Week 9: Silencing the Past
Anita Vanderberg
Week 9: Silencing the Past: Trouillot
Sunday – November 1, 2006
Anita_Vanderberg@comcast.net
ONLINE Section 1395, Fall 2006 I believe that the statement by Michel-Rolph Trouillot on page 11, “The lesson of the debate is clear. At some stage, for reasons that are themselves historical, most often spurred by controversy collectivities experience the need to impose a test of credibility on certain events and narratives because it matters to them whether these events are true or false, whether these stories are fact or fiction.” (11) depicts the reality of lies and deceit that conflict in regards to someone such as Christopher Columbus. I was one who grew up being told how great he was and how he colonized America. I did not feel that I needed to research this information as I was learning it in school. Having data given to you does not mean that one will not be open to another idea or belief later in time. It was important in 1492 and has remained so up until recently that Columbus be known and recognized as the man who discovered America in that year and he is still considered a hero to many. This has been taught to American citizens by the educational system until the 1960’s when it was finally “let out” that the first European to document his arrival to North America was an Italian explorer Giovanni Caboto. What should have been taught about Christopher Columbus perhaps was that he is responsible for opening up the Atlantic slave trade and launching one of the largest numbers of casualties of genocide known in history. Another ugly fact that should be mentioned is that in August of 1500, Christopher Columbus along with his brothers, was sent back to Spain shackled in chains by Spanish Governor Francesco de Bobadilla for mistreating Natives in the section of Hispaniola now known as Haiti. However, upon arrival in Spain, they all were released and warmly invited back into royal court.That the United States honors only two men with federal holidays bearing their names be that of Martin Luther King, Jr., who fought to remove racial prejudice and the remaining ties to slavery in America and then honor Christopher Columbus whose entire being appears to be that of a mass murderer, probably a sociopath liar, cheat, thief, and mostly evil. How can we as a people praise the lives of both men when the intent of their existences be so diametrically opposed, other than the value of the history of their stories, being exploited or expressed by those in a place of power at the time. As Trouillot states” The ways in which what happened and that which is said to have happened are and are not the same may itself be historical.” (4) Anita VanderbergWeek 9: Silencing the Past: Trouillot What really might matter is the manipulation of the concepts of an invasion, religious tolerance or intolerance and the hidden agenda behind it, the subjugation and genocide of weak peoples by warring people, and the establishment of colonies for countries fighting for more power. Who benefits from the stories that become our history? Which of course draws us into our current day events with our own President Bush, his invasion, his religious belief system, etc. I see his lips moving and I hear his words and they are written, recorded, and he has no problem denying statements, actions, moments lacking obvious clarity, as if he knows history will be simply be put as he wishes it to be. I find this to be frightening behavior.Another statement of Trouillot on page 5 that, “history is a story about power, a story about those who won”. I for one was not aware that The Haitian Revolution was the first and only successful slave revolution in the history of the Americas. This was a fact that needed to be silenced, as it was feared that slaves in the colonies would also take up arms and fight for their lives. Again, by deleting it from the records and hiding the truth, those that benefited were the people currently in power and this allowed them to continue to use and abuse and disregard human life. I had found myself recently on a journey researching the life of Socrates and I find he fits in nicely to this topic, at least for me. He was a man devoted to the truth. He was a critical thinker whose method of insistent questioning forced people to eliminate answers to serious questions, which pointed them in a direction toward a significant degree of intellectual independence. Socrates philosophy was that important issues of life and virtue were necessary to a human life and he would not be silenced. Socrates was convicted by a jury of corrupting youth and for religious heresies and chose to take hemlock poison instead of accepting exile or a commitment of silence. Perhaps his silence would have made as important an impact as his words. Socrates did offer society his credibility by his ability and wisdom thereby fulfilling Trouillot’s statement on page (8) “The need for a different kind of credibility sets the historical narrative apart from fiction. This need is both contingent and necessary.”
