Dear Troy Davis,

You’re not the first person that was in a less than perfect situation. Thirty years before your conviction, they would have lynched you on spot and asked questions later. In a way, you should be grateful. Four appeals and twenty years later, you are just now seeing death. That’s unheard of; especially for a black man that allegedly shot a cop in America. So, really in the final hours before your death, you shouldn’t have been counting minutes until lethal injections, you should have been counting stars that you made it this far in an institution designed to have you shaking on a cold metal platform, foamy mouthed six months after the judgment was made. Troy, you are a blessed man.

Don’t you dare hold resentment with the mother in the afterlife either! Can you really blame her? She thinks you killed her son and she waited twenty years to see you suffer like her son did, and when the time finally comes, she’s confronted with thousands of people trying to delay the situation. That little, old lady just wants peace of mind. Your ended life just so happened to be what she needed to get gain that sanity. I know you had dreams, aspirations, and hopes. Living probably was the main one, but dreams are often deferred and American dreams are often combated.
American dreams are balanced out with just as many American nightmares. Once upon a time, a mother killed her child and got away with it. Once upon a time, children were blown up in a church during Sunday school. Once upon a time, religious zealots crashed into two buildings and killed thousands of innocent people. Once upon a time, a sadistic serial killer lived to see it all. There are plenty of these grim fairy-tales and the latest is just yours, Troy. The story of the man that might have killed a cop, but got executed though it wasn’t quite solidified beyond a reasonable doubt that he did it. Well, we know your innocent, but you’re lawfully, I have to say we’re doubtful of the situation.

The scariest part of this is the ‘what if’ factor for us. The idea that a man died behind a crime he did not commit is the most horrific injustice that appeals to the selfish fear we all have in us all. If you, with thousands upon of thousands of people rallying around your last cinch efforts for freedom, couldn’t get justice; why would we expect justice to prevail for any of us given the same circumstances? If America wants you dead, you’re dead. This makes the mantra, “we are Troy Davis!” that much less a declaration of justice, but a reminder that we’re all in moral limbo to our justice system. We’re all simply just marching and chanting in purgatory, hoping (and blindly) waiting for the next sacrificed lamb.

Your family and everyone rallying in your corner could use this as a catalyst to highlight why the death penalty is probably the most barbaric type of contradiction that Americans could support and use to punish the bloody hands in our lifetime. Of course, that would be ideal, but the funny thing about time is that it heals all wounds, even the unjust ones.

I’m sure they don’t have the Internet in Heaven, but I’m even surer they do have it in Hell. Either way, don’t log onto anything. People are scared and confused, so they resort to painting this with the hand of racism, classism and nonchalance, Troy. They know not what they do. They’re just as scared that just as easily they slid the needle into your arm in the stark, white room they could be next. Why not? This is America. Which by now, I’m pretty confident is ancient Latin for ‘anything goes’. So, don’t let the short-lived ignorance fill your head with the thought that you might have been through this all in vain.

I guess, I’m writing this letter to really thank you. Thanks for making the world seem that much smaller, time seem that much faster, making America seem that much more brutal, making people (even for a second) remember that compassion and justice shouldn’t just be ideals, and thanks for showing us that bravery, unity and life is natural; it’s fear that is manufactured.

Sincerely yours,

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