Tookie It Away

At 12:01 a.m. PST, Stanley 'Tookie' Williams, founder of the Crips gang and convicted murderer, was executed at San Quentin prison by the State of California.

Perhaps elsewhere, but certainly here in California, Tookie's (as we affectionately know him) multitude of appeals, requests and legal manuevering have made headlines all week. At each turn, not only was Tookie denied, but it was also an opportunity for us to hear yet again about Tookie's rehabilitation, Tookie's children's books and Tookie's work against gang violence. The nightly news even had a helpful hour-by-hour description of Tookie's last night among the living, which began to sound like the outline of a reality TV show. And of course, all the forces arrayed to keep 'law and order' had their say, including a haggard looking woman for whom the death of her son seemed to have happened yesterday, not 27 years ago.

According to his supporters, Tookie had "redeemed" himself with his activist work against violence. However, according to the news report, "In denying clemency, Schwarzenegger said Williams had failed to atone for his crimes, and questioned whether claim of redemption was just a ploy."

Redemption. It seems that by redemption most of these people mean something closer to contrition, that Mr. Williams confessed his crimes, was truly sorry, that he repented and turned from his former violent ways. And contrition is what we want. Through the state, we citizens want men like Tookie to feel our anger and our outrage. We want him and others death-row inmates to approach the throne of civic justice, where of course we all sit, grovelling, head-down and cowering before our righteous power where we alone, through our duly elected leader, dangle by a thin thread this murderer over the fiery pit of his just reward. We want contrition. We want justice.

Redemption on the other hand is none of these things. To be redeemed means to be acted upon in a way that you would never be able to accomplish yourself. To be redeemed means to be saved, not by your own power or action or will, but by another. To be redeemed means not that you accomplish your own salvation but rather you respond to the gift of salvation that has happened to you.

So then was Tookie redeemed? Could a man who grew up in violence, created and sustained a community of violence and who himself murdered four people could such a man save himself? Could such a man find himself writing children's books? Could such a man speak out against the man he truly was? Or was he redeemed from outside himself to be transformed, renewed and saved?

And what of Tookie's execution? Does more killing lead to redemption? For his victims? For their families? For former gang members? Does killing another human being redeem us? The governor? The courts? Does killing one m0re person have the power to transform us, to renew us, to save us, to redeem us?

If what we seek is truly redemption, then even in death, Tookie Williams may have found his redemption.

World AIDS Day

Today, December 1st is World AIDS day. I know; I forgot too. If you were around in the 80s, you remember what a huge deal AIDS was back then. Even though I was in middle school, I was scared. The teenage hemophilliac who contracted AIDS from a blood transfusion, Ryan White was only a year behind me in school. Kokomo, Ryan's hometown, is only an hour from where I grew up. AIDS was not well understood at the time and he had been forced to study at home because parents were afraid their kids would catch it. When courts temporarily allowed him back at school, Ryan had to use a specially secluded bathroom and eat with disposable utensils in the school cafeteria. AIDS was scary for kids and scary for adults.

Celebrity AIDS cases, a myriad of enhanced drugs and education about risk factors for HIV/AIDS turned this once death sentence killing millions into a disease with which millions lead otherwise normal lives.

It is too easy to forget. Too easy to forget Ryan. Too easy to forget people who suffered horrible, lonely and painful deaths. Too easy to forget communities and familes whose lives overflowed with grief and loss. Too easy to forgot those red ribbons we once wore so courageously and defiantly.

Not today.

Today let us remember.