PelicanBay/Prison Rape
Anita Vanderberg
Week 8: PelicanBay/Prison Rape
Sunday – October 15, 2006
Anita_Vanderberg@comcast.net
ONLINE Section 1395, Fall 2006 The purpose of the prison system as I understand Foucault to express is “the birth of the prison as justice that is suppose to be equal and a legal machinery that is suppose to be autonomous, but contains asymmetries of disciplinary subjection.” A major point that I see that Foucault stated and one I think should be scary to all of us is “that it has become so naturalized that alternatives seem unthinkable.” It can be anyone of us who loses a family member to the “prison system”. My father was from a well to do family, superstar football player, outgoing and successful, loving father, and then one day that man, who as I understand it today, was in a disease called addiction. He had cross-addicted over to gambling, he was use to winning and he lost big time. From some classes that I have been taking lately, being an addict is due to an identified brain disorder and considered a life threatening disease with no cure, only treatment at this time is available. I again state my conviction that individuals with a disease do not belong in a prison setting with those that have been responsible for heinous acts such as abuse of children, murder, torture, rape, etc. Also, the three-strike rule is completely insane as it disallows for reason and the option of good common sense and the potential for rehabilitation. My brother has told me stories about the racial factors within San Quentin and as I read the update on Pelican Bay it certainly falls into place. The goal is to keep the inmates fighting and hostile against each other. If they are busy killing what they consider to be the enemy they are less likely to attack the guards and buck the “system”. I also am aware that the prisons tend to hire young men from the surrounding area who were football players who have physically “medicated themselves” for bulk effect, ones not going off to college, and offer them quite a handsome salary for someone 19 years old. Obviously, these boys lack many life skills and would be easily sucked into the manipulation of older guards and wardens who are far from ethical human beings with moral integrity according to the Pelican Bay update. Twisted and evil becomes the day and it would be okay to see some 17-year-old boy come in who, in someone’s opinion, deserves to be violently taught a lesson. He made a mistake and so to them and it is not just about repaying a debt to society; it is a secret game of torture and entertainment for all parties involved. I am determined that we must fight to have open access to the prisons as the ability to have policies in place which use innocent prisoners as guinea pigs and creates an environment instigating continued violence needs to be highly monitored. Without a doubt the warden of Pelican Bay must be fired if these facts are determined to be true. He should never be allowed to work again in the Anita VanderbergWeek 8: PelicanBay/Prison Rape prison system, but should become an inmate for the amount of time decreed by a jury. The families of his victims should be allowed to vote on the location where he should reside. The CPF suggested conditions to improve the prisoner’s lives and they are should be acknowledged. Number 4 request initiating work, education, and hobbies so as to allow them to be constructive. An obvious human need. However, as Foucault points out to us (Part III p 227-228) that “penalty today would be an indefinite discipline; an interrogation without end . . . a procedure that would be the permanent measure of a gap in relation to an inaccessible norm and the asymptotic movement that strives to meet in infinity. I believe one should be giving the opportunity to make right a wrong and once that is done or paid for, knowledge is gained, a debt is paid, a positive move forward. Many mistakes can be rectified and entire families do not have to be destroyed because society is being lead to look away. As Foucault also notices which we all should see as well, “Is surprising that prisons resemble factories, schools, barracks, hospitals, which all resemble prisons?” I think we should ponder this. I have been confused as to why my brother and father wound up in San Quentin. Our family lived in the San Diego, L.A. area. I was born in Pasadena and named after the Santa Anita Racetrack, where I was almost born. I now understand from the update on Pelican Bay that the answer is to keep families from visitation and potentially protecting and fighting for the inmate’s rights. A weekly visit would lead to disclosure of abuse. My brother and father were not violent criminals and not threats to society, and being sent to prison 14 hours away is another method of abusing inmates. They could have requested to be sent to Michigan where there was caring family members. A