A Thought on 'Tookie' Williams' Execution

Okay, I fully realize that we are smack-dab in the middle of finals week at Marquette University (I have a Biology for Non-Science Majors examination set for eight in the morning tomorrow) and I have a comparative politics essay due Thursday I should be working on right now, but I felt that if I didn’t make some sort of comment about the ‘Tookie’ Williams execution now I might forget and never get to it once exams were over and done with. I’ll try however to make this as quick as possible.

The defiant and vehement outcry of the anti-death penalty crowd toward the execution of ‘Tookie’ Williams has me completely baffled. Perhaps it is as Professor McAdams said the sight of European and Hollywood ‘airheads’ like Jamie Foxx (who has grown quite an ego ever since he won that Academy Award for his portrayal of Ray Charles last year - it was good but I don't believe it was Oscar-worthy) and Snoop Dogg that has caused the media sensation that it has. Whatever the case, I was quite relieved to hear that Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger still has a backbone (I have known since the beginning that he was a ‘moderate Republican’ but even he is beginning to tread thin ice in Californian – rumor has circulated that Republicans are courting Mel Gibson to run for governor) and refused to grant Williams clemency for the brutal murder of his four victims. Scores of anti-death penalty protestors reportedly wept at the news that Williams was executed at 12:35 this morning, though I would care to bet that not a single one of them could identity the reason he was convicted in the first place or what the names of his victims were.

One particular Hollywood ‘airhead’ comment from Bianca Jagger had me in stitches. She believed “Williams' subsequent Nobel Peace Prize nominations for his work to prevent young people from forming gangs should exonerate him of previous offenses”. Nobel Peace Prize or not, he is still a cold-blooded murderer. Yassar Arafat actually won the Nobel-Peace Prize and yet he remained one of the most ruthless and vile terrorists on the planet up until he death (and even then his ‘spirit’ lived on). Should that alter our perception of him? Leftists, sit down! We all know what you think, so don’t bother. Anyway, I wonder if Bianca Jagger would feel the same way about Williams were she to interview the surviving family members of the victims of Williams.

Here’s a quadrary I came up with when examining this case – would the European and Hollywood ‘airheads’ still be clamoring for Williams’ clemency were he a white man instead a black man? Five bucks says no, but then again that’s just me talking.

Furthermore, this man was a gang leader. Do you honestly believe that just because he was caught this time for murdering four victims that this was the first and only time he had actually committed a murder? Somehow I find that very hard to believe.