On Wednesday morning, Sept. 21, I opened my Facebook to find that my friend Tk Karakashian Tunchez wrote “I’m raising a Black boy in a world where Black men are endangered species and state-sanctioned lynchings don’t even make the news. My spirit is hurting today and I’m praying hard.”

My heart hurt with her heart, my heart hurt for Troy Davis, and I knew that with all the hurt I had in my heart it couldn’t match hers. Then my hurt turned to anger, anger that this would take place in my name, in the name of ‘safety’ for a few chosen people.

Troy Davis was a Black man from Georgia. He was arrested for supposedly killing Mark MacPhail, a Savannah police officer, on August 19, 1989. Davis was sentenced to death after nine witnesses testified in court that Davis was the killer. The testimonies contained inconsistencies, and later seven of the nine witnesses recanted, saying that they had been coerced by the police into taking the stand. Sylvester Coles is one of the two witnesses who have not recanted his testimony. There is no physical evidence linking Davis to the killing and after Davis’s first trial, evidence arose physically linking Coles to the killing of MacPhail.

After exhausting all of his appeals Troy Davis was executed last week at 11 p.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 21.Many consider this a murder. In a public statement, Judge Greg Mathis called the execution, “a grave miscarriage of justice.” Mathis went on to say that, “We have long known our justice system is broken. Davis’s execution shows us just how flawed the system has become.”

Mathis’ statement is one of truth. Since 1973, 130 people have been released from death row after their innocence was proven, according to AmnestyUSA.org. In 2003, 10 people were released, the website stated. If that many people were convicted and released from death row, then how many innocent people are convicted and never released from death row?

The death penalty has also been proven inequitable. People who are convicted of killing White victims are more likely to be executed then those who kill people of color, said AmnestyUSA.org. If the race of a person who killed a White person was Black, then they are three times as likely to get the death penalty, the website said.

The disturbing statistics linking racial inequality to the prison system continue. In the United States, it is more dangerous to have an encounter with an officer of the law if you are a Black or Latino man, according to Marc Mauer’s report “Addressing Racial Disparities in Incarceration” found on SentencingProject.org It seems the further into the criminal justice system a person of color journeys, the more dangerous their situation becomes.

In 2005, national data showed that White, Black and Latino individuals were pulled over at similar rates. Black and Latino individuals however were more than two times more likely to be searched by police, the report stated. White people are not more or less suspicious, so the question is, do police officers realize they are racially profiling?
Some laws inadvertently, or not, put people of color at a higher risk for extended sentencing. Since 1989 Massachusetts required that a longer sentence is mandatory if a person is selling drugs in a school zone as opposed to outside of a school zone, said PrisonPolicy.org. The Justice Policy Institute issued a report that these sentences create a climate in which Black and Latino defendants are more susceptible to harsher sentencing because of zoning. Black and Latino defendants are more likely to live in urban areas, where school zones may overlap, covering the majority of their communities, said the report.

The differences in mandatory minimum sentences between crack cocaine and powder cocaine is another major problem in sentencing disparities. Mauer’s report stated that a five-year mandatory minimum sentence is required for sale or possession of 500 grams of powder cocaine. The same sentence of five years is used for only five grams of crack cocaine, the report stated. Statistics show that powder cocaine offenders are more likely to be White or Latino and crack cocaine offenders are more likely to be Black, it said.

If there remains any question as to the inequality in prison sentencing, look at the demographics of prison inmates. One in 17 white males will go to prison, one in six Latino males will go to prison (I was unable to ascertain if this number included undocumented people in detention centers waiting to be deported), and one in three Black men will go to prison, the report stated.

If you don’t believe me – and I don’t expect everyone will – do your own research. The facts are present for anyone with a desire to know, and in this piece, I only included a few of many. The prison system in the U.S. has a long history of racist practices and policies, both built into the legal system and supported in illegal ways. The Troy Davis case is a horrific example of the racist practices implemented in his execution. Mathis ended his statement by saying “Georgia has blood on its hands.”

I am left feeling that if this happens again, after we have such a clear example of why our correctional institution isn’t working, that I will have blood on my hands too. I keep hope so I don’t let myself forget. I am hanging on to the end of Karakashian Tunchez’s Facebook post made after Davis’s death, “I am thankful for the encouraging words that Troy Davis left before he left our physical plain. Never surrender and never forget. We are witnessing and we are continuing in movement. I thank the Great God/desses for allowing me to witness a proud, humble brother open his heart to us and unite us.”

Michelle Alcott is a Collegian columnist. She can be reached at [email protected].