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arguchiki had a long conversation with a student, yesterday, about the execution of tookie williams. this student is an african-american man, and found himself even more painfully in the minority than usual at UW (university of whiteness...er...washington), as he was sitting around with a bunch of fellow dorm-dwellers watching the news. a huge argument apparently erupted over whether or not gov. schwarzenegger should grant clemency to williams, and this student found himself alone in a sea of self-righteous death-penalty pitbulls. i can't even imagine what it was like for him. in my office, this young man was visibly upset about tookie williams' death, shaken, afraid, outraged, and he talked about how alienated he feels, both from his peers and from american society in general. he asked, "if they would kill tookie williams, this man who was dedicated to non-violence, and who wrote all these children's books, what's going to stop them from killing me?"
i didn't know how to console my student, and i struggled for words that might offer him reassurance or optimism, but i couldn't find any. i was shaken and outraged by tookie williams' execution too. i couldn't sleep monday night, couldn't stop thinking about it. i felt the same way a couple of weeks ago, when i read the news coverage about two executions that happened back east. those two executions ended up being the 1000th and 1001st executions, respectively, since the US supreme court reinstated the death penalty back in the late 70's. one article i read focused on the demographics of maryland's death row, an analysis that reveals that the vast majority of death penalty recipients in maryland consist of poor black men convicted of commiting capital crimes with white victims, within the boundaries of baltimore county. can anyone look at these statistics, and NOT see that race and class articulate together in determining who will, and who will not, receive the death penalty for their crimes? this pattern is *most* marked in baltimore county, but it is visible wherever the death penalty is practiced--indeed, it is endemic to the criminal justice system as a whole. now ask yourself...and i'm curious to know whether anyone has done this research...when was the last time you *ever* heard of a white man (or woman, for that matter) getting the death penalty for killing a black person? can anyone name a case? yet history is rife with examples of white-perpetrated violence against blacks, with death resulting: lynchings, bombings, shootings; and in many of these cases, the white perpetrators are well known, yet never suffer any consequences for their crimes. in the rare instances when they have faced any charges at all, the resultant trial is often a sham at best. to wit, my student brought up the example of emmet till's killers, whose trial lasted all of an hour, and who were found not guilty. photographs of emmet till's face and body show the tremendous violence he suffered before he died. it was a horrific crime, yet no justice was served. my student is right...simply because he was born a black man in the united states, he is in danger. and i can't offer him any substantive reassurance. it makes me sick to see how deeply this has scarred him, to see the tremendous obstacles he has to struggle with--obstacles set up by entrenched institutional racism, to which this society turns a blind eye.
in the case of tookie williams, what disturbs me the most--and a similar thing disturbed me when timothy mcveigh was executed, though in a different way, obviously, given that he was a white supremacist--is how a rhetoric of individualized evil springs up around the execution process, as a sort of "psychic cushion" of justification surrounding what is actually the ritualized, sanitized, state-sanctioned and state-perpetrated vengeance-killing of a defenseless human being. by "individualized evil," i mean the practice of locating evil in a particular body, of isolating it and imagining it as something that can be separated from society like a cancerous tumor, and eliminated through the "cleansing" ritual of execution. this practice allows us to ignore the socio-economic, cultural, and historical factors that, together, contributed to (one might say "produced") the condemned person's situation, perspective, and actions. in acting out this ritual, which is popularly imagined and represented as a rite that will somehow bring justice to the victim(s), give closure to the victim(s)' survivors, and "heal" the social body, we collectively ignore the condemned person's perspective, which conveys a message that would, if we listened to it, highlight the ways in which we are *all* complicit in producing what we call "evil." we don't want to listen to that, to take it seriously as a critique of our culture, our economy, our political and social practices, because it would require us to make drastic changes that seem beyond us, and to take responsibility for our complicity in producing and reproducing this culture.
