“Here is something you can’t understand, how I could just kill a man.” – Cypress Hill
I love this song, and of course, the lyrical mayhem and murdering rhymes of the great Cypress Hill. Be Real’s sneery, cheery cadence lends lightness to the incomprehensible idea of taking another life. But then again, is that act so incomprehensible? Cypress Hill also speaks to me, because I have such rage inside me, having asked myself the question – could I kill someone? I think we all have that killing instinct, that fire within. It is an animalistic yet highly human response. If I visualize going to the post office, where the lines are too long, and the window on the end is about to close, leaving only one window open, out of the dozen that should be in operation, it assures me to know that I have a seven day waiting period in order to purchase a firearm, and that would inevitably place me in another long line, so that killing a clerk would do no good except to expedite my own death by firing squad. If I am behind someone at a toll booth, and they do not have the exact change, I shudder to think what their fate would be if I were packing heat.
What is that saying, “Judge not, lest ye be judged?” I can’t help but to judge, and that is why I hate judgment. I dare not cast the first stone because I am so down with sin. Looking into my own prejudices and biases, which might be different than those of the status quo, yet still exists as hatred within my heart, I hate to think that I am guilty of the same crime as those whose ideas I try so desperately to fight. If I have the capacity for such hideous thinking, I don’t want to know the thoughts of those who might be less compassionate. Which is why I don’t think that the government should have the power to enforce the death penalty, in any situation. If my own murderous tendencies can be felt on the surface, how could I in good conscience put the power of life or death in the hands of a bureaucracy, or worse, a theocracy?
So many people on death row do not belong there. We kill the innocents time and time again. The American judicial system is guilty of more crimes than any criminal – yet the issue never seems to get anywhere. The prisons are so racially imbalanced, what could the reason for that be, if it is not clear and present racism?
Why is there such a thing as “hip hop cops?” There are not law enforcement specialists for other “non-ethnicity” driven music. Could you imagine the “Emo-enforcers?” Narcs in “Jesus is My Homie” t-shirts and reddish-brown vintage Levi’s cords, alternating between riding skateboards, hiding in shrubs and documenting Conor Oberst’s every move? “Okay, he is leaving his girlfriend’s house. I believe that the suspect is crying. copy that. We will be requiring back-up. Tell them to bring Kleenex.”
He is sweet, I love that little white boy, he is very sensitive. I am just trying to find out why there has to be a Special Unit for rap stars.
Even if it is not a racially motivated reason, bigotry is still in full effect. Currently, Damien Echols is on death row in Arkansas. He has been there for almost eleven years for a crime he did not commit. He is part of the West Memphis Three, accused of the murder of three little boys, and caught up in the insanity of one community, who sentenced Echols to death and the other two, Jesse Misskelly and Jason Baldwin, to life without parole. No evidence was ever found to connect the then teenagers to the killings. It was all hysteria over the possibility of a Satanic cult living in their midst, and a complicit court system, which glossed over the facts in order to placate the outrage of the locals, and to this day, cannot admit what they have done wrong.
There have been two documentaries, “Paradise Lost,” I & II, and two feature films currently in production, as well as several books and numerous writings about the case, websites dedicated to the innocence of the West Memphis Three. Celebrities like Eddie Vedder and Winona Ryder have tried to help to no avail. What right to their lives do we have if it has been shown time and time again that their innocence is real? Not only have the initial terrible crimes still gone unpunished, their effects have merely grown and spread like a cancer into the lives of these young men and their families.
I say ‘we’ because unless they are free, none of us are free. Of course there are criminals who have been justly apprehended and jailed for their crimes. I am not asking for all the prisons and institutions for the criminally insane to open their doors like school is out forever, but how can we let those who do not benefit from the technological advancement of forensic science in the last decade still wither behind bars? DNA evidence is proving to be the real deal, the be all end all of who is lying and who is not. It is better than Wonder Woman’s golden lasso. Unfortunately, it is expensive and therefore mostly unavailable to those serving time for crimes they didn’t commit years ago. The only reason they probably were incarcerated in the first place is that they couldn’t afford anything but a court appointed attorney, more like a public offender than defender.
I have followed this case for many years, and just recently, I am stepping up my game. I send Damien books from his Amazon Wish List and write about what life and the world is like out here. He’s a bright and gentle young man, and very apologetic when he gets behind in his correspondence. He is very much a Kerry supporter, although he preferred Wesley Clark to anyone else so far. Of course, he will not have a chance to vote, since they don’t let people who have been in jail do so, even if they do get out, at least not for a really long time.
When you go to the polls, think of him, and all the injustice that exists in our nation today. Know that your voice has to count for many who have been silenced. Don’t take freedom for granted, because we don’t have it yet.