POINT OF VIEW

It’s not just “Tookie”

By DONNA SCHAPER

There is a boy somewhere in Philadelphia, perhaps more than one, whose life changed when the guards finally found the vein in William's arm.  He also lost his life.  Many will think that the sure and certain punishment of Williams will keep kids out of gangs.  It won't.  In fact, its affirmation of violence as the solution to all problems human will encourage more of the same.  Had the state of California had an alternate script for the Crips gang leader, there might be an alternate script for at risk boys.  Since Act one is violence, Act two is violence, and Act three is violence that unnamed boy whose life changed reads well.  He gets the message.  He may be illiterate but he knows that actions speak louder than words.  You want to get somewhere in this world?  Be the most violent one.  You want power in this world?  Use violence.  If you want to get revenge on the society that stole your hope, use violence.  If you want to follow the deep magic of this society's rules, either go to war or go to gang or go to jail.  These are the legitimate roles for young black men in our world.  The more violence, the better.  The execution of Tookie Williams -- even with all the mitigating circumstances  -- underlined the real message.  Violence is good. It's what we use when we want to resolve things.  Are there other ways to resolve and redeem human existence?  Not really.  You can try them but they fail you.  "We" – who talk a good line against violence -- make sure of that.

The sub-plot of this boring play is about the impossibility of redemption.  Even if you turn your life around, and do something good and non-violent for a change, you still get offed.  Why bother?  Why even think about not joining a gang?  There is no life outside the violence of a gang.  Why bother?

I remember when my (white) 11-year-old asked me if it was possible to be both popular and smart.  I first said, "Excuse me?"  Who gave you the message that you couldn't do both?  And then I remembered how kids learn things.  They learn through their veins.  They read their worlds viscerally.  They see what we do and go deaf to what we say.

Williams was convicted of four 1979 murders.  It took him about ten years on death row to change.  He then began a very visible campaign against gang violence.  No one but a man with his past and his location could possibly convince a child not to join a gang and become violent.  He had that power.  He was a man who could tell a different story to a Philadelphia boy.  He had a different story to tell and he told it with vigor. 

The state of California may or may not have killed an innocent man.  But they sure did kill useful man.  A man whose use to the world was larger than most of us might ever imagine for ourselves.  He was a man who could help a kid tell a different story and write a different script about his life. 

Williams is the 12th man executed by California since the death penalty was reinstated there in 1978.  Did he deserve to live more than the others do on death row? I think so by virtue of the effect he could have on boys in Philadelphia and Newark and elsewhere.  No child should be left behind in the boring script about violence being the only way.  We need to spring them from the prison of the stories we ourselves tell about them.  We need to redeem the stories first.  Tookie Williams was doing that.  That different story was threatening to the state: California killed him. 

So what do those of us who think you can be popular and smart at the same time tell our children?  What do we say when kids are fighting.  Don't we say, "Use words."  What we can do is go for the better script. Try to do what others tell you you cannot do.  What might we tell that boy down the street?  The one who got the message re: Tookie?  Go for it.  Do what others tell you you cannot do.  Remember the hope of Tookie Williams.  Make it yours.