Friday, September 23, 2011

Troy Davis' Last Letter

I want to thank all of you for your efforts and dedication to Human Rights and Human Kindness, in the past year I have experienced such emotion, joy, sadness and never ending faith. It is because of all of you that I am alive today, as I look at my sister Martina I am marveled by the love she has for me and of course I worry about her and her health, but as she tells me she is the eldest and she will not back down from this fight to save my life and prove to the world that I am innocent of this terrible crime.

As I look at my mail from across the globe, from places I have never ever dreamed I would know about and people speaking languages and expressing cultures and religions I could only hope to one day see first hand. I am humbled by the emotion that fills my heart with overwhelming, overflowing Joy. I can’t even explain the insurgence of emotion I feel when I try to express the strength I draw from you all, it compounds my faith and it shows me yet again that this is not a case about the death penalty, this is not a case about Troy Davis, this is a case about Justice and the Human Spirit to see Justice prevail.

I cannot answer all of your letters but I do read them all, I cannot see you all but I can imagine your faces, I cannot hear you speak but your letters take me to the far reaches of the world, I cannot touch you physically but I feel your warmth everyday I exist.
So Thank you and remember I am in a place where execution can only destroy your physical form but because of my faith in God, my family and all of you I have been spiritually free for some time and no matter what happens in the days, weeks to come, this Movement to end the death penalty, to seek true justice, to expose a system that fails to protect the innocent must be accelerated. There are so many more Troy Davis’. This fight to end the death penalty is not won or lost through me but through our strength to move forward and save every innocent person in captivity around the globe. We need to dismantle this Unjust system city by city, state by state and country by country.

I can’t wait to Stand with you, no matter if that is in physical or spiritual form, I will one day be announcing,

“I AM TROY DAVIS, and I AM FREE!”

Never Stop Fighting for Justice and We will Win!
Comment: The death penalty on its own is a massive injustice.  Put the death penalty inside of a racist state like the US and you multiply the injustice many times over.

There was no justice in this case.  Not for the victim (Mark MacPhail) and not for Troy Davis (may both rest in peace).

Even in the best of circumstances the death penalty is an aberration.  Like Gandhi said:"An eye for and eye makes the whole word blind." 

And I don't think Gandhi was being ableist.  The blindness is a metaphor for the closing of the mind/spirit when it uses violence in any context.

The state has no right to take anyone's life.  In this case the execution of Troy Davis is a long standing practice of culling black men.  It is a modern day lynching.

May Troy Davis rest in peace until that day.
Onward!

Hat tip to Erica
Letter Credit
Picture Credit

No comments: