Many things are racial. Not everything is racist. Sometimes, it's a little bit more. Sometimes things happen that are just wrong. If Troy Davis were Asian, would the outcry be as high over his death penalty case? I doubt it.
There are many things that piqued my interest with this case. The overwhelming majority of the tweets and Facebook posts I read were something along the lines of "Innocent Man gets Death Penalty and he's black". I get it. If life were that simple it would make sense. Yes, I understand the pull of that headline. He's black, he was accused of killing a cop, and it's in Georgia, a southern state not known for its track record of great race relations. My issue isn't with the case, or the way it was handled, because even though shoddy work was done, that's par for the course in incidents where there is a huge media outcry. My issue is with a lot of the reaction that was on Twitter.
Would this be a story if instead of a cop, the person killed was a 2 year old girl? Shoddy evidence was more than enough for a conviction when Twitter and Facebook raged over the Casey Anthony case. When someone is being arrested, we're perfectly accepting of bad detective work. How about DSK? He was accused of rape and the evidence was so poorly laid out that they had to let him go. Of course, his name was dragged through the mud and people were on Twitter talking about the sex acts that would be performed on him in jail for what he had "done".
If the people on Facebook and Twitter were alive in 1989 would there be the same outcry upon arrest conviction and sentencing? My bet is probably not. The media would have started by having the picture on the local news papers, with COP KILLER in bold letters. Then, upon his conviction and sentencing, there would have been a ROT IN HELL caption. and people would have been happy to see the "cop killer" off the streets and in jail, then to see that he would be killed as well. As a country we can't rush cases and push through bad detective work because we want A conviction. We have to be patient and make sure that we get the right person to the best of our ability. However, even when the
Are you against the Death Penalty regardless of evidence? For some people, Timothy McVeigh shouldn't have gotten the death penalty. Not because of lack of evidence, but because they are against the death penalty in all forms. I like that stance, even though I don't agree with it. What I saw from Twitter and Facebook last night smacked of hypocrisy. People who were willing to give others the electric chair a couple of months ago are now against the death penalty. Is that a change of heart, a change because of the details of the case, or just a change because this week the death penalty isn't cool this week.
I wish I had a witty conclusion for this. Some way of tying the race relations, hypocrisy, death penalty and anti-cop sentiment into one paragraph. I don't. But what I am saying is if you believe that Troy Davis was wrongly convicted, and therefore wrongly killed, then be cautious when you're quick to judge the next case that pops up on the Daily News. You might be stirring the frenzy that puts an innocent person to death.
*I'm not anti death penalty but even Troy Davis killed the officer in the same way that was said, I wouldn't give him the death penalty.
**I'm putting the words cop killer and done in quotes because I don't know what happened in the DSK hotel room or what Troy Davis actually did.
***I'm perfectly aware that in the same way I'm accusing people of overmagnifying the case because of his race, that my title oversimplifies it.
**** When I say Faacebook and Twitter, I'm speaking about a group of the people using the service, not the service itself. I don't know (or care) how Zuckerberg feels about the case
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