rethabile has asked us to write an American sentence for Troy Davis. This is my American sentence.
To kill Troy Davis is to kill a foetus that has been fulfilled.
America applauds Bristol Palin for keeping her baby then its courts turn around and kill a man, indeed a man about whom there is doubt as to his guilt for the crime for which he has been sentenced. How come it's immoral to kill a foetus, but moral to kill a foetus that has grown and become the person it was meant to be? That seems somehow perverse, having less to do with ethics and more to do with some kind of ethereal, romantic notion about the helplessness of babes in the womb. If to kill in cold blood is wrong, then it matters not whom we kill. (We won't get into the issues of war and self-defense here.) Or does "pro-life" mean pro-foetal life? How can the same morality that is served when a foetus is preserved, also be served when a full-grown human person is killed? Isn't the argument made that it is wrong to kill a foetus because it is human life? And even if we were to agree that capital punishment is an appropriate verdict for a capital crime, must the state not pause when there is uncertainty that the person convicted is guilty? Or is there more going on here? Is this an issue that concerns race? Class? Both? It's impossible to pursue at this time all the relevant issues in this case, and we will hopefully return to at least some of them, one less obvious one being that idolatry is a subtle sin, one we commit when we purport to value "the sanctity of human life" when it is prettily wrapped up in a developing baby but regard it as disposable in grown human beings. We say, where I come from, "What go round, come round." Also, "Time longer than rope." They are interesting encapsulations of the idea of the inexorability of justice, elsewhere expressed in aphorisms like "Sow the wind and reap the whirlwind." Outside, beyond, over and above all our behaviours, individual and collective, as citizens, communities and states, the same inherent order (or Order) that sees to the rising and setting of the sun governs human behaviour. We should perhaps look to it.
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9 comments:
To demand vengeance for a crime that the man may not have committed is the height of absurdity. Yet the state in which I reside will, it seems, put him to death in the name of 'justice' because since a white policeman died a black man must atone for it. After all, black lives are worth less than white ones, just ask any white Southerner when they're being honest. How many white people have been executed for killing black people in the history of the United States?
i just wanted to stop in and personally thank you for taking an active part in spreading the word about troy davis.. thanks be a stay was granted and we should know monday whether or not the supreme court will hear his case or allow the execution to proceed... thanks again for your wisdom and generosity in posting about it here...
The sentence and the way you put this up shove the issue into the conscience of even the hardiest, me-don't-care person.
And you're right, of course. It isn't about whether or not capital punishment should be scrapped, but about the folly of cutting a head that may not have done the crime.
I've always considered capital punishment in the USA as revenge. Revenge for the victim's family, and revenge for the (white) community, as if all of life was based on the one premise of us against them based on colour.
But let me not monopolise your comments section. Thanks for responding. The Supreme Court has stayed Troy's execution and is looking into this
on another topic what do you think of Harper's comments about the arts? lol and will you be at word on the street sunday.
fsjl: Well, he's alive, thank God. This whole business of the number of black men on death row, the number of blacks in prison, is something that I'd expect Afro-Americans would be in an unremitting state of agitation about. Is it that black people are complicit in the belief that black lives are worth less than white ones? Or is there ongoing agitation that I simply don't know about?
Hi paisley: Good of you to stop by and no need to say thanks. Inasmuch as justice and freedom is threatened for anybody anywhere, then my own freedom and justice are at risk. It's that simple. Troy Davis is me. I am the woman in Darfur who is raped, the man in Kingston who is murdered, I am the prisoner who is water-boarded, I am the AID worker who is ambushed and hauled off to have her throat cut. We're living by the sword and perishing by it, following the example of politicians who send people off to war on a whim! It's insane!
rethabile: Glad you stopped by. I think you are right about the revenge aspect of capital punishment here in North America. It's tied in the press to something they call 'closure'. Now and then though, there are families who will come to court and say to a convicted murderer that they forgive them. It's an amazing example of wisdom and decency and charity. I can't see rejoicing over somebody being killed. I think it diminishes my own humanity. And please do monopolize my comments section as often and as lengthily as you wish. A pleasure - indeed, privilege – to have you come by.
jdid: Did you watch the debate? What did you think? Harper did a foolish thing to take on the artists! Everybody's family has an artist, after all, and now they/we are all up in arms. Governments don't often succeed when artistic communities rally against them. BTW, How was Word on the Street? Did you go?
Pam: There's certainly African-American opposition to the death penalty, but there's also resignation. You have to remember that African-Americans are outnumbered seven to one (though some of them don't understand this).
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