Troy Davis’ Case Exemplifies Everything Wrong with America

If you are not familiar with the Troy Davis case, educate yourself by going doing a Google search. In the meantime, allow me to share my thoughts after following it for a few months and watching reports of his last hours on earth. Many thanks to Democracy Now for their courage to cover this story, because we would not have known what was happening by watching mainstream media.

1. Racism in America will never end. There is no such thing as “post-racial.” The only thing we can do is pray that enough people care to try to fight all of the systems created to keep people unequal. Start by voting in this upcoming election.
2. Lives of poor people are dispensable.
3. Lives of black people are not valued. If they were, the black prison population would not be over 50% when they are only approximately 13% of the population. And there were several people on Twitter who pointed out that Casey Anthony, a white woman who had evidence that she murdered her child is walking free while Troy Davis, a black man, died via lethal ejection with little or no evidence.
4. What does “innocent until proven guilty” really means in America?
5. America is not longer a democracy, it is a plutarchy. This means that things are run by the wealthy and will continue to benefit the wealthy. Middle class (what’s left of it) and poor people be damned.
6. The United States justice system is just a more sophisticated form of slavery. The justice system as whole does not begin with the prison system. It starts with social, education and employment control which usually somehow ends in some aspect of a person’s life being controlled, and ultimately determined by the government.
7. The justice system works for people with money on so many levels. But here are four ways this happens. First, people with money can afford good attorneys to represent them. Second, rich people can slip a few dollars to a few key people to throw out or rule in their favor. Thirdly, some of them are private investors in the prison system. Fourth, many are profiting from the cheap labor provided by prisoners.
8. American government at all levels is operating from personal power is more important than the people who pay me through their taxes to represent them. We don’t need Troy Davis to tell us that. Just watch news reports very closely.
9. We all need to wonder: How many more Troy Davises have lost their lives, are sitting on death row or who are currently waiting to be sentenced? And how can their cases be heard before their lives are snuffed by people who could care less.
10. We are ALL Troy Davis.  If they can kill an innocent man with very little evidence, people with power can snatch us up at any time for something we did not do and try to charge us “just because.”

I just needed to share my thoughts. It gets deeper than this, but this is all I can stomach for now. What do you think?

Tags: Marcie Hill, Troy Davis
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