1
Troy Anthony Davis is dead, executed by the state of Georgia, September 21, 2011 at 10:00 pm. A week later, as other stories have caught the media’s eye, Davis may seem forgotten. But in Harlem, where I live, his face stares out from orange posters plastered to lampposts along my street, announcing an emergency rally organized to save his life.
It feels like a bad dream, the kind you can’t shake for days: the final countdown to his death by the protests around the country, the supporters from all over the world, including politicians, celebrities and religious figures, asking that his life be spared so that questions about the fairness of his trial could be answered. That day, riding on the subway at seven o’clock, the original time set for his execution, I assumed Troy Davis was gone, only to arrive home and find out that he’d had another reprieve: the U.S. Supreme Court was considering his case; there was hope. Hours later, his appeal rejected, Davis was dead by lethal injection.
I didn’t know Troy Davis, and I don’t know whether he committed the crime he was convicted of or not. But I know that with Troy Davis dead, there won’t be another appeal for him, no new trial. There will be many more conversations about Troy Davis in the years to come, but the critical one, the one that might have saved his life, is over.
Execution is a curious kind of death. Some deaths are natural, others accidental, or premeditated; some people are killed out of jealousy, taken in the passion in the moment. But execution is death you can set your watch to. Knowing that at a specific time, at a specific hour, someone is going to be killed, creates a strange psychological predicament for all involved. Regardless of whether you believe the person is guilty or not, the instinct to preserve life is suppressed; you know they are going to be murdered and there’s nothing you can do about it.
Trying to make sense of the incomprehensible, we live out the mundane aspects of our lives against the backdrop of “justice being served”: I have to go pick up the kids from school (Troy Davis will be dead in four hours), What are we having for dinner? (Troy Davis will be dead in two hours), I forgot to pick up the dry-cleaning, will you get it tomorrow? (Troy Davis will be dead an hour from now.)
The morning after Troy Davis’ execution, I kept seeing him everywhere I looked, the almost serene look on his face, the round glasses, the hint of challenge. On the posters, Davis doesn’t look like a cold-blooded killer, but like a graduate student. That doesn’t mean he couldn’t have killed that officer. But it’s easier to deal with the horror of Troy Davis’ execution if you think to yourself, despite the number of “witnesses” who recanted their testimonies after his trial, “Maybe he did do it.” And if he didn’t do it, he probably did something else. Because life can’t be this unfair, God can’t be this unfair. An innocent person can’t be executed; he must have done it.
Underneath Davis’ picture was the slogan that became part of the campaign to save his life: “I am Troy Davis.” My mother’s maiden name was Davis, and he actually looks like a cousin of mine. When I look at those posters I want to protect Troy - many of us felt that way. But if our system chose not to protect him, why didn’t it protect justice? Justice – what we teach our 4th grade kids about in history, what our country is supposedly built on.
Just when I start feeling self-righteous about the unfairness of the death penalty, I read that Laurence Russell Brewer was executed in Texas for the murder of James Byrd, the day before Davis was put to death. Good ol’ Texas, where at times it seems they are so eager to execute, you can practically get the death penalty for having your credit card declined. According to the Los Angeles Times, Rick Perry, who is seeking the Republican presidential nomination, was asked during a GOP debate about Texas' 234 executions during his nearly 11 years as governor. He said he "never struggled" with the issue because "the state of Texas has a very thoughtful, very clear process in place.”
If there was ever a death penalty case where the person seemed to deserve it it’s Brewer’s. An avowed white supremacist, with an accomplice still on Death Row, Brewer beat Byrd severely, urinated on him, and then chained him, still conscious, to the back of his truck, dragging him three miles to his death. Part of me wants Brewer hurt in unimaginable ways, slowly brutalized. But more than revenge, I want him alive, so that we can question him, so that he can be studied. I want his brain to be examined before and after his death so that we can understand what circumstances in our culture, or biologically, created someone capable of this kind of evil; so that we can figure out what to do before the next white supremacist comes off the assembly line.
