{"id":92,"date":"2020-11-17T20:20:58","date_gmt":"2020-11-17T20:20:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/desmondtutupeacelabpeacematters\/?p=92"},"modified":"2020-11-17T20:24:38","modified_gmt":"2020-11-17T20:24:38","slug":"blog_post_2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/desmondtutupeacelabpeacematters\/2020\/11\/17\/blog_post_2\/","title":{"rendered":"Blog Post #2"},"content":{"rendered":"

It is not often that someone can remember their first encounter of a major political issue, let alone an <\/span>eight-year-old<\/span>, but I vividly remember my first exposure to the death penalty.\u202f My first memory and questioning of the death penalty served as a catalyst for cultivating a sense of activism and intellectual freedom.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It was November 10, 2009. My family and I were doing our quotidian routine of watching the CBS Evening News. As I was watching, something caught my eye. Katie Couric was speaking and in the top right, there was a man in a blue prison jumpsuit. The man\u2019s name was John Allen Muhammad (also known as the Beltway or D.C. Sniper). I do not remember what the news said word for word, nor do I remember if I knew what the word executed<\/em> meant but I just remember catching on to the fact that the government was going to willingly kill him. I thought this was strange and confusing. I was baffled by the fact that the government had the power to take away someone’s life. In total shock, I asked my parents, \u201cSo they can just kill him?\u201d They said yes. For as long as I could remember, I always thought that killing was wrong; this bewildered me. I distinctly remember starting to feel uneasy and wanting to challenge the system responsible for this. After that, I knew about the death penalty and could never bring myself to be in favor of it. Even in high school and college, my opposition remained.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

That episode of CBS Evening News affected me and still affects me to this day. In my sophomore year of high school, I took an art class devoted to social issues. Members of the class were supposed to choose a social issue to research and do an art project about it. Immediately, I thought about that time on November 10, 2009 \u2014 how distraught I felt at the thought of an omnipotent government taking a life away just to make a vindictive statement rather than using its power to promote progress. This time I explored the death penalty at a more comprehensive level, researching facts rather than simply relying on feeling. I began to learn about various\u00a0<\/span>fallacies of the death penalty such as the possibility of innocence and exoneration, potential racial bias, and I found multiple sources that refute the claim that a life sentence costs more than capital punishment. Eleven years later, I <\/span>still remain<\/span>\u00a0passionate about this issue because I believe the United States should no longer perform the irrevocable act of execution just to make an unnecessary hypocritical statement. As the government resumes federal executions<\/span>, including the federal execution of Orlando Hall this week on November\u00a019\u00a0<\/span>,\u00a0I urge us to learn the dark reality and statistics of the death penalty in the United States.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES:<\/h2>\n
\n

For\u00a0more quick\u00a0reading and to further your education, I recommend starting with these sources:\u00a0<\/strong><\/h3>\n


\n\"Death<\/a>
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

Facts about the Death Penalty | DPIC<\/a>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

Victims’ Families | DPIC<\/a><\/p>\n

Upcoming Executions\u00a0 | DPIC<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

Accounts to follow on Twitter:\u00a0<\/strong><\/h3>\n

\u00a0\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

@<\/span>BrandonLGarrett<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

@DeathPenaltyAct<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

@DPInfoCtr<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

@HelenPrejean<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

@Innocence<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

@NCADP<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/a>
\n\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

@WCADP<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

@WTIUSA<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Scholarly Journal Article:\u00a0 <\/strong><\/h3>\n

Anckar, Carsten. \u201cWhy Countries Choose the Death Penalty.\u201d\u00a0The Brown Journal of World Affairs<\/i>, vol. 21, no. 1, 2014, pp. 7\u201325., www.jstor.org\/stable\/24591027<\/a>. Accessed 16 Nov. 2020.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n


\nWritten by a Desmond Tutu Peace Lab member.\u00a0\u00a0<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is not often that someone can remember their first encounter of a major political issue, let alone an eight-year-old, but I vividly remember my first exposure to the death Continue Reading →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9196926,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-92","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/desmondtutupeacelabpeacematters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/desmondtutupeacelabpeacematters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/desmondtutupeacelabpeacematters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/desmondtutupeacelabpeacematters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9196926"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/desmondtutupeacelabpeacematters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/desmondtutupeacelabpeacematters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":109,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/desmondtutupeacelabpeacematters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92\/revisions\/109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/desmondtutupeacelabpeacematters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/desmondtutupeacelabpeacematters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/desmondtutupeacelabpeacematters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}