My Freshman Year of College, I Met Sister Helen Prejean, who Wrote “Dead Man Walking.”

My college was performing a stage version of the book, and I accidentally enrolled in the class thinking it was a class to fulfill my DCM credit. I was responsible for dramaturgy.

Before that, I don’t think I had too much of a stance on the death penalty. I remember being extremely upset when Stanley “Tookie” Williams was executed because I believed the good work he had been doing to cease gang violence and promote peace was worth his life being spared. I knew it was wrong in some sense, but as an 18-year-old freshman, I didn’t have a clue.

However, after reading the book, and the play, seeing the play performed night after night, and having lunch with Sister Helen, I knew what I believed. Murder is murder no matter if a person is committing it or an institution is sanctioning it. The judicial system is not as much about facts as it is spinning the best story about said facts. So when a life is hung in the balance based on who can tell a story better, how is that justice?

If I killed Soulja Boy for killing my mother, I would still be arrested, tried, convicted, and imprisoned, but if the state kills an inmate, a human being, for allegedly killing another, that’s justice?

The death penalty is not justice. It’s revenge; it’s retribution. It’s flawed eye-for-an-eye logic. It purports that everything in the justice system goes correctly. It assumes that humans have the power to decide who lives and who dies. It feigns as if everything in this world is just or that issues like class and race don’t affect the justice system, because honestly, how many white men have been condemned to die by the state for the murder of anyone black? Go ahead, I’ll wait.

That three-week class changed my life, made me more appreciative of the gift of life, made me realize how incapable humans are of determining right from wrong, justice from injustice, logic from instinct.

Humaneness from beastliness.

The death penalty is cruel and unusual punishment. It’s wrong. It’s racialized; it’s classized; it’s deplorable; it’s inhumane.

In the name of Troy Davis, make it stop.

Now.

You Must Know About What Happened to Me Yesterday

Yesterday, I went to the library. I had to return a few books and I wanted a place to concentrate and finish my rec letters for this week. I got my iPod on, listening to my jams, and I walk into the library. I turn my iPod off and go to quiet my phone when this guy approaches me. He's white, a bit taller than me, has a beard, and, honestly, a zany look in his eyes, eyes that looked like he was on a deserted island for 12 years eating buzzards and I strolled along as a steak and potatoes dinner.

He turns to me, and says, "Have you heard of Herman Cain?"

I instantly become uncomfortable. I know where this is going. I mistook the look in his eyes. It wasn't the look of a man ahungered who finally came across a meal.

It was the look of a fervent ass Republican, a frothy-in-the-mouth-like-rabies Republican.

I say, "Yes."

"Isn't he great!?" he exclaims, a distinct gleam in his eye.

I don't say anything, but I kind of squirm a bit. I wouldn't have been able to say anything anyway because he kept going.

"I'm so excited about him!" he continues. "I really want to get the word out about him. What I especially like about him is that he will bring in the Southern Baptists, you know, because he's a minister."

Do you understand how hard I had to try to not roll my eyes, call bullshit, or break it all the way down like an improper fraction for this dude? Do you know the incomprehensible level of self-control I had to exude here?

Not to mention, I only feel like he approached me because I'm black, but that's neither here nor there.

"I also like him because he's a Christian. We need that in government."

Self-control, yo.

"So yeah, I want to spread the word about Herman Cain. I want everyone to vote for him." He looks at me expectantly, as if he knows I'm going to agree with him and that he was just simply waiting for my confirmation of what he already knew.

Eventually I was going to have to burst his bubble, but I didn't want to be an asshole. Instead, I keep it classy and respectful (I mean, "MOTHERFUCK Herman Cain!!!!" just wouldn't go over too well, you know?) :"Yeah, but he's not my ideal candidate though."

"Oh," he replies, a distinct disappointment in his voice. He turns away from me without another word and immediately goes to the second floor.

I laugh inwardly, heartily. I then proceed towards the back of the library to locate Freakonomics.