what frustrates me the most about the death penalty is that i do not know how to fight it, effectively. i live in a state that still has--and theoretically would still employ--a gallows. i live in a country that still has--and still employs--firing squads and electric chairs and gas chambers. all of these execution methods make people squeamish, because the suffering of the condemned person is readily apparent to any witness, and the mode of death thereby seems more brutal, more violent. the bodies of electric chair victims contort and burn. firing squad victims bleed. hanging victims thrash, and the breaking of the neck is audible. gas chamber victims also thrash, as they suffocate and are poisoned and burned by cyanide gas. in some ways, though, i think these more overtly horrific methods of execution are "better" than lethal injection--and by "better" i simply mean that it is far more difficult for observers to evade the brutality inherent in a practice that implicates us all because it is perpetrated in our name. lethal injection, however, masquerades as a humane, sanitary, medicalized method of execution, and it contributes to the illusion that what we are doing, when we execute a human being, is something *other* than state-sanctioned murder. it reinforces the image of the death penalty as the surgical removal of an "evil" growth on society, and it blunts opposition to the death penalty because it is not an overtly brutal method. for example, one of the witnesses to timothy mcveigh's execution lamented that "he didn't suffer enough. it was too peaceful" of course he suffered! he suffered death.
one of the witnesses to tookie williams' execution observed that he "looked intimidating" and "flexed his chest muscles." this jibes with the images of tookie williams that circulated widely during his last days: pictures of him as a young man, flexing his bodybuilt muscles, face surrounded by a "natural." to anyone who has studied the history of racism in the u.s., these pictures strike a familiar note: the hypermasculinized black male body as inherently threatening to the (white) social body. they run counter to more sympathetic portrayals of tookie williams as peacemaker, as author of children's books, as committed to *ending* gang violence. the man had to sit there while a nurse struggled to find a vein in his arm. he refused a last meal, and a sedative. he was strapped to a table, condemned to die--to suffer the final ripping away of all dignity--in front of a room full of hostile strangers (except for his own 5 witnesses). before he died, he repeatedly looked into the eyes of his witnesses, telling them over and over again that he loved them. this is intimidating??? no, this is a man facing death, seeking solace in his last moments, most likely terrified despite his desire to be courageous, trying one last time to connect to his loved ones.
a more difficult question lurks at the heart of these seemingly irreconcilable portraits of the same man, however: the question of what produced gang violence to begin with. *that* is the question that tookie williams' life insistently asks, the question that his execution, and the rhetoric of individualized evil vs. redemption and rehabilitation that surrounds it, are designed to obscure. by locating evil in his body, in his image, in his actions; and by arguing over whether or not his rehabilitation was legitimate or a "put-on," we avoid acknowledging the long history of state-sanctioned violence against black men, and the perpetually uneven (that's putting it way too mildly!) application of "justice"--from racial slavery to jim crow laws and ghettoization, to segregation, to lynching, to the persistence of political, cultural, and economic alienation. these rhetorics invite us to evade the fact that we live in a "society structured in dominance" (concept borrowed from louis althusser), and to avoid facing the vastly complex task of undoing the system of privilege that structures all aspects of our social, political, cultural, and economic institutions and practices.
and there i sat, yesterday, listening to my student whose critical awareness has consistently inspired me this quarter--he sees it, he gets it, because he lives it--and what words could i offer, what substance could i offer? i, a white woman who, while i did not come from a privileged background, nevertheless have access to privilege by "virtue" of my whiteness. it sounds so hollow, to say to him, "yes, you're right. keep fighting. it will get better." i feel complimented by the fact that this student felt comfortable and safe enough with me, to talk about this subject, that he knew i would listen to him and respect him--indeed, agree with him. but the conversation also forced me to confront the fact that there is no politically neutral subject position available in this "society structured in dominance." no matter how i might long for such a position, or for a political activism that would let me follow some "higher road," i am constantly implicated in the system of privilege that structures this society. this doesn't mean i am powerless to resist it, or that there's nothing i can do to help *undo* it, but it is a very potent reminder of how complex and monumental that task is, how extensively privilege and its effects pervade this society, and how deeply we are all implicated in it.
