Stanley "Tookie" Williams

Early Tuesday morning, the State of California executed inmate Stanley "Tookie" Williams. The chances that you haven't heard of this man lately are slim.



Celebrities all over the country have been pleading with Governor Schwarzenegger to grant Williams clemency, and they've done an excellent job of getting the message out. Snoop Dogg, Russell Simmons, Jamie Foxx, and numerous other big names in entertainment, as well as capital punishment opponents, held various press conferences and spoke out at concerts and events in an effort to inform people about the fate of the former gang member and convicted murderer -- turned Nobel Prize nominated author and spokesperson for anti-gang violence.

Supporters believe that Williams' life after co-founding the "Crips" and being convicted of murdering 4 people, is outstanding and should be considered in his clemency hearings. He has authored a number of children's books and memoirs about his experiences in gang life, and many consider his voice to be one of the most influential to urban youth.



He has his critics as well, of course. Many feel his books depict gang life in stereotypical ways and are presented in a style that doesn't really garner the respect of young people. Police and anti-gang agencies across the nation are divided on his works. And while some of his supporters admit that the books aren't necessarily great reads for some children, they're adamant in their belief that the books are very profound to kids living in areas where gang culture is prevalent and influential on young minds.

Either way you look at the content of his work, you have to admit the bulk of his life in prison since the late 90's has been spent in an effort to publicly cast down the sins of his past. His consideration for the Nobel prize in peace is noteworthy, but I would say that his public consideration as one of the brightest examples of the potential for rehabilitation and redemption in this country's prison system, is by far more important.

Last year, he helped broker a peace agreement called the "Tookie Protocol For Peace". If you didn't know anything about this, don't feel bad -- it's not something you'll usually hear about on CNN. This was the deadliest and most infamous gang war in the country. It's been going on in California and New Jersey since the early 80's between the Bloods and the Crips. The truce is still being enforced by these gangs today, and the fact that his protocol was the cornerstone of this agreement, prompted President George W. Bush to award him a Volunteer Service Award.

Willaims' supporters believed that this action alone was enough to propel the reduction of his death sentence, to life in prison. The potential lives saved as a result are immeasurable and they attest that his life should be spared so that he can continue, from prison, to help youth in impoverished communities.

Williams denied his involvement in the murders for over 24 years, and had appealed his verdict repeatedly. In spite of continued Circuit Court decisions supporting the original ruling, his supporters believe the original conviction wasn't valid because of a lack of physical evidence, and that the damaging testimony given in court was provided by felons seeking lesser sentences in their own cases.

Willaims' celebrity status as the co-founder of the Crips, had also kept a spotlight on him during his prison time. The record clearly indicates that Williams was a terrible inmate, responsible for numerous assaults on prisoners and guards alike. If not acted out by himself, hundreds of assaults can be clearly attributed as being under his orders. He even threw chemical agents into the faces of two prison guards. It wasn't until a 1993 lockup in solitary confinement that Tookie found the tools to bring about this profound change.

It's at this point that you have to ask yourself what his life means, and more importantly, what it stands for.

While the basis of his celebrity as a death row inmate makes many scoff, the reality is that African American culture looks to all convictions for people of color, with suspicion first. They don't make the same immediate deductions of guilt that white Americans do when hearing that someone was "convicted" of a crime. As there was a real history of racial injustice within the courts, there is less faith in the system within black culture. For this reason alone, the foundation of the support for Williams had been set, and when this story really hit the headlines, we were already in the midst of a new racial divide.



African Americans felt grimly reminded of their status in this country when Hurricane Katrina swept through predominantly poor black neighborhoods in the South. Ask any person of color what they felt like before Katrina hit and they'll say they felt more like part of this country than ever. There's a general consensus that after 9/11, blacks were no longer the direct focus of discrimination in this country, and that it had shifted to Arab Americans in recent years. These feelings of gradual acceptance were clearly stripped away by the perception that the white American government merely let thousands of poor black people die...out of neglect and indifference.

Regardless of the validity of these perceptions by historians or authorities, this is how they feel. The Williams case comes to a head right as this anger over the handling of the hurricane is simmering right under the surface of a "civil rights advancement", and bam -- the veneer of this progress begins to warp a little

Now the question is whether Williams' life will be perceived as a tragedy, or a martyrdom? If you've ever been baffled by the way black culture embraced someone like O.J. Simpson, you should pay close attention to this case. You'll learn a lot more about the way African American people feel about brotherhood. Not for people like Simpson, or Williams. But brotherhood among themselves.

African American people are still hungry for a unifying vision. For the most part, they don't grasp onto a national identity as Americans. From time to time, a story or an event will come along that sparks this unity. It's an opportunity to band together and speak out as one. Regardless of the case, there only needs to be a similarity to a previous injustice or a perceived wrongdoing committed against a person of color to start the wave.

Gradually Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton will show up on the scene and voice their opinions. Eventually the mainstream news will cover the story, and the public debate will further the American evolution within this land of immigrants.

