By Paul Jay Reed
The days and final hours leading up to the execution of Stanley "Tookie" Williams gripped the nation and, as with most issues, revealed how divided people are on their views. It was not, however, the debates over the issue of whether the death penalty should be abolished that gripped me. After all, no matter how strong a position I take for either side, my own mind comes up with reasonable arguments, supporting the opposite side. Neither was I moved by the political, legal and social issues surrounding this event. In fact, after listening to all the rhetoric from all sides, I must ask, "With all this talking, what has been said?" One particular statement made by one victim's mother did grab my attention. She announced, "People are viewing Tookie Williams all wrong. The man was no saint."
She said this despite Tookie’s nomination for a Nobel Prize, despite his efforts to end the violence perpetrated by the very gang he co-founded, despite his obvious character reform and despite the fact that we live in a predominantly Christian society that in theory believes no human being is beyond redemption’s grasp.
The path to sainthood is not some smoothly paved, obstacle-free road. The day we conclude that saints cannot emerge from the deep, murky waters of moral depravation is the day we can nail Faith to the cross and seal Hope in the Tomb of Despair with no chance that a better society can be resurrected. It is to close the door of redemption and reform to those we deem socially unqualified. The path to sainthood is paved with the worst of our human frailties – from our greed to our predisposed self-centeredness. Saints are not born without these traits, nor are they untouched by them. To be sure, saints are molded by the sowing and reaping of many types of seeds until they learn to harvest wholeheartedly the fruits of the Spirit. It is a path that leads us from darkness to light, from cruelty to compassion.
Therefore, the real issue for me is not whether Tookie Williams should have been executed for the four brutal murders that occurred in 1979, when he was 25 years old. The real issue is how should we view him in light of the 24 years he spent on death row, transforming into the man who wrote books that stirred many to begin rethinking their own lives. Those who supported his execution were right to remind us to not forget the crimes he was convicted of. Yet, equally true, those who supported his clemency were right to remind us to not forget the work he did to reform himself.
This distraught mother also reminded CNN viewers that the gang, The Crips, he co-founded is responsible for thousands of murders. Therefore he is actually guilty of many murders! Can we realistically hold Tookie accountable for gang violence committed 25 years after he was removed from society? Is he really responsible for what others do? Most of the Crips today weren’t even born the day Tookie was arrested.
To say Tookie deserved execution for the murders he was convicted of is a matter of how we view crime and punishment. To say his change was insincere is a matter of how we view his personal reform and spiritual transformation. I believe that if we do not take his transformation seriously then as a society we create a spiritual caste system of the moral aristocracy – those who haven’t sunk too far - and the left out – those who are permanently remembered for their crimes and whose changes are never acknowledged enough to gain them admittance into the upper class of "Good People." That position is at odds with a nation that voted for George W Bush because he claims he prays mightily and says he believes abortion violates the Bible, especially when you consider that the Christ of the Bible invited a condemned thief to a place of honor as both were being executed.
Of course we prefer our saints to be without moral blemish and without a criminal record. While these type of saint are great for canonizing and praying to, they don’t offer the rest of us morally bankrupt people much hope as examples of what we can become because they’ve never sunk as low as we have. Where are those saints who wrestled with drug addiction and transformed themselves into perfect, free beings? Where are those enlightened beings who spent half their lives being scoundrels, thieves and, yes, murderers? I believe that if there are none then there is no hope for the rest of us. I don’t need another never-been-in-trouble dead person to pray to about my shortcomings. I need living examples of men and women who, like me, have been lost in the jungle of moral depravation, but who emerge a new creation. I need a society that still believes in and is receptive to personal reform.
Where are the saints? They’re all around us, struggling to transform themselves in this criminal justice society that still holds to primitive belief that severe punishment for long periods is the necessary debt that must be paid before reform can even be considered, although the history of mankind proves this to be absurd.
Tookie Williams was a living example of the spiritual ambiguities in the human psyche and the conflict of good and evil that is waged in every human soul. He proves that evil can claim a person’s life and liberty, but also how good can transform and restore us to a place of honor and human dignity. We are not born saint; we are reborn into sainthood.
This article was written the same day Stanley "Tookie" Williams was executed.
