Re: Blog

I got a comment on Facebook about my previous blogpost ("Eye for an Eye"). Blogger for some reason would not let him post the comment so I am sharing it with you all. He also has a blog in which he discussed the topic of the death penalty, specifically in St. Kitts (eye-opening story by the way). Anyway -- here's what he had to say:

Hey Mia,

I just tried to post the following comment on your blog. I was unsuccessful. Feel free not to post it if you want. Well written blog. I enjoyed reading it.

Cheers,

Richard

My comments:

Well written post. I wrote an essay my freshman year at Howard about the death penalty. It was the only paper I earned an 'A' on from Dr. Bates, who had to be the toughest English professor at HU. There is no justification for the death penalty whatsoever.
Moral: Your essay addresses this.

Economic: The cost of death row is prohibitive.

Justice: How is it justice when it takes so long. This is not justice and more than that all studies done on the subject show that the family of victims are far better off if the case is closed and life imprisonment is the sentence than if the case drags on and execution is a result. The fact that Larry King was interviewing victims relatives over 20+years after the crime illustrates this.

Deterrent: Hardly! States using the death penalty almost all have correspondingly higher crime rates than those without it. This is the best apples-to-apples comparison since comparing different countries introduces socio-economic variables to crime that cloud the comparison.

I wrote a blog about the use of the death penalty in St. Kitts last year (click here to read).It's barbaric and the blood of Ronnie Gardner is on the hands of every Utahan and maybe even every American, including me. That's what I find most problematic.

Having said this, if I had to choose a method for my own execution, without a doubt, I would choose firing squad. My second choice would be guillotine. Quick. Least painful. People criticize the Saudis for beheading people. I think it's horrific but it is probably more humane than lethal injection and definitely more humane than electrocution or the gas chamber.

At the end of the day, we as a society need to figure out what constitutes justice. In the case of Ronnie Gardner, this was not justice. It was a state-sponsored murder.

Continuing ....

Hey Tamia,

I didn't even comment on the disproportionate use of the death penalty for minorities who commited a crime against whites vis-a-vis other situations as well as for poor vis-a-vis wealthy convicts. Ronnie Gardner actually is a compelling example of this. (Look at the guy's upbringing...tough.) I was at Howard during the OJ Simpson trial. I was telling classmates for months before the verdict that he would be exonerated. People didn't buy my arguement which revolved around the premise that Amerika is first and foremost a classist society. Within each class, the society is stratefied into race/gender/etc. Had OJ been rich and white he would never have been tried aka Jean Benet-Ramsey's parents. Had he been poor and white, he would have been convicted and sentenced to life or something like that. Had he been poor and Black or Latino, he would be on death row right now. Using this, I basically thought he would get off regardless of any evidence presented in court. (While I'm not debating the merits of the OJ case, I was merely using it as an example of the classism that exists in Amerika.)

What boggles my mind is how many in minority communities, especially Black and Latino communities, (as well as poor white communities) support the death penalty. It's like a deer supporting hunting season. Huh? That's just another example of how the right-wing has succeeded in getting people to vote against their own interests in the name of religion and religious fanaticism.

I'm glad you enjoyed the blog on St. Kitts. Thanks for posting my comments.

Cheers,

Richard


...what can I say, another person after my own heart! Thanks Richard!