move like that makes sense. I believe that coercive behavior is going to create a hostile and violent environment where no one can be safe. There would be limited ability to be productive or useful to society during or after your experience in confinement. An environment that is non-coercive builds trust and allows humans to potential heal and thrive and add and contribute to our world. That could be through art, writing, singing, etc. Johnny Cash did time for an addiction and currently we are harassing Willie Nelson. If they can be productive and continue to use their talents and not get killed due to a coercive system that might be against country music, why not take advantage of a worthwhile policy. However, again, I cannot agree that these two men should ever be placed into a prison. I feel that there are things to be “fixed” at Angola State Prison but I see it more as a non-coercive facility, which offers healthy outlets, builds respect and treats inmates as human beings. There is greater odds that you will die there due to the Anita VanderbergWeek 8: PelicanBay/Prison Rape current laws. Attica and Pelican Bay are coercive and need to be immediately revamped and the entire staff from warden to newest guard removed. I have not been able to sleep well since I saw the “Shawshank Redemption” and the story of the 17 year old boys abuse and suicide are just not acceptable. Perhaps if he had raped a child, raped anyone, the eye for an eye might fall into place for some people. Random acts of twisted abuse should not be condoned and accepted. This leads to days of Hitler. If we continue to look the other way and allow the prisons to be secret and hidden to protect us from the ugly criminals, we are setting ourselves up to be taken down the road to chaos and disaster.
Week 5 Tookie Williams
Anita Vanderberg
Week 5: Tookie Williams
Sunday – October 1, 2006
Anita_Vanderberg@comcast.net
ONLINE Section 1395, Fall 2006 Stanley Tookie Williams/Black Nationalism and Funeral I guess for me one of the most important statements was made by Rev. Jesse Jackson, “Tookie is dead, we’re not safer, we’re not more secure, we’re not more humane. We must kill the idea of killing to stop killing.” The message this hopefully gave to those who came to pay respects was to leave with peace in their hearts and continue Williams’ legacy. A baby boy is born on Dec. 29, 1953 in New Orleans Charity Hospital. He is named Stanley Tookie Williams III and his mother is a 17-year-old girl and his father will desert the family before Williams’ turns one year old. A harsh life lay ahead and at the age of 13 the tough street life had lead him to co-found the “Crips” street gang. What makes a young man angry? I cannot help but think that if we addressed the damaging factors in a childhood we could prevent so much of the hatred and sorrow in our world. Was there ever a police officers that saw Tookie at age ten and made an effort to see if he was okay? Did anyone bother to help a young mother at 17 years old raise this baby, help her get an education and make sure she was given the right to have her child live in a safe environment. Probably not! Tookie was strong and fierce and a product of “our” society. Instead of offering a life to him to achieve, we put groups of people in poverty and expect that they will kill each other and quietly go away. It is like in prison the goal is to have the prisoners fight each other so that the focus is off the guards. If you create a monster, one must consider that they will come after you or your loved ones any given day. Was Mr. Williams guilty or innocent of the four murders? It is hard to consider him guilty beyond reasonable doubt due to lack of fingerprints, tangible evidence, bloody boot prints and I guess my attitude goes along with the thoughts of this blog on http://smokingmirrors.blogspot.com/2005/12/quo-vadis-tookie-williams.html . “The question you have to ask yourself is, “Would the head of what came to be the largest, most organized gang in the United States really go out and small time murder for chump change? If you asked me, “Did the LA police department set him up based on the rational that he’s guilty of it somewhere?” I would have to say; “That seems the most likely scenario.” Anita VanderbergWeek 5: Tookie Williams A long time ago a friend of mine said to me in regards to the police in New York City, “you don’t need to worry about what they will take out of your car, it is what they will put into your vehicle.” I had many friends who were detectives and police officers and I still feel like I can see both sides of the street. There are good and bad people everywhere, and some misinformed souls. As a person who has lost a loved one to violence, I feel that if the dark hearted man who took away something so precious to me, the opportunity for me or my children to ever spend five minutes with my father or