It's 3:47 am
I just read on MSNBC.com that
Stanley "Tookie" Williams was executed
by lethal injection by the State of California.
tears are sliding across my face while my fingers hit this
keyboard
what kind of system do we live in
when a man that is nominated for the nobel prize in peace
and literature is not considered even worthy of life in
prison
what does that say about the rest of us
it tells me that we are expendable
especially our young men in the inner city living the
street life
what are they worth in the eyes of the system
the army can drop bombs on Baghdad killing babies
and somehow that is justified
they can justify torturing people in their prisons
but one man, a former gang banger,
og - original gangsta, can't be spared,
even though he's written children's books condemning
violence
even though he has renounced his own involvement in gang
activity,
how come people across an ocean can nominate this man
for the peace prize and our nation executes him.
This is just a glaring example of the war that
this jim crow judicial system is waging on the black
community.
if you don't believe it,
spend one day in any city court in the country
more often than not you will find a scene out of south
africa, lot's of white people making
a livelihood off of the incarceration of black people.
Nelson Mandela knew what it was like to waste a quarter
century in a cell, just like "Tookie" Williams.
and even though Winnie Mandela came to visit "Tookie" to
commend him on his amazing work, he's still a nigger
in they eyes of Arnold Schwarzenegger. Not worthy of
breathing air anymore.
What I witnessed acrossed cyber space this early morning
was a modern day
lynching, and now Stanley Williams is with Emmit Till and
the numerous souls awaiting redemption,
longing for the day that we correct the racist,
sadistic society we live in.
Life is so precious that we kill people by lethal
injection to show the world that killing is wrong.
If it is true that the criminal justice system is nothing
but a Jim Crow System, and the prison system nothing but a
slave system, and the death penalty nothing but legalized
lynching. Than I ask you a question. Where is John
Brown? Where is Nat Turner? Where is Harriet Tubman?
Are we just the apologetic voices that sat idly by while
america was founded on slavery and genocide re-incarnated
for the 21st century?
I hope not.
The tears on my cheek are still hoping that redemption is
possible.

Victorio Reyes

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Stanley Tookie Williams III was executed early this morning by lethal injection administered by the state of California. Williams, who was weeks from his 52nd birthday, is said to have been a co-founder of the Crips gang in Los Angeles. In 1981, he was convicted of the 1979 murders of four people in the Los Angeles area. After 6.5 years in solitary confinement on Death Row at San Quentin, he renounced his past gang affiliation. He wrote several books and started programs to discourage youth from joining gangs. A film starring Jamie Foxx entitled "Redemption: The Stan Tookie Williams Story," was made to tell his story. Williams never admitted to having committed the murders for which he was convicted. This was one reason that Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger cited for denying him clemency. Supporters of Williams tried to submit issues to various legal bodies in hopes of being granted a stay of execution. If a 60-day stay had been granted, it would have given time for courts to examine the legal issues that are outstanding in the case. It would have also given California's legislative bodies a chance to vote on AB 1121, the California Moratorium on Executions Act. Read more

WHO IS STAN TOOKIE WILLIAMS?

Stan is a peacemaker on death row.

He has been nominated 5 times for the Nobel Peace Prize for his work in helping to prevent gang violence.

He has been nominated four times for the Nobel Literature Prize for his children's books that warn young people about the pitfalls of joining a gang and exposes them to alternatives.

He maintains innocence of the crimes he was accused of, and faced racist discrimination throughout his trial. One issue highlighted the fact that the prosecutor in Tookie's original case removed three African-American jurors from the jury. During Stan's trial, this prosecutor made racially-coded remarks during his closing argument, comparing Stan during the trial to a Bengal tiger in the zoo and stating that a black community - South Central Los Angeles - was equivalent to the natural "habitat" of a Bengal Tiger.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled against Tookie on his final appeal and set his execution date for December 13. Thus they disregarded 9 of the 24 Ninth Circuit Court judges' assertion that the District Attorney at Tookie's trial employed "reprehensible and unconstitutional" racist tactics, using animal-in-a-jungle metaphors to refer to Tookie and to the South Central environment in which he lived. This landmark ruling means that minorities can now legally be rejected from juries based on race. This is now the law of the land.


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