Reader Fred Ray writes that it is “Unusual that the ultra-liberal SF Chronicle would even bring this up, but it’s a good question.” As usual, Fred’s right. It is.
Los Angeles — In the wee hours of the morning of Jan. 17, another man will be put to death by lethal injection in the state of California. This comes exactly 36 days after the execution of Stanley Tookie Williams. But where are the protesters?
With just a few days to go before the scheduled execution of a 76-year-old blind and deaf man who uses a wheelchair, there has been no public outcry of support for clemency for Clarence Ray Allen, who is white. There have been no planned protests and celebrity read-ins in support of saving an old man’s life. Community activists and civil rights leaders aren’t organizing statewide tours to bring attention to Allen’s execution. There hasn’t even been one “Kill Clarence Ray Allen Hour” from KFI-AM’s “John and Ken Show.”
Which raises the question: Was the community cry for clemency for Williams because he was a black man, or was it because the death penalty is immoral, inhumane and cruel?
Actually, if you look at what she’s really saying, it’s not that surprising. The (black) writer of this piece truly wants to end the death penalty. For her, it never was about race.
“If all of the protests around clemency for Williams were not just for show, it should be no problem for the black community to reassemble for the fight to save Clarence Ray Allen. He may not have been our homeboy from back in the day, or demonstrated to the world that he is a redeemed man. He may not even be likable, but his life is worth trying to save. What kind of message does it send if we sit back and do nothing while another person is systematically put to death on our watch?”
Clarence Ray Allen’s career is about the best case that can be made for the death penalty, alas. This guy, already serving a life sentence, managed to hire thugs to kill several of the original witnesses against him. The only unanswerable argument against capital punishment was that life w/o parole was just as effective in protecting the public from murderers, and this guy singlehandedly disproved that by proving that murder from prison, even on a life sentence, is perfectly possible.
Personally, I think capital punishment is wrong per se, and putting to death someone who is on the point of death anyway is silly. But if there is to be a death penalty, this dude deserves it much more than do most on Death Row.
I don’t think it is race at all.
Williams had been/or was (take your choice) an activist. The establishment had led Tookie to do bad things.
But it was, of course, neither prison or the establishment that made him good after his “redemption”. The good part came from Tookie himself and the counsel of lawyers.
Allen obviously had the wrong lawyers and didn’t get the message out that society had caused his bad acts.
I applaud her consistency, even though she is wrong.
But the simple answer is that the minority/leftist coalition doesn’t care about Allen, since he lacks the melanin level to be a sympathetic hero.
But i will say this — given Allen’s age and physical state, he is also arguably no longer a threat to society, and therefore mercy could be justified (though I don’t believe such mercy would be just for the reasons Michelle points out).
I think the difference is that Tookie was black and his victims were non-black, sorta like O.J.
Blacks and their enablers (white liberals) always rally to save brothers who kill whites. It is just one of those things. It is just pure racisim.