The state of Georgia executed death row inmate Troy Davis on Sept. 21, amid widespread doubts about his guilt in the murder of Savannah police officer Mark MacPhail. Georgia is one of the most religious states in the U.S., yet that didn't deter this heinous act from happening. In fact, the most religious states in the United States have carried out more executions and still hold more death row inmates than the rest. At a recent Republican presidential debate on TV, I was horrified to watch Texas Governor Rick Perry, a born-again Christian, being applauded for bragging about the executions under his watch. Texas, Georgia, Florida, Virginia, Oklahoma, Alabama and a few other states lead in the number of executions since 1976. According to Amnesty International, more than three quarters of the homicide victims in cases resulting in execution since 1977 are white, yet African-Americans are about half of all homicide victims. This fact, supported by the overwhelmingly disproportionate number of black death-row inmates in these states, sheds light on the white Christian South's perception of justice.
Racism played an integral role in the execution of Troy Davis. The Southern conservative political elite still supports the death penalty, pandering to the far-right white Christian electorate in a region deeply scarred by a history of racism. Davis' execution is atavistic to the old Southern lynching of African-Americans. While the current conservative leaders are not hanging blacks on trees, they have created unwarranted provisos that "get tough with crime" to necessitate capital punishment. They have taken advantage of the baseless correlation between African-American males and crime, while ignoring the systemic effects of white racism, to further their political agenda. With Jim Crow nostalgia rife in the far-right, these executions are veiled tactics to subordinate African-Americans and other minorities.
Religious beliefs in America greatly shape public opinion on crime-control legislation. Protestant Christian fundamentalists for example, are more likely to support capital punishment than their moderate counterparts. The "sanctity of life" argument used by these social conservatives in their anti-abortion rhetoric clearly loses it solemnity immediately after birth. In the Christian South, "an eye for an eye" towers over the "turning the other cheek" ethic. This retributive justice framework wanders far from the pacifist, restorative approach espoused by the founder of Christianity. That's why the "Bible Belt" of America is now being referred to as the "Death Belt." The state-sanctioned executions of African-Americans in the South since the demise of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., a Christian leader who bravely championed for equal rights and justice in the region, would give the civil rights leader nightmares if he saw what has become of his dream.
While the execution of Troy Davis exposes the frailty of the U.S. justice system, given the incredulous circumstances surrounding his sentencing, it also reminds us of the hazards posed by religious fundamentalists' notion of justice. It is important to note that the Ku Klux Klan was (and still is) an Anglo-American Protestant organization that used to enjoy support from powerful politicians in the South. While it has become unfashionable to openly support the Klan in contemporary American politics, social conservatism now acts as the façade that harbors the legacy of racial discrimination in the name of "preserving traditional values." The self-proclaimed modern agents of social morality, like their Klan predecessors, still operate under the banner of Christianity. Animosity toward racial and sexual minorities, immigrants and non- Christians is a recurring theme within this entity. Their fast ascendancy to political power within the Republican Party should be watched as a civil rights concern by the global community.
Capital punishment should never be viewed as a race-neutral policy in the United States as long as racial economic differences persist. Given the socioeconomic quandary of African- Americans and the avidity of racist Southerners to vindicate the death sentence, it is exigent that the United States terminates this barbaric practice. It is rooted in an injurious, racist past that has perennially oppressed and degraded African-Americans. Even with a black President, African-Americans are, in the words that Dr. King used almost 50 years ago, "still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination." Condoning capital punishment in America has not succeeded in deterring crime, but it has granted a social license to racist lynching. Let us all join hands in emancipating America from this iniquity.
