So it is 15 minutes before 3 am on the east coast as we head into December 13, 2005. It is certain that the life of Stanley Tookie Williams will be changed. He is scheduled to meet death at 12:01 am California time. He will not write any more books or articles steering youth from a life of gang violence. He will no longer address listeners at conferences by telephone or grant interviews from prison. The injection will still his body, but his voice will not be silenced. It will ring out on the pages he leaves behind. His words will continue to be read. May his lessons, become our lessons.
He admits that he regrets his choices. Who of us don't admit that our choices have not always bought about benefits for our family, friends or neighbors? His life up to this moment has been a testament, not just for reforming gang members but also for any of us who wish to transform our lives.
I particularly found Amy Goodman's interview a few weeks ago something to ponder.
I grew up in the Baptist church and remember the duality of the biblical teaching of "eye for an eye” and the flip side,
“he who is without sin cast the first stone" doctrine. If I learned nothing else from the teachings of Jesus, it is that change is possible. This is such a simple teaching. Yet as our society increases the prison industrial complex and swallows more and more of the disenfranchised, poor, black and brown, change is far from what our halls of reform do.
Sending Stanley Williams to the death chamber will not keep people from murdering one another. Sending anyone to the death chamber does not change their past acts.
Do those who justify the death penalty really believe that death is a final act? Apparently some of us haven't read the bible far enough. And even if you don't believe in the bible, this is a country founded on justice, liberty etc. How many more examples do we need paraded in front of us to show that our system needs serious work? How many of us need to be Katrina'd into a wake up call? Will we be angry enough when a simple trip to the grocery store where a robbery takes place, ends up with another one of us behind bars because we looked like the perpetrator? How many people need to be found innocent after the fact, before we get rid of the death penalty?
So tonight, Stanley Tookie Williams will leave behind the physical chains that bind him. His spirit will live on in those of us who choose to be the light of his memory.
May the hearts and minds of those who believe in the death penalty be changed. May his death break the silence that binds us.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Warrior Pen, Your blog on Tookie Stanley was your best yet. Art thou also sending thy writings off to magazines and art thou also looking for space in a newspaper with thy byline written all over it? You need to get thyself to an activist publication and get on with it. I am, as always, mightily proud of you!
Pardon me on the dyslexic placement of Mr.Williams's name. The memory is shot. My students from the Bronx, Harlem, Brooklyn, and Queens had a lot to say the morning of his death. So MUCH good could have gone from forgiveness. It appears it is not his sin anymore, is it, but rather, the system's...
Post a Comment