their grandfather, I would rather he find some positive way to redeem himself than have someone murder him. What better way than to reach out to children who are suffering the same poverty, lack of education, lack of opportunities, daily fear in their neighborhoods, and show them a different path. If Mr. Williams was nominated for the Nobel Peach Prize each year from 2001 to 2005 that surely must give some merits to display value in this mans life. Can we return life once taken, of course not, but it is better to not have died in vain. If a man who lived with such violence can perchance make an effort to teach others a better way to live, what do we as a society gain by killing him? A description by Rudy Langlais, the producer of the film “Redemption”, the story of Mr. Williams life, of his visit with the former Crip on his last day. He found him with his hands and feet shackled and a chain, which bolted him to a chair. It seems to me that this would be cruel and unusual punishment. What is the point? The truth I see is as Farrakhan had said, “They saw in Stanley Tookie Williams a potential threat, strong, muscular, fierce, a warrior. He will be greater in death than he ever was in life. He paid a price, not just for his redemption, but for ours.” If he had not died, I would not be reading this or have had the opportunity to be in this class. If enough people begin to see the injustice of the system EVENTUALLY a change will occur. I thought a comment by Malik Spellman of the LA Weekly was pretty demented. It was that “It’s kind of a shame the most popular thing to do in Los Angeles on a Monday night is not watching NFL football but going to a mortuary.” Football is a very frivolous past time and really does not belong in the same sentence with someone’s death in my opinion. I understand that Schwarzenegger is pretty solid on the attitude that if someone has been convicted of a crime there is no redemption. From a man who is actually a drug addict and abuser from his days as a body builder I find this intriguing. He could have just as easily found himself behind bars in his youth in the world today. Anita VanderbergWeek 5: Tookie Williams I was happy to find Sister Helen Prejean present who compared his death penalty to “gang justice.” As she so aptly phrased it “Gang justice is, if you kill a member of our gang, we kill you — and don’t tell me anything about how you changed your life or what you’re going to do,” she said. “You kill, and we kill you. And that’s what the United States of America is doing with this.”I totally see a correlation between racism, lynching and the destruction of the young black, Latino male. However it is we decide to destroy a human life by, the greater odds are that poor uneducated men are at risk. I so appreciate the fact that Dhouruba al-Mujahid Bin-Wahad notes “thanks to The Patriot Act even white citizens are potential criminals before they are law abiding citizens.” I think we all need to “feel” the danger of uncertainty, to realize that police are not our friends anymore per se. As a 50-year-old woman who has lived in several different states and for the first time ever, I have distrust of my local police department. The manner in which they appear to be trained seems to fall into the Nazi mindset and that just sets off an alarm that should ring loud. How must a young poor black or Latino teenager feel?
Week 4: Mr. Death
Anita Vanderberg
Week 4: Mr. Death
Sunday – September 24, 2006
Anita_Vanderberg@comcast.net
ONLINE Section 1395, Fall 2006 The film Mr. Death was indeed facinating to me and certainly enlightened my thinking even further in regards to the death penalty. The reality in my mind is that Fred A. Leuchter Jr., due to his upbringing of involvement from his father’s employment at a prison, taught him that prisoners were still human and deserved to be treated as such. He grew up it making friendships with some of these men, learning such skills as picking locks or breaking into safes. He was a proponent of the death penalty but he was not a supporter of torture. He understood that a warden was basically a surrogate father, who saw a prisioner five or six times a week, cared about his well being, perhaps knew him for five, ten, twenty years, and then one day would be responsible for executing him. The guards and the prisoners were in a way co-workers, only the guards got to go home. My first take on this movie was that this man was a horrible person who invented a method of tortuous killing. He was really a man who may have had mercy on the souls of those individuals facing a horrific death, and those who would be participating in the procedures. It was an interesting chain of events which lead to his career and to me I would consider him to have been somewhat of a genius. He obviously had an ability to problem solve and create and resolve equipement malfunctions and design and initiate