Two nights ago, I cried for a man that I did not know. Yesterday, I mourned for a man that I will never know. The legal lynching of Troy Anthony Davis on Sept. 21 marked for me the most poignant reflection of why the United States of America has no right to bask in the “pleasure” of being a first-world country.
Barring the deeper, more complex legal aspects of the case that the public may not have known about, the story of Troy Anthony Davis transcended the need to understand the jargon of our legal system. His story bore for all to see the shameless inhumanity and injustice that has so deeply affected our values, our way of thinking, our way of life.
All of us—not just the government—must implicate ourselves in the legal lynching of Troy Anthony Davis. We didn’t fight enough, didn’t become aware enough, didn’t tweet or make Facebook statuses until the very last hour. Until a man was hanging to life by a single thread, we too passively engaged in discussion about and challenged the deadly nature of institutionalized classism, racism and injustice.
But, unlike Troy Anthony Davis, today we have a second chance. A second chance to scream his story from the rooftops so that one day our own fathers, brothers and uncles do not have to become the next Troy Anthony Davis. A second chance to challenge ourselves, actively and constantly, to defy the very ideals that we have silently stood for, that injected death into the veins of this man. We have to spread his story, vote in every election, insist on a change within our deathly flawed legal system and start protesting on behalf of the next Troy Anthony Davis today. Not tomorrow. If we do not heed this calling, we are at best a fourth-world country.
Nana Asante, Trinity ’12
President, Black Student Alliance
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