We must ask where this violence comes from, specifically in men: what are we teaching our boys? How can anyone be capable of the cruelty shown recently in Fullerton, California, where six police officers beat and tasered 37-year-old Kelly Thomas to death? Bystanders watched as Thomas screamed for help, calling out “Dad! Dad!” as police beat him beyond recognition, as Thomas no longer resisted. When you look at the picture of Thomas released to the media before his beating, you will see an “All-American” white man, and you can’t help but think this isn’t the face the police usually vent their rage on. But if you compare it to the photograph taken after his murder, you realize this isn’t the face the police saw that day. Kelly Thomas was schizophrenic and homeless. With a long red beard, and unkempt tangled hair, he wasn’t the boy next door anymore. He was the homeless, mentally ill nuisance on the street corner – someone killable because mental illness pushed him outside the familiar circles. We no longer recognized him as someone who deserved to be saved, and so he didn’t belong to us anymore.
Maybe it is enough, for some, that Troy Davis had to pay for the crime of killing off-duty police officer Mark MacPhail, whether he did it or not, because the person who did it was probably black, and as long as a black person pays, any black person, then that’s enough. Which makes Troy Davis’ execution a lynching. Perhaps Troy Davis was just another black man in America whose life was worth something only as a consumer – not worth enough to protect, not worth enough to save.
2
Jamey Rodemeyer, a 14-year-old boy from Buffalo, New York, is dead. Bullied by children at his school, Jamey asked for help, but at some point it clearly became too much for him and he took his own life on September 18, 2011.
Jamey acknowledged before his death that he was teased, in part, because most of his friends were girls. ABC news reported that Jamey received messages from his peers that said, "JAMIE IS STUPID, GAY, FAT ANND [sic] UGLY. HE MUST DIE!" Another read, "I wouldn't care if you died. No one would. So just do it. It would make everyone WAY more happier!"
Jamey’s death particularly stings because he had resources. He had “come out” as a bisexual, and knew where to get some help and support, at least online. He was a fan of Lady Gaga, and her song “I Was Born This Way” inspired him. He knew about Dan Savage’s “It Gets Better” campaign, and had even recorded a video to encourage other gay and bisexual people to have hope. Jamey had some help, but in the end it wasn’t the help he needed. It simply wasn’t enough.
The loss of Jamey Rodemeyer recalls the suicides last year of 14-year-old Kameron Jacobsen, bullied on Facebook by other students in Orange County, NY because of his perceived sexual orientation, of 18-year-old Rutgers student Tyler Clemente who, after being video-streamed kissing another man by his roommate without his knowledge, and rejected by his mother after coming out, jumped off the George Washington Bridge; and Joseph Jefferson, a 26-year-old black gay-rights activist based in Brooklyn, New York. Jefferson, who had been a graduate from Harvey Milk High School and belonged to several gay organizations, wrote before his death:
"Belonging is one of the basic human needs; when people feel isolated and excluded from a sense of communion with others, they suffer. I have been an advocate for my peers and most importantly youth because most have never had a deep emotional attachment to anyone. They don’t know how to love and be loved in return. The need to be loved can sometimes translate to the need to belong to someone or something. Driven by that need….most will do anything to belong."
3
I am Troy Davis, I am Jamey Rodemeyer. I am Troy when I look at my black skin, I am Jamey when I recall being a gay teen. Most of my friends were girls too, and I was terrified while getting undressed for gym that there would be some telltale mark on me, some look that would alert the other boys that I was a “faggot.”
I am Jamey when I remember the new school I moved to in the fourth grade. One day some of us were playing touch football, and everyone was mad because I dropped the ball. One kid said the reason I was black was because my mother took a shit when I was born. Everyone laughed. The teacher saw the crowd surrounding me, saw me crying, and gave everyone a warning. She then asked me to stand beside her for the rest of recess until she rang the bell. I guess she was protecting me, but I remember I didn’t want to stand next to her. I hadn’t done anything wrong, but I felt that I was being punished.