a method of killing with compassion. If we are to have a death penalty I thought we had developed a non-violent manner of removing a demented person from our midst. When I was pro death penalty, I did not ever consider we were such blood thirsty citizens. As Foucault had presented it in Slakening of the hold on the body (10) “The reduction of these ‘thousand deaths’ to strict capital punishment defines a whole new morality concerning the act of punishing” (12). I in my innocence, thought our government had evolved due to the wishes of its citizenship, and when a violent criminal who it had been determined beyond any reasonable doubt, with a competent defense team, was doomed to die, was exterminated to protect society, by a non torturous manner. After seeing Mr. Death I am not sure that is really possible. I think we can attempt to mask or diminish the murder, but as the Mr. Leuchter stated, it is truly hard to destroy the human body. Under “The new theory of punishment” where it is talking about reform in the eighteenth century by reduction of economic and political cost by increasing its effectiveness and by multiplying its circuits. I felt this tied into the misfortunate decision of Mr. Leuchter to become involved in the journey to establish that the gas chambers existence during the Hiltlers regime to be true or false. The goal as I understand it was to effectively eliminate large numbers of victims, thus making it cost effective. This would also prove to be effective politically as it more readily remove the “populations” they wanted to render powerless or annihilate. It was also a method that would allow the massacres to be hidden and difficult to prove. Anita VanderbergWeek 4: Mr. Death Mr. Leuchter was not trained in the techniques required to identify if syinide was present in the buildings, bricks, walls, ceiling, flooring and due to the testing not accurately handled, I feel he was misguided and misinformed and possibly taken advantage of by Ernst Zundel and the revisionist movement group. I personally thinked he continued to point out that along the way, he first fell into correcting a faulty electric chair. Due to his success with that he was given a contract to “fix” the lethal injection method even though electricity has nothing to do with lethal injections. Then he was asked to assist in corrections for hangings and on to the gas chamber. I found an interesting website http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?scid=8&did=479 which gives description of the methods. Mr. Leuchter was not an expert in any of this areas yet he was hired and paid for his services. As Foucault acknowledges under Public Execution is that it is “an exercise of terror to make all aware of the unrestrained presence of the sovereign.” This is what I see that such states as Texas insist on pressing on their communities. Fear is a big thing for the state which in my opinion is why our current president finds it such an easy game to play against the citizens of the United States of American. I just happened to have rented a “Boston Legal” show from Netflix, unaware that it was a show about the death penalty, a version of the Texas attitude on maintaining and promotion of their ideals. I lived in Texas as a child and never bonded or felt comfortable in that area and I guess I had a sixth sense for the community sense of right and wrong. I went and did some research and came across this website which may be of some interest to my fellow students http://www.fdp.dk/ . Further noted by Foucault in regards to public spectacle was the highlighting of the participation of the executioner, judge, and any associated parties, in what became a shameful act by them and one that instigated the public to respond violently. By shifting the the punishment from a public scene it became where the offender was now marked in a negative light instead and who really cared anymore what happen to them. I would say this basically made it so it was “out of sight and out of mind”, we the people were no longer responsible or aware of what was going to happen. I think for me, where I see a comparison between the movie and book “Dead Man Walking” was that there is always room for two or three different versions of what might be true or false. Did Mr. Leuchter truly have compassion for the victims to have the right to die with dignity and without torture? If so many states hired him to do a job and he repeatedly succeeded to give them what he was contracted to do, how is it that he could be held accountable for results given that were incorrect? He was hired to do a job, granted by a group of individuals I might find unsavory, but these people should have a right to seek scientific knowledge and a right to speak even if what they have to say is against my belief. For me, the words one might say or write will not define me or prevent me from seeking my truth.
