Saturday, February 04, 2006

Suddenly, race-based attacks

Folks:

It began as a trickle but now it has become a river: We have received a bunch of comments to this blog during the past day or two invoking racial epithets, often using the "n" word and often using profanity.

Let me be clear here and state the obvious. Most people who favor the death penalty would not use this language. But the death penalty proponents who are visiting this blog are using it. I guess the only thing I am thankful for is that 95 percent of the people who visit this blog do not read the comments.

High school students working on term papers, and sometimes even junior high school students, visit this blog. Should we therefore delete the hateful comments?

I quite honestly do not believe we should.

I believe we need to show the face of hate and of racism. Being a white guy, I don't really know what it means to be a victim of racism. But these email messages and comments do help drive it home. So, the comments will not be deleted.

A strange and sad note: If you scroll down, you wll see a letter from Vernon Evans' lawyer explaining the problem with his conviction. Not a single person has written in to refute this lawyer's reasoning. Instead, it is "n word" this and "n word" that.

Death penalty proponents: Please. You are not putting your best face forward here. I know this is not the best you have to offer. Is it?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Clemency For Melissa Chapman
In 1987, at the age of 18, Melissa Chapman was beaten, kicked, cut, bitten, burned with cigarettes, spit and urinated on, handcuffed during beatings, raped, locked in closets and threatened with a loaded gun to the head by her drug-addicted boyfriend. She left him several times, but he dragged her back with both promises and threats of death. To her horror, he shot and killed a man who was sitting with them in a truck during a drug deal. Terrified because he threatened to kill her as well as her parents, Melissa did as she was told and helped him hide the body to protect her own life, as well as those she loved. For this, she was convicted of 1st degree murder and handed a natural life sentence with no possibility of parole.

View this article here...http://talkingsaboutinmates.virtuaboard.com/viewtopic.forum?t=32