i didn't know how to console my student, and i struggled for words that might offer him reassurance or optimism, but i couldn't find any. i was shaken and outraged by tookie williams' execution too. i couldn't sleep monday night, couldn't stop thinking about it. i felt the same way a couple of weeks ago, when i read the news coverage about two executions that happened back east. those two executions ended up being the 1000th and 1001st executions, respectively, since the US supreme court reinstated the death penalty back in the late 70's. one article i read focused on the demographics of maryland's death row, an analysis that reveals that the vast majority of death penalty recipients in maryland consist of poor black men convicted of commiting capital crimes with white victims, within the boundaries of baltimore county. can anyone look at these statistics, and NOT see that race and class articulate together in determining who will, and who will not, receive the death penalty for their crimes? this pattern is *most* marked in baltimore county, but it is visible wherever the death penalty is practiced--indeed, it is endemic to the criminal justice system as a whole. now ask yourself...and i'm curious to know whether anyone has done this research...when was the last time you *ever* heard of a white man (or woman, for that matter) getting the death penalty for killing a black person? can anyone name a case? yet history is rife with examples of white-perpetrated violence against blacks, with death resulting: lynchings, bombings, shootings; and in many of these cases, the white perpetrators are well known, yet never suffer any consequences for their crimes. in the rare instances when they have faced any charges at all, the resultant trial is often a sham at best. to wit, my student brought up the example of emmet till's killers, whose trial lasted all of an hour, and who were found not guilty. photographs of emmet till's face and body show the tremendous violence he suffered before he died. it was a horrific crime, yet no justice was served. my student is right...simply because he was born a black man in the united states, he is in danger. and i can't offer him any substantive reassurance. it makes me sick to see how deeply this has scarred him, to see the tremendous obstacles he has to struggle with--obstacles set up by entrenched institutional racism, to which this society turns a blind eye.
in the case of tookie williams, what disturbs me the most--and a similar thing disturbed me when timothy mcveigh was executed, though in a different way, obviously, given that he was a white supremacist--is how a rhetoric of individualized evil springs up around the execution process, as a sort of "psychic cushion" of justification surrounding what is actually the ritualized, sanitized, state-sanctioned and state-perpetrated vengeance-killing of a defenseless human being. by "individualized evil," i mean the practice of locating evil in a particular body, of isolating it and imagining it as something that can be separated from society like a cancerous tumor, and eliminated through the "cleansing" ritual of execution. this practice allows us to ignore the socio-economic, cultural, and historical factors that, together, contributed to (one might say "produced") the condemned person's situation, perspective, and actions. in acting out this ritual, which is popularly imagined and represented as a rite that will somehow bring justice to the victim(s), give closure to the victim(s)' survivors, and "heal" the social body, we collectively ignore the condemned person's perspective, which conveys a message that would, if we listened to it, highlight the ways in which we are *all* complicit in producing what we call "evil." we don't want to listen to that, to take it seriously as a critique of our culture, our economy, our political and social practices, because it would require us to make drastic changes that seem beyond us, and to take responsibility for our complicity in producing and reproducing this culture.
what frustrates me the most about the death penalty is that i do not know how to fight it, effectively. i live in a state that still has--and theoretically would still employ--a gallows. i live in a country that still has--and still employs--firing squads and electric chairs and gas chambers. all of these execution methods make people squeamish, because the suffering of the condemned person is readily apparent to any witness, and the mode of death thereby seems more brutal, more violent. the bodies of electric chair victims contort and burn. firing squad victims bleed. hanging victims thrash, and the breaking of the neck is audible. gas chamber victims also thrash, as they suffocate and are poisoned and burned by cyanide gas. in some ways, though, i think these more overtly horrific methods of execution are "better" than lethal injection--and by "better" i simply mean that it is far more difficult for observers to evade the brutality inherent in a practice that implicates us all because it is perpetrated in our name. lethal injection, however, masquerades as a humane, sanitary, medicalized method of execution, and it contributes to the illusion that what we are doing, when we execute a human being, is something *other* than state-sanctioned murder. it reinforces the image of the death penalty as the surgical removal of an "evil" growth on society, and it blunts opposition to the death penalty because it is not an overtly brutal method. for example, one of the witnesses to timothy mcveigh's execution lamented that "he didn't suffer enough. it was too peaceful" of course he suffered! he suffered death.