Week 3 DMW Pg 55-115 Movie
Anita Vanderberg
Week 3: DMW 55 – 115 Movie
Sunday – September 17, 2006
Anita_Vanderberg@comcast.net
ONLINE Section 1395, Fall 2006 I realize now that I was taking Dead Man Walking by Sister Helen Prejean as an actual account of her experience with Elmo Patrick Sonnier, and the events that she described as going through the legal and prison systems, as accurate. I do believe her accounts are actual regarding the system, but I see that she added fiction to her characters and some of the factual acts. I wasn’t expecting that from a nun. There is nothing wrong with what she did, it is just that she wrote a story and I did not read or understand the fine print. The movie was more confusing to me because I was looking at the book as the real story. I am use to movies being altered to allow for viewing pleasures of an audience, and it is generally a given that characters and locations will be shifted or changed. I did not see the value of changing the theme of the two brothers in the book to Pat and his connection to an older “friend”. In the movie, the presentation of the three younger brothers was an excellent idea, as it shows the side of life I hope to have the public become aware of. Of course, as the book describes and the movie included, is the reality that it is not just the mothers and fathers of the victims that endure a daily reminder of grief, it was also shown that Pat’s mother would live out her days in shame and be forced to hide her grief and loss without kindness or assistance. The book describes Pat’s death as I understood it to be by electrocution and in the movie it was lethal injection. My opinion is that both methods are cruel and unusual punishment. I also agree with Sister Helen in the book version when she was speaking with Mr. Phelps on page 105, when she says “I’m not sure what he felt physically when the nineteen hundred volts hit him, but certainly he agonized, emotionally and psychologically – preparing to die, anticipating it, dreaming about it. Amnesty International defines torture as an extreme physical and mental assault on a person who has been rendered defenseless. That is what happen to Patrick Sonnier, isn’t it Mr. Phelps?? It is indeed a form of torture knowing when you are suppose to die, how you are to die, knowing that a group of people will be delighting in the show, accepting the fact that this is a hidden murder done in the middle of the night. I will state again, the crimes that are committed that bring one to face the death penalty are indeed heinous, and as Sister Helen says again and again in her book, the acts are not acceptable nor forgivable. However, when I saw Lt. Crittendon I cannot imagine that it is in his job description to be responsible for killing someone and basically turning him into what we find so foul. Anita VanderbergWeek 3 DMW Pgs: 55 – 115 Movie The book describes how the governor, warden, priest, guards, are all putting it off that an execution is just a job and they are therefore not responsible for the act of murder weighing on their souls. This comment to me falls into a scary grey area of life. In the history of the United States, we annihilated the American Indian. A proud people who we degraded, murdered, stole their land, demeaned their culture, threw them away to live on reservations, and even to this day treat them with disrespect and disregard. It was all done by commands and orders passed down by greedy self-serving individuals. It was a period of time in our history where we the “Hitler”. Were we not the “Hitler” when we abducted and stole men, women, and children from their homes in Africa to be sold like animals in America to become slaves? Another proud people who were hung, beat, raped, or tortured without reason, all of their rights were stripped from them as human beings. Their families were torn apart, their culture destroyed, and again by selfish, greedy, toxic individuals who made up laws and created a legal system to accommodate their violent natures and feed their need for money and control. When the healthy citizens began to rise up and question the righteousness of these acts did we not have a war because our belief systems were so far apart? How long did it take for the United States to finally come to the aid of the victims of the Nazi Regime? Did it take so long because we as a country had been guilty of the same acts against our own people? The Nazi’s were just following orders, they did not question the orders as they would be shot or their families would be killed. Is this what we want our world to be?As an American Citizen I believe one of the most important rights is to be able to question authority and not fear for your life or your loved ones well-being. If we as a people want to live in peace we must find ways to embrace the behavior. There are indeed humans who are evil without cause and most certainly need to be separated from society. However, as Lt. Crittendon commented, it is wise to allow these individuals to be educated, to be treated with respected so that they may give respect back and not kill or injure their captors. It is not often the case that those on Death Row are educated with strong family support or ones who have had careers, families, and a success story. If there is a way that a person who