Monday, July 6, 2015

Set Our Urkel Free!

The superficial facts have not changed. We have a successful young and ambitious black politician with an Ivy League education whose peers have declared a felon sending him to jail. Depending on sentencing and appeals his next stop may well be prison where he will very likely encounter the kinds of black men he aspired not to be. And we applauded him for those aspirations. We still do.

Many will say it is a shame that he is going to prison. But it isn't. He clearly deserves punishment, the same and to the same degree as would any other. What is a shame is that he has thrown away a prized education, all his hard work, his career, his esteem in the community and has done such damage to his wife and children. Add to this his violation of public trust and abuse of power. Should he go to prison? Certainly. Should we feel sorry? Not for him.