It's not enough that we must contend with Human Error, but we also
have to deal with a System that protects the Oligarchy and its
Lackeys. Why is it that wealth does not trickle down, but hatred,
prejudice and anger flood down over us?
And speaking of double standards, how is it that Americans fight for
the right of unborn fetuses, while applauding a criminal system which
treats life so lightly? Not to mention the millions of deaths caused
by our American made weapons of murder?
Carl Jarvis
On 12/28/19, Roger Loran Bailey <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
https://themilitant.com/2019/12/21/i-am-troy-davis-powerful-protest-against-death-penalty/
‘I am Troy Davis’: powerful protest against death penalty
article
BY WILLIE COTTON
Vol. 83/No. 48
December 30, 2019
Standing left is Cephus “Uncle Bobby X” Johnson, uncle of Oscar Grant,
killed by BART police in 2009, who portrayed Troy Davis in Dec. 8 New
York performance
of “I am Troy Davis.” Gwen Carr, seated left, mother of Eric Garner who
was killed by New York Cop chokehold in 2014, played Davis’ mother.
Inset is Troy
Davis with his nethew, De’Jaun Davis-Correia, whom he mentored and
tutored through school from behind bars while on death row. figure
Standing left is Cephus “Uncle Bobby X” Johnson, uncle of Oscar Grant,
killed by BART police in 2009, who portrayed Troy Davis in Dec. 8 New
York performance
of “I am Troy Davis.” Gwen Carr, seated left, mother of Eric Garner who
was killed by New York Cop chokehold in 2014, played Davis’ mother.
Inset is Troy
Davis with his nethew, De’Jaun Davis-Correia, whom he mentored and
tutored through school from behind bars while on death row.
Standing left is Cephus “Uncle Bobby X” Johnson, uncle of Oscar Grant,
killed by BART police in 2009, who portrayed Troy Davis in Dec. 8 New
York performance
of “I am Troy Davis.” Gwen Carr, seated left, mother of Eric Garner who
was killed by New York Cop chokehold in 2014, played Davis’ mother.
Inset is Troy
Davis with his nethew, De’Jaun Davis-Correia, whom he mentored and
tutored through school from behind bars while on death row. figure end
NEW YORK — Some 100 people joined the family of Troy Davis to see a live
performance Dec. 8 of “I am Troy Davis,” a theatrical protest against
cop frame-ups
and the death penalty. The screenplay adaption of the book I am Troy
Davis was read at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater and organized by
Donkeysaddle Projects.
The book, co-written by Davis; his sister, Martina Davis-Correia; and
Jen Marlowe portrays his life and the 20-year fight against his execution.
Davis was executed by Georgia state officials in September 2011, two
decades after he was framed up in the death of off-duty Savannah police
officer Mark
MacPhail. There was no physical evidence to tie Davis to the killing,
and most of the witnesses the cops got to testify against him said they
had lied.
Davis maintained he wasn’t guilty until his last breath.
I urge readers to watch “I am Troy Davis,” a recording of which can be
seen on YouTube at
https://youtube/iSBjvbSM0OE.
It gives a sense of history and urgency as the fight to end the death
penalty continues.
The performance is an intimate account of the fight by Davis’ family and
their many supporters seeking to stop his execution. It also gives an
all too
familiar look at the U.S. rulers’ “justice” system and how working
people are the targets of its indignities.
The performers were an especially poignant aspect of the evening —
including Gwen Carr, mother of Eric Garner, killed by a New York Police
Department chokehold
in 2014; Cephus “Uncle Bobby X” Johnson, uncle of Oscar Grant, killed by
BART police in Oakland, California, in 2009; three exonerated former
death row
prisoners; and many others whose lives were upended by capitalist
“justice.”
On July 25, the Trump administration announced plans to resume the
federal death penalty after a 16-year de facto moratorium, a move that
has since been
stayed by the courts. “That was the impetus for putting this event
together,” Marlowe said at the beginning of the performance. The first
of five executions
had been set, the day after the show.
“People always say Bill Clinton was our friend; he started all this,”
Sabrina Butler told the Militant, pointing to the Democratic president’s
signing
of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996. Butler,
who performs in the show, was the first woman ever exonerated from death
row. She
had been railroaded onto Mississippi’s death row after her
nine-month-old son died at home in 1989.
What the Militant wrote at the time of Davis’ execution remains true
today. “This systematic, anti-working-class carnage won’t be ended by
the ‘reason,’
‘justice,’ or ‘good will’ of the courts or Democratic and Republican
party politicians who serve the class interests of the propertied ruling
families.
That can only be won as a by-product of powerful, millions-strong
struggles by the working class and oppressed, along the road to the
revolutionary conquest
of workers power.”
article end
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IN THIS ISSUE
Front Page Articles
list of 7 items
• Murders at Jersey City deli were anti-Semitic assault
• Protest Jew-hatred, killings in New Jersey
• Democrats push to impeachment boosts US rulers political police
• NY meeting discusses Sankara’s legacy today
• Solidarity with the Asarco copper workers fight against union busting!
• UK: Workers vote to demand ‘Get out of EU,’ reject Labour anti-Semitism
• ‘Cuban Five’s example is result of the socialist revolution there’
list end
Feature Articles
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• Climate summit didn’t, won’t stop capitalist rulers fouling the earth
list end
Also In This Issue
list of 7 items
• Capitalist rivalries in Mideast fuel expanding war in Libya
• Workers donate ‘blood money’ bribes to build SWP
• ‘I am Troy Davis’: powerful protest against death penalty
• CP’s oil train wreck raises specter of new Lac-Mégantic
• Gibsons fight Oberlin College ‘racism’ smears
• Algeria protests reject rigged presidential election
• Hundreds rally for ‘driver’s licenses for all’ in New Jersey
list end
On the Picket Line
list of 1 items
• Rail workers in UK strike to defend jobs and safety
list end
25, 50 and 75 years ago
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Carl Sagan
“Who is more humble? The scientist who looks at the universe with an open
mind and accepts whatever the universe has to teach us, or somebody who says
everything in this book must be considered the literal truth and never mind
the fallibility of all the human beings involved?”
― Carl Sagan
