update

Deb says I should write more often. True. I've been thinking about topics to write about but I don't always come up with the words.

Here in Los Angeles, the pending Williams execution is a hot topic. For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, I'll just say that one of the self alleged founders of The Crips Gang is on death row and scheduled to be executed for 4 murders next Tuesday. The op pages of the LA Times are full of opinions. It seems that "Tookie" has written books on non violence and has decided that violence is not the route to go, twenty years too late. Now everyone including NAACP thinks the governor should commute his death sentence to life in prison.

What do I think? He murdered four people and bragged about it. But now he says he's innocent. He led the gang that terrorizes MY neighborhood.

I like what Ted Hayes said in the Sunday LA Times:

"I propose that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, rather than unequivocally deciding save Stanley Tookie Williams or send the convicted murderer to his death next week, instead conditionally postpone his execution.
The Governor should then immedicately convene a summit, including not only clergy, grass-roots leaders and elected representatives such as Maxine Waters and Diane Watson, but also current and former Bloods and Crips. The Deal: He will spare Willliams' life, but only as long as these leaders can keep young black men from killing each other. In other words, for every 30 days of peace, Tookie receives a stay of execution. Should there be any gang-related killings in LA, Tookie's fate will be sealed--not by the governor but by the young men who have been clamoring that Williams be spared and the leaders who say they are determined to save black lives. (And those leaders should be the ones to set the murder-acceptability levels--at zero tolerance or massacre levels; let it be up to them.) This is an opportunity to (1) empower young blacks to play a role in saving one of their own; (2) educate them on the role of nonviolent solutions to societal problems; (3) let African American leaders step up and do what they're always talking about--saving children and healing the brokenness in our community."

And if Williams is executed, what will happen on the streets of my neighborhood?