That was a million years ago, ancient history that shouldn’t matter anymore. I’m 41 now. I dismiss the hurt - kids are kids, we were all just stupid nine-year-olds, I should be over it by now. And so, like most of us, I betray myself, becoming one of those adults who tie their childhood pain to blocks of cement, hoping it will stay at the bottom of the lake forever so I can get on with the business of life.
But childhood hurts have a way of surfacing; as alcoholism, drug addiction, eating disorders, and suicides. And you may forget, but your addictions remind you of the initial mortification, that first initiation into human cruelty. You deny how it felt to face a mob of other kids, being humiliated by your peers. You may even force your own children out of the house each day when they say they’re being bullied or they’re frightened; forgetting the feeling you once had that you would literally rather die than face another day at school.
And I wasn’t just an innocent victim; I, too, victimized. A girl at my school the following year developed breasts early. My best friend in 5th grade came up with the joke that every time we passed by her locker, we would pretend that we were holding two oranges and say, “Squeeeeze”. (It wasn’t my joke, but I laughed anyway, so what’s the difference?) Clearly, at the age of 10, it was already clear to us, as boys, that we had a right to objectify her body, to insult her. By that time, I had already been secretly looking at my father’s Hustler magazines for two years. The message was already established; her body was there for our amusement and violation – we hadn’t started middle school, and already we’d learned the pornographic gaze. (If she is reading this now, I’d like to say I’m sorry.)
There were the kids that everyone hated. You gained your social status by hating them too, and could destroy that status by sitting with them at lunch, or walking home from school together. I’m friends with one of them on Facebook now. I look at his profile, the pictures of him as a parent, standing with his own kids, and I wonder if he still has the scars. I don’t see how he couldn’t; I still have the scars from watching him being bullied by others. I wonder if he worries about his own sons or daughters when he sends them to school, if he’s told them how he used to get humiliated when we played during recess, how he was picked last for teams, or how boys deliberately tried to hurt him, going for his head with the ball during “Smear the Queer”?
Does he still remember that when he asked, “Can I play with you guys?” someone would always tell him to ask Chris, and Chris would tell him to ask Phil, and Phil said talk to Pam, and eventually the bell would ring and we had to line up to go inside. And he would cry, and say, “It’s not fair,” but he wouldn’t hate us, which made him all the more pathetic and despised, because he just wanted to be our friend.
Then there was the other kid we wouldn’t let play, who wasn’t afraid to hate us. He cried at first too, but then his face flooded with rage, he turned purple and said to all of us through clenched teeth, “One day I’m going to come back to this school and get the biggest gun in the whole wide world and blow your heads off.” We were in second grade.
I used to think about him from time to time, wondering if one day I’d open the paper or turn on the news and find him there; having unleashed his rage on someone. But he’s a real estate agent; he’s married, two girls. His picture on his website doesn’t reveal his past. There are other men, however, taking their revenge on the innocent every day, and they are on the news. Perry Smith confesses about the murder of the Clutter family in Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood, published in 1966: "...And it wasn't because of anything the Clutters did. They never hurt me. Like other people. Like people have all my life. Maybe it's just that the Clutters were the ones who had to pay for it." Straight boys kill others, gay boys kill themselves.
It’s become passé now to say that the Iraq war was wrong, but how do you tell kids not to bully when the baddest motherfuckers on the block were in the White House, on their television screens? Dick Cheney leading the pack, with Bush, Rumsfeld, Rove, Rice, at his side; Cheney has said in recent interviews he has no regrets about the Iraq war. It is arguable that the high school bullies that helped kill Jamey are the progeny of the George W. Bush years and the Defense of Marriage Act. Whether they understood the act or not, their parents did, and that created a climate where discrimination against gay people was okay, government-sanctioned. These are the children raised on South Park and Family Guy. While these shows may have their moments of gay tolerance, they are also mean-spirited, vicious, and at times pathologically cruel to difference. We’re raising sociopaths.
These kids watched us tear Iraq apart; they saw the unimaginable violence of