Let's Make A Deal

You probably don't know who this gentleman is in this photo do you? I can tell you one thing...He's not Eric Snowden....The reason why I mention Eric Snowden is because the man in that photo and Eric Snowden are both in the same predicament....Both are fugitives from the United States.....Both are presently granted asylum in a foreign country...Both want to come home.  Guess which one will probably come home one day to no charges?? Possibly Fanfare!!!  It Aint Pete O'Neal, the black man in the above photo...

Pete O'Neal was once the Chairman of the Black Panther Party in St. Louis ,Missouri....He was convicted in 1969 of transporting a shotgun over state lines...Rather than go to prison...He did what Eldridge Cleaver and a lot of Black Panthers did...He fled to Cuba , then Algiers and eventually Tanzania...Where he presently resides......

It's been 45 years...He wants to come home....He has a cousin....a cousin in the House of Represenatives...
And though his cousin, Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.), has exhausted all channels for a plea or clemency deal, you won’t be hearing about that coming to pass anytime soon.

In contrast...Let's look at Eric Snowden...

He is wanted for far more serious offenses....Can you say TREASON???

He is  a keyboard-tapping, suburban-raised white guy who gave away national secrets... The Washington Post's David Ignatius has said “If he came back and told everything he knows, then perhaps some accommodation could be reached.” It’s something that Snowden himself alluded to in his recent interview with NBC News’ Brian Williams, and it’s a “discussion” that National Security Agency Deputy Director Rick Ledgett suggested might be entertained when he was backed into it by zealous techies looking to shield Snowden from the clutches of embarrassed federal agents.

And if that plea deal ever happens, it'll be a little bit like the 15-month slap on the wrist that was handed out to Piper Kerman—the real-life memoirist on whose experiences the hit Netflix series Orange Is the New Black is based—especially when compared with the 24 years that a similarly situated black woman, Kemba Smith, got for pretty much the same crime. Piper Kerman got a TV show, and Oliver Stone just announced plans for a biopic about Eric  Snowden.

Hell, Kemba Smith can’t even get a Lifetime movie.  And nobody will be giving Pete O'Neal anything but a quick arrest and a quick stint to the penitentary if he ever sets foot on U.S. soil again...

No deals or statutes of limitations for former Black revolutionaires...or poor misguided Black women who unknowingly transport drugs over state lines for their no good boyfriends....But the man who gave away sensitive government secrets to a foreign power just might get a plea arrangement deal , a movie and who knows ...a television show based on his crime...

Tell me..What am I missing here, huh?