darryl Henley found himself in a heap of legal trouble in 1995.
Henley was convicted of drug trafficking and sentenced to 20 years in prison. He apparently was not too pleased with that verdict, as he allegedly hired a hitman to take out the judge and a key witness on the case.
That earned him another 21 years to his sentence.
National Football League (NFL) wide receiver Donte Stallworth had a notable football career with the Tennessee Volunteers and several teams in the NFL before he earned a season-long suspension for off-the-field troubles.
In the early morning hours of March 14 2009, Stallworth was driving a Bentley coupe in Miami Beach, Florida, when he hit and killed a pedestrian.
Although he had slept since last drinking, he was still legally drunk at the time of the accident, which led to DUI and second degree manslaughter charges.
He served 30 days in jail, performed
1 000 hours of community service, and paid a financial settlement to the victim’s family.
He returned to the NFL for the 2010 season.
Esteban De Jesús was a lightweight boxer who held the WBC Lightweight Championship title from 1976 to 1978.
In 1981, De Jesús made headlines for another reason: He killed a 17-year-old over a traffic dispute in Puerto Rico.
He went to prison, where he played baseball, became a preacher, and acquired AIDS.
At the age of 37, De Jesús received a pardon and was released, though he died one month later.
For former soccer player Gavin Grant, the legal problems came at the very beginning of his professional career and followed him until they ended his career abruptly.
In 2005, right when Grant first signed with his first pro team, Grant was accused of murder, a charge that was later dismissed.
In 2010, however, he was found guilty of a separate murder and sentenced to life in prison.
Defensive end Leonard Little played college football at Tennessee then in the NFL with the St Louis Rams, including winning Super Bowl XXXIV, before retiring in 2010.
During that career, Little also dealt with a multitude of legal problems, including in 1998 when he struck and killed a woman while driving drunk in Missouri.
Despite being double the legal limit, Little received only probation.
Additional charges, which were later dropped, came in 2003 for making threats and harassing calls to the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department.
Little also earned a second DWI in 2004 when he was caught speeding in Missouri.
Again, he only received probation.
Rubin ‘Hurricane’ Carter is a former middleweight boxer whose career ended in 1966 when he was arrested in a triple homicide in Patterson, New Jersey.
Carter was allegedly involved in a shooting at a bar that claimed three lives. Initially, he was convicted with eyewitness testimony, a crucial part of the first case, but after those witnesses changed their story, Carter was granted a second trial.
He was convicted again, but later won an appeal and was freed in 1985.
Carter currently serves as a motivational speaker and advocate for the wrongly convicted.
The story was the inspiration for the Bob Dylan song ‘Hurricane’ and Denzel Washington film, The Hurricane.
It is important to note that for decades, black athletes were prohibited from participating in professional sports leagues of white America.
So they set up their own leagues and, in cases such as baseball, generally outperformed professional white athletes.
The desire for more competitive players led to the breaking of the colour barrier.
Today, black athletes dominate many professional sports.
The breaking of the colour barrier in sports, however, didn’t necessarily break down the stereotypes and other racial attitudes toward blacks that prohibited the integration of the leagues in the first place.
Black athletes are moving targets for the media because of their celebrity status and potential to marshal black youth in more positive directions.
Many of the athletes who get into trouble themselves are young and inexperienced in handling large sums of money, making them susceptible to being relieved of their money (and influence) by getting into trouble.
But there are also questions about proper temperament and expectations for proper conduct.
Tennis star Serena Williams was fined a record US$82 500 for anger expressed at an official during a match.
She is matching the fine with an equal donation through her foundation to open a school in Africa.
But the volatile John McEnroe, now a commentator and a tennis star of the 1970s and 1980s, had legendary angry outbursts.
In retirement, he had a commercial that played on his huge temper tantrums.
Dr Davidson has said, if a black athlete is outspoken or becomes politically and racially conscious, they are vilified, pointing to historical figures such as boxers Jack Johnson and Muhammad Ali, 1968 Olympic medal winners Tommie Smith and John Carlos and football star Jim Brown.

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