The Professional Gambler
Photo by Keenan Constance on Unsplash

There’s a great analogy at the start of Malcolm X’s biography.

In it, he talks of the law of averages and probability.

If you were playing cards, blackjack or roulette or doing any kind of gambling, and one person was winning all the time, every single time eventually you would say they’re cheating. That they’re dealing from the bottom of the deck. They’re playing the system.

Photo by Michał Parzuchowski on Unsplash

And it’s the same with if someone loses every single time. You would say eventually this doesn’t seem right, this game must be rigged. In a game of chance, surely you’d win here and there — even if overall you lose your money.

Even if they’re a professional gambler with years of experience, playing against an amateur. Sure, the extra skill and experience will count for something and ensure they minimise their risk and make better decisions but even they wouldn’t expect to win every single time.

Life doesn’t or shouldn’t work like that.

Even casinos themselves, whilst the saying goes ’The house always wins in the end’ — and they admittedly bias each game with a ‘house edge’ so they are likely to gain the longer someone plays at the table, do incur losses from time to time.

Photo by Macau Photo Agency on Unsplash

He compares this to white folk — how is it they’ve engineered life in such a way, where they’re winning all the time, literally and that black people, are constantly losing at this game of life.

Is it just luck? Is it just science?

Or is it engineered?

When you watch documentaries like ‘13th’ on Netflix you begin to see that ‘freedom’ is an illusion.

This little analogy is simple but profound in explaining institutional and systemic discrimination, the impact of colonisation and the whitewashing of history on those we may consider as not being ‘privileged’ today.
['Faisal Amjad']
['Malcolm X', 'Racism', 'Discrimination', 'Institutional Racism', 'Gambling']