may have caused so much pain and sorrow can in some manner offer good back into the world than that is what we should seek to discover. Anita VanderbergWeek 3 Dead Man Walking Pgs: 55 – 115 The onlookers at the death of Pat in the book were basically not described. It is mentioned that everyone is silent afterwards and notes the shuffle of paperwork, the procedures of the execution, the doctor confirming death, and the notation of exact time of death. After Sister Helen is taken by the two guards and enters the witness room, which has a Plexiglas window, she sees that Pat is standing behind a podium with a microphone on it. He is ask if he has any last words and he does address Mr. LeBlanc, “he does ask for forgiveness for what he and Eddie had done, but states that Eddie had done it” He did take Sister Helen’s advise on not leaving this world with hatred in his heart. When Sister Helen is filing with the others outside the witness room she looks around and sees that Mr. LeBlanc is shaken and the rims of his eyes are red. For the movie version Pat admitted to Sister Helen an hour before he did his walk, that he did commit the horrific crime and he actually confessed and grasped the magnitude of his actions. In the movie they mark the walk with the shout of “DEAD MAN WALKING” as he is lead to the room that holds the chair. When ask if he had anything to say he did apologize to Mr. LeBlanc for his part in his son’s death and did say to Mr. Bourque that “he hoped his death would give some comfort to his family in the future.” In the movie he was scared and crying displaying regret for his ill deeds. Dying to Tell Angola crime, consequence, conclusion at LSP, which I now understand to be the crime, which is incorporated into Dead Man Walking, strikes me the most in the respect that I find we, society, create “Monsters”. Donald “Duck” Sharp as no point ever mentioned he took the time to do anything worthwhile for Robert Lee Willie even though he knew him since the age of 10 years old. If a boy is packing a pocketknife and keeps it sharp don’t we need to get the child some major help? If he continues to get in trouble more and more as the years go by, do we think that this boy is just going to pull it altogether one sunny afternoon, while sipping tea? Don’t we need to see what is going on in the home? Should we not take major strides to see how we could help him to feel successful in a positive manner, work on his educational needs, showing him some kindness, give him a purpose to live with love in his heart? Should we not check on the siblings? Does the mother or father need help? Should we not invest early in a life when we can make a difference versus waiting for the time when mistakes too big to fix have happened? I did come across some interesting links while doing some research and I think some of you will find these very interesting links: http://www.heartheissues.com/deathpenaltyandcrime.html http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/state/
Week 2: Dead Man Walking Pgs 1-55
Anita Vanderberg
Week 2: Dead Man Walking Pgs 1-55
Sunday – September 3, 2006
Anita_Vanderberg@comcast.net
ONLINE Section 1395, Fall 2006 I found I did not want to put Dead Man Walking Down. I was so drawn into the story written by Sister Helen Prejean. The fact that she is a Roman Catholic Nun stunned me a bit. My mother was Catholic; she has had little love to give in her heart or soul for years. The Catholic Church excommunicated her due to her divorce. I have always thought that she could have survived the divorce perhaps, but she was stripped of her faith and that was more than she could endure. The church would not help her even though she had five young children and no way to support them at the time. I see that the Catholic Church has both sides of life and death covered. They are against abortion and believe a life is important, but don’t want to get their hands dirty and personally take care of babies. Also as I understand it, more people have died in the name of god. If there is a god I cannot imagine he would want his children to be tortured in his name. It was nice for me to know that the Catholic Church was taking major strides to be part of a reform movement. That the church had documents that showed a focus on “social encyclicals”. That the Catholic Church was willing to practice social justice for the poor meant they must face the wrath of the wealthy. Due to these decisions we were given Sister Helen.
I have long wanted to visit San Quentin as I have lost years due to some of my family members residing there. I have been uneasy and unsure about actually going, as I am not sure if it will be healing or not. Even though I was very young I have always felt guilty that I could not write a letter or do anything to help them. I was too young to know where they were or why. When Sister Helen wrote about how much a letter meant to Pat it certainly made me cry. In fact the life that Pat expressed to her is frightening and in no way is this system looking to rehabilitate. My brother at one point was in a cell across from Charles Manson. My brother’s crime . . . three strikes, one joint, a bottle of pills, another bottle of pills and off one goes. Why in the world would someone who had a drug addition be put anywhere near Charles Manson?