one of the witnesses to tookie williams' execution observed that he "looked intimidating" and "flexed his chest muscles." this jibes with the images of tookie williams that circulated widely during his last days: pictures of him as a young man, flexing his bodybuilt muscles, face surrounded by a "natural." to anyone who has studied the history of racism in the u.s., these pictures strike a familiar note: the hypermasculinized black male body as inherently threatening to the (white) social body. they run counter to more sympathetic portrayals of tookie williams as peacemaker, as author of children's books, as committed to *ending* gang violence. the man had to sit there while a nurse struggled to find a vein in his arm. he refused a last meal, and a sedative. he was strapped to a table, condemned to die--to suffer the final ripping away of all dignity--in front of a room full of hostile strangers (except for his own 5 witnesses). before he died, he repeatedly looked into the eyes of his witnesses, telling them over and over again that he loved them. this is intimidating??? no, this is a man facing death, seeking solace in his last moments, most likely terrified despite his desire to be courageous, trying one last time to connect to his loved ones.
a more difficult question lurks at the heart of these seemingly irreconcilable portraits of the same man, however: the question of what produced gang violence to begin with. *that* is the question that tookie williams' life insistently asks, the question that his execution, and the rhetoric of individualized evil vs. redemption and rehabilitation that surrounds it, are designed to obscure. by locating evil in his body, in his image, in his actions; and by arguing over whether or not his rehabilitation was legitimate or a "put-on," we avoid acknowledging the long history of state-sanctioned violence against black men, and the perpetually uneven (that's putting it way too mildly!) application of "justice"--from racial slavery to jim crow laws and ghettoization, to segregation, to lynching, to the persistence of political, cultural, and economic alienation. these rhetorics invite us to evade the fact that we live in a "society structured in dominance" (concept borrowed from louis althusser), and to avoid facing the vastly complex task of undoing the system of privilege that structures all aspects of our social, political, cultural, and economic institutions and practices.
and there i sat, yesterday, listening to my student whose critical awareness has consistently inspired me this quarter--he sees it, he gets it, because he lives it--and what words could i offer, what substance could i offer? i, a white woman who, while i did not come from a privileged background, nevertheless have access to privilege by "virtue" of my whiteness. it sounds so hollow, to say to him, "yes, you're right. keep fighting. it will get better." i feel complimented by the fact that this student felt comfortable and safe enough with me, to talk about this subject, that he knew i would listen to him and respect him--indeed, agree with him. but the conversation also forced me to confront the fact that there is no politically neutral subject position available in this "society structured in dominance." no matter how i might long for such a position, or for a political activism that would let me follow some "higher road," i am constantly implicated in the system of privilege that structures this society. this doesn't mean i am powerless to resist it, or that there's nothing i can do to help *undo* it, but it is a very potent reminder of how complex and monumental that task is, how extensively privilege and its effects pervade this society, and how deeply we are all implicated in it.
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no subject
Date: 2005-12-15 01:22 pm (UTC)Instead of letting the person live with the guilt of their actions everyday of their life, it seems to be a quick means of getting rid of them...I'm am so glad that Australia has abolished the death penalty...According to a radio program I was listening to a couple of weeks ago, we had the death penalty up until 1985, which wasn't too long ago...why do I know this? because of the execution of an Australian citizen, Van Nguyen in Singapore last November...Although I wouldn't class him as a martyr like the Australian media did the morning of 2nd Dec, I don't feel think Van Nguyen rightly deserved the death penalty for smuggling drugs into Singapore...mainly because it is unethical and against human rights, but also because much of the evidence shown in the Singaporean courts was questionable and the fact that there are far worse crimes in Singapore which go unnoticed today...I think a better solution would have been to make him pay for his crime and to have let him re-appeal his sentence and length of his jail term...
no subject
Date: 2005-12-15 10:59 pm (UTC)there are so many bad things in the world...how to fight them all?