Stanley Tookie Williams' however, shouldn't be a part of this debate. Regardless of how he chose to live his life, or the number of saved lives that can be attributed to him from the negotiation of the Bloods/Crips peace agreement, he was convicted of the crimes and was sentenced to death.

This is where many in black America split with me, because they contest the conviction, but that's really a different debate that has been held in courts already. The reason his case wasn't overturned is because the evidence really doesn't support it. If you're uneducated and stubborn, you'll just argue from this point on -- but you should look at the facts of the case and decide for yourself instead of just listening to what Snoop says.



If you still can't shake the thought that an innocent man died in prison on Tuesday, I should remind you that he isn't the first, and won't be the last. DNA evidence has fortunately exonerated over 100 convicted death row inmates in the last few years, but there were many who died innocent men before we developed this technology. Does this outrage you? Does it make you want to start a non-profit organization to combat state-sponsored murder?

Fine, be an American. Do it.

That is a debate over capital punishment, not Williams' need for clemency. What should be focused on here, is that regardless of his overwhelmingly positive work in the last years of his life, his conviction was based on things he had done in 1979, not the good deeds he would do later in life.

Even if Williams personally saved the lives of thousands, he was still convicted of murdering 4 people in 1979. Argue his conviction somewhere else. Lots of other people did, and even when the "new evidence" was brought up, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals denied a stay of execution.

Not because some stuffy old Nazi was up on the bench. Not because some super conservative, right wing white guy wanted Williams to die because he started the Crips. This is the same court that made the Pledge of Allegiance illegal in school, people. They're not a bunch of Republican stool pigeons.

No, the clemency was denied by Schwarzenegger and the Courts because the conviction stood up to investigation. It's more dramatic, and a much better story, if they had found evidence to free him -- but they didn't.

It just wasn't going to be that kind of story.

They looked back, studied the new evidence, listened to the new testimony, and still found him guilty by the laws we've voted into action. If you feel strongly that a wrong was done here, well good for you. That's why we vote our lawmakers into office. We don't write capital crime legislation that leaves room for redemption later on.

Regardless of how much he was benefiting society, and potentially could benefit young people across this country, his time to do that good work was up.

You live your life here, not somewhere else. You walk, daily, among everyone else here. We all share this common experience of life and death, regardless of what we do between. If you've been told the day you're going to die, you should do exactly what Stanley Tookie Williams eventually did; make the best of each day till then.

This isn't because of some afterlife. This is today, and tomorrow, and the next day until you die. You're responsible for making every breath you take, mean something. If you've done wrong, you'll pay for it. If you got away with it, you still know you did it -- so atone for it. Live life well NOW. Keep doing it, and don't waste a day on anything that isn't worth being experienced.

Williams' rehabilitation is a great story, because our prison system usually destroys and corrupts people instead of providing them with the tools to change their behavior. We send drug users to jail with rapists and murders, so they can learn how to be a real criminal. We don't provide an environment geared towards rehabilitation, and prisons throughout history have gone through cycles of this debate before. As it stands now, Tookie did make good on his last days and that might be the only good part of this story.

Because you see...I'm not sure Tookie was a great lesson for us when you consider the overall story. We're not sure his choice to change was about living his life better until his execution. It seems that he wanted this good work to be done for the right reasons, but he sure wanted to not die of lethal injection as well. I wouldn't want to die either, and I know some people consider his continued denial of guilt as proof of innocence, but that's not logical. I would hope his choice to not confess was something more complicated about who he was, where he came from, and his faith -- which he spoke about in volumes. I'm afraid the truth we don't know is that he died a coward who never admitted his guilt.

I'm afraid people will remember him for all the wrong reasons.

I'm afraid people like Snoop Dogg, who mold black youth culture like clay, will celebrate this man as a noble brother who died fighting the man. These very celebrities who publicly compel our leaders to save him, are the same people regurgitating the bile of violence and criminal behavior to the young people Tookie was trying to save. The only reason they even cared is because they front the culture of gang life, to generate street cred. They want to be identified with the founder of modern gang culture. All this, in an effort to bilk a materialistic and vision-hungry African American population out of its cash and self respect.



I'm afraid that their efforts will make people continue to look at this execution like it was in direct challenge to the concept of rehabilitation. Looking at his execution like it's a metaphor for how the system doesn't care if you rehabilitate. I'm afraid the defeatest attitudes and indifferent viewpoints of these celebrities will further transcend the dogma of giving up; why try to be good, if the man just gonna bring you down anyway?

Ignoring what true rehabilitation means.

True rehab, means atonement. It means accountability. It has nothing to do with being a good person in prison. Rehabilitation doesn't stay an execution when you've ended the lives of others. There have been a number of prisoners killed by the chair and the needle who wouldn't hurt anyone if released the day before they were scheduled to die.

It's not about the person being a threat to society now, it's that they were when they committed the crime. It's a punishment, and we shouldn't think of it as house-cleaning. It's not removing someone from society to keep us safe. That's what life in prison is for.

The death penalty is a whole different kind of punishment. If you're opposed to it, then as an American I urge you to vote your conscience and try to change the laws.

But don't get Tookie involved. He found God, and he met him Tuesday.