I did not think about the guidelines to be allowed into a prison, but how Sister Helen described it I would have paused at the final requirement. How amazing that she continued on through all her fears and overcame them. Due to her strength, giving nature, and her selflessness she looked and acted outside the box and questioned whether a person who commits a heinous crime deserves to be tortured to death? Along this journey she discovered a system in desperate need of revamping.
I too had mistakenly believed that if one were sentenced to Death Row, there had been numerous hurdles to leap over legally, before such an order was handed down. I was shocked that the Electric Chair was literally burning someone alive. I had always thought it was a quick painless death. The description of such a death is in my opinion definitely cruel and unusual punishment. If Dr. Kevorkian has a humane method of releasing people from this world, shouldn’t we be using his method if the majority of our society wants to continue the insanity? The fact that we are taking good honest healthy people and putting them in a predicament of killing someone seems so wrong. I would not want to be responsible to killing anyone especially if I knew how rigged the system is. Aren’t we supposed to have the right to a competent attorney and guilt beyond reasonable doubt? What happen to this belief? I am not clear yet why Pat was involved in the murder. I believe that when he stated to Sister Helen that he had not touched the girl that was true. I also believe that it was the brother who killed the two teenagers. I believe that Pat knew his brother Eddie was violent and had spent his life protecting the younger boy. He might have walked away and Eddie snapped. That there had been prior assaults by the two of them seems odd. That other teenagers had been attacked in a similar manner except for the shooting, and did not go to the police does not add up for me. That they were not killed does not make sense either, as they would have been able to identify the brothers too. If one is lucky enough to survive a kidnapping, a girlfriend being raped and a gun involved in this horrendous experience, none of the other victims thought it was important enough to notify anyone? What motivates a human being to do such a crime in my opinion a lot goes back to childhood traumas, mental illnesses, abuse, poverty, etc. Pat was a model prisoner and that has to be incredibly difficult to accomplish. There were harsh times for his family but he did seem to have a love for both parents. His mother having to finish off the rabbits while the boys walked in front of her home so the family could eat, is not something any of my family or friends would want to endure. We just want to go Whole Foods or Safeway. Pat did indeed show sincere remorse for the crime committed, For some families such as Lloyd LaBlanc’s, he would later explain to Sister Helen what such an apology means. For me, I lost my father before I was ever able to meet him. He was stabbed to death in Santa Rosa at the age of 70. My second youngest sister was very close to him and she went through all of the events, which led to an arrest, a trial, and a conviction. I personally am relieved that this person will not be able to kill again and as I understand it he will not be given a parole. Having this man killed will not bring my father back and it would involve another person pulling the switch and others to sit and watch. I do feel that there are unhealthy individuals among us. I believe our societies create them though. If more money was spent on children and that were a priority and concern, our world would be safer. I had the pleasure of working with a group of children in my son’s third grade class years ago. There was a group of 5 children who were all black and considered a bit difficult and disruptive to the class. The teacher had inquired if I would perhaps come and work with them and give them some special attention. These children lived in a rough neighborhood and had been taught some tough lessons in their short lives. I have no teaching credentials or professional training on how to work with children. Two of the boys had a fistfight that first day and I wasn’t prepared that. I did diffuse the situation and made them laugh, but I did not feel qualified. It came to be one of the most memorable times of my life. I was so amazed at how smart these children were and that no one was seeing that. They just needed attention and someone to work with them in the way they needed help. These children needed kindness, hugs, laughter and hope. It was then that I realized how twisted our world was. If you keep a person down and make them feel worthless and useless, the reality is they will grow up and only know anger. Anger will be released one way or another. I believe that to survive in this world you must feel connected and have attachments. If one has nothing to live for they have no care, life means nothing. If one does not have hope to change their lives, feel success at some level, have the love and support somewhere, what can we as a society expect to happen?
