The Campaign to End the Death Penalty is concerned with media reaction to the death sentence handed down to John William King in Jasper, Texas. King stands convicted for a brutal racist murder, and we rejoice at the historic ruling in this trial. This is the first time a white man has been found guilty of a lynching case in Texas.
But 85 percent of the men and women on Death Row in this country are there for killing whites, despite the fact that half of all murder victims are black. What this means is that the execution process is systematically biased against black Americans. Yet advocates of the death penalty will use King’s sentence as proof of racial fairness, to defend the legal lynching of others who are mostly black and poor.
This execution will be a defeat, not a victory, for those who struggle to end the racist violence that black people in the U.S. have suffered since the days of slavery.
