THE PRICE OF DEATH

 

On June16, the State executed Eddie Duval Powell, 41, and Lee Andrew Taylor, 32, in Alabama and Texas respectively. On Tuesday, June 21, the State of Texas also executed Milton Mathis, 32, and last Thursday, the State of Georgia put a needle in arm of Roy Blankenship, 55, and used an animal sedative as part of the three-drug process to kill him.

There are a few articles about mass the death penalty, there has been little coverage of individual, and instead the courts and media, and even a majority of non-profit and organizations, have focused on cost and innocence in anti-death penalty decisions and efforts. The death penalty is horrible and makes one look like they have lowered there standards to them and is inhumane. On the one hand, it is heartening that the media and non-profit world are finally discussing this topic.  The recent spotlight on criminal in/justice issues have been a huge case in today's society toward reducing prison population, such as the recent decision in California.

 

If one thinks about the bigger picture, more fundamental question come to mind. Why has society’s focus finally on criminal in/justice related issues?  Is it finally because people are linking the prison-industrial complex (PIC) to involuntary servitude, and seeing the death penalty as a tool for executing people of color, poor people, and people with dis/abilities? Or perhaps criminal “justice”  has become a media focus because this topic is now “sexy,” and the media has merely found another way to categorize these marginalized communities and their oppression.  Is the focus growing because people who are not subject to the PIC are finally relating to those who are most affected by it? Or is it that, during this economic collapse, white upper-middle class people are finally being affected by the PIC because of the overwhelming cost of executions and thus merely acting in their own self-interest.





Contrary to the mainstream discourse separating the individual stories of today from the historical events such of slavery, genocide, and systematic oppression, the connections are strong and supportive.  Many who have worked with individuals on death row have done extensive investigation into that person’s individual and familial history about three generations back and placed that history within the context of systematic marginalization.  Despite the common refrain from conservatives and white liberals alike that “slavery was so long ago,” and thus distinct from today’s narratives, the process of tracing a person’s history demonstrates so clearly the impact of centuries of institutionalized racism and classism on an individual’s life



 Therefore, the current mainstream discourse in media, academic, and legal communities, by discussing issues of cost, and isolated injustices, and by excluding individual and historical narratives of institutionalized oppression, allows for limited reform on white people’s terms while simultaneously creating a sense of progress.  While it is not my place as a brown Mexican American to determine what stories should and should not be told, or to deice how the PIC and executions should be connected to histories of slavery, and genocide, at the very least there are undeniable facts about the current system that remain invisible in mainstream dialogue.  Most obviously, the State is systematically executing people of color, poor people, and people with dis/abilities on death row. In prison, poor people and people of color are taken away from their families, put in cages, given a number and then work for next to nothing while essentially being charged money to be in prison. Yet the current framework for discussing the PIC and all that it entails ensures that people of color, poor people, and people with dis/abilities remain merely third party beneficiaries when it suits the white ruling class.  This is not reform, this is not progress.