Last week I was feeling a little bogged down, pondering questions of personal and professional growth, challenges that I face and had let weigh down on me like the weight of the world. Then I had a total moment of reality check as I went on a work trip to Georgia to advocate for saving the lives of two men – one who is close to being wrongfully executed and another who is serving a life sentence for rightfully protecting his family against an armed intruder. John McNeil and Troy Davis both have stories that will make your head spin.
McNeil was sentenced to life for shooting an armed intruder who had threatened his son and family on their own property – despite that Georgia is a leading gun-rights state and has the castle doctrine law on the books which gives the right to anyone to use force if they feel threatened on their own property without having to wait for the situation to escalate. I stood there next to his wife who is battling cancer for the second round and all she wants is to have her husband back home. I wonder if there are any cases of white men who have gone to prison for life for taking the same actions against a black armed intruder – or any armed intruder for that matter. Research to follow….
Any day now, Troy Davis’ name is about to be called for execution yet again. Troy was convicted of killing a police officer on the word of nine witnesses, seven of whom have recanted their statements. So, as we sit here the state of Georgia is preparing to kill a man on the shaky testimony of two witnesses, one of whom happens to be the other main suspect in the case. So, it means nothing that we – and I say we because we as residents of this country all have a hand in this – have serious doubts about a man’s guilt, but we’re still prepared to execute him and live up to our reputation as the one of the world’s leading countries who still relies heavily on the death penalty (another blog definitely required on this topic alone) as a form of social control – a failed form I might add.
Then I remembered again why I got into this work to begin with: because there are things that are more important than just us individually. There are people who have been wronged in ways that you and I can’t even imagine and we need to understand the power we have in working to correct a system that can and does commit such egregious injustices. And even if you want to take a personal perspective, think about this: it could be you sitting in that prison cell for life, or waiting to take that final walk towards the death chamber.
Being politically educated and aware and active is a must in this country – even though many among us may have stayed away from politics in the past or in our own respective countries for whatever reason. That’s what makes the U.S. great; we have the opportunity to be involved, to criticize the system and work to make it better. But we have to care first, and sometimes we have to care about things that are just more important than our own daily challenges; we have to care about others who have it much worse than we do and we have to be ready to roll up our sleeves and fight, and advocate, and have the difficult discussions and the difficult arguments.
And the last thing that we have to accept is that what this country does is a direct result of our action on inaction. Apathy is not an excuse. Every time someone is put to death, you and I are also partly responsible by virtue of being a part of this nation. So act and advocate with integrity and passion and maybe we can work to correct some of these wrongs, and maybe we can be part of a solution together. I promise you, we can save lives if do that.
