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Tookie's Legacy: Undeserved Requiem for a Crip*
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4562 Reads
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UPDATE BELOW
As you read this, preparations are being made to Hundreds of mourners packed Bethel A.M.E. Church to honor the life of Stanley "Tookie" Williams with a memorial service that will be was webcast at noon today.
Despite the debate over whether Williams' public repentance after a life of violence was sincerity or show, it turns out he did inspire a few people: 2,000 of them turned out to see his body - all that was left of the convicted murderer and notorious Crips co-founder after the state executed him last week.
The Times was quick to point out that many of the mourners were wearing gang colors:
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"When I was a kid, Tookie was the most dangerous man in South-Central Los Angeles," recalled Najee Ali, 42, director of Project Islamic Hope, a Los Angeles-based civil rights group. "Looking at him today, I'm reminded that my childhood has long since passed.
"Many of the people who lined up today for a last look at the man didn't know him; never met him," Ali said. "But they came to pay their respects because they have a Tookie in their family, or identify with his struggle."
Ali was among more than 2,000 people of all ages � many of them clad in Crips blue � who gathered at the House of Winston Mortuary on South Vermont Avenue at 95th Street where Williams' body reposed. Where were all the kids supposedly inspired by his books to renounce violence? Tokin' blunts and blasting rap from sport-ute boom systems rolling on 20-inch dubs, if the Times report is accurate.
Sorry, but while I've pointed out the state's capital punishment system is hopelessly broken - and I'll add that the very notion of capital punishment is barbaric and offers neither satisfactory justice nor deterrence against future crime - what's done is done.
I'm not going to join anyone in this city in mourning someone who ignited and fueled the gang warfare that is still destroying part of its heart decades later.
UPDATE: The service wasn't webcast after all, but apparently will be podcast at FinalCall.com, the Nation of Islam's news site.
The church was jammed. Snoop Dogg read a poem and Jesse Jackson delivered a eulogy: Snoop Dogg recited a poem, "Until We Meet Again," in which he referred to the execution.
He said, "It's nine-fifteen on twelve-thirteen and another black king will be taken from the scene." A stanza that stated, "I don't believe Stan did it," drew wild applause in the parking lot.
Jackson said that at the end Williams saw himself as a "healer, not a predator."
Jackson spoke at length against the capital punishment, saying, "Tookie is dead. We're not safer, we're not more secure, we're not more humane." Nope. Sure aren't. L.A. is worse off for his having lived.
Sorry, but a few books and a spurious Nobel nomination don't erase the continuing disease of gang culture that he helped nurture.
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| Posted by: Mack_Reed on Tuesday, December 20, 2005 - 10:04 AM
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