For me, yesterday was not about the death penalty itself; despite the fact that it was the focal point for anyone watching the news between 7PM and midnight. What I saw was 400 years of struggle and progress spat upon by the US Justice System. I haven’t been vocal about the Troy Davis execution. Maybe I should’ve been. Perhaps with more voices in his defense, this man would still be alive and fighting for his Constitutional right to a fair trial. But Troy Davis is one of thousands (perhaps millions) of wrongfully accused Black and Brown men to be railroaded by our police and courts.
My normal response to hearing the Troy Davis saga would be to shrug it off as business as usual. Black and Brown victims of the judicial system are more common than blades of grass on a soccer field. They’re so many of them that we forget more than we remember—Rodney King, Arthur McDuffie, Amadou Diallo, the victims of the NOPD at the Danziger Bridge—so when the stay of execution was denied, not only was I not surprised, I actually EXPECTED it. And that’s when the gravity of the situation hit me. I don’t expect to be protected by this legal system. I don’t expect the police to come to my aid effectively. I don’t expect to get a fair trial should I ever face serious charges.
And I feel awful…so awful that I have come to accept as normal a situation where a killer says “That guy over there? He did it!” and the Justice System simply accepts it as fact and executes an innocent man. What’s to stop someone from doing that to me or someone I know? The bigger question is: will the justice system work for me or for them? If it doesn’t work, we already know the system is corrupt so no surprises there. But what if it does work, the detectives do their job, and the appeals system reviews evidence, and the clemency board pays attention? If it works out for me or the people I know, why didn’t it work out for Troy Davis.
The curse of the jaded is that they live day in and day out accepting perversion as normal. Our mantra is “that’s just the way things are.” But yesterday was a wake up call because the US is changing rapidly and not for the better. We are on the brink of a culture war and paranoia is in full bloom all over the country. And a paranoid country is an unjust country. Troy Davis will not be the last man in this position…but maybe the next man doesn’t have to die.
