Titanic Post

I am deeply saddened by the execution of Tookie Williams—a man who may or may not have been guilty of killing four people. After the California Supreme Court and Governor Schwartzenegger (the Terminator) denied Williams clemency, he was put to death last night by the State of California.

I didn’t know Williams and don’t really want to have known him. The question of guilty or not is also irrelevant to me. My point is, He was executed in all our names, not only for the victim’s families, but also for the citizens of California, the United States, and all of humanity. I feel diminished as a human being having someone killed in my name. It would suffice to keep bad people in prison until, if ever, they could be release back into society. All the death penalty accomplishes is to satisfy our most vulgar demands for revenge and to keep us acclimated and accomplices to violence. When the criminal is black, as was Tookie, it also allows us to feel privileged and to know that we are not like “them.”

In reality the only way any government can exist is to have power over its citizens. The supreme courts, governors, and state powers of the world find it necessary to occasionally sacrifice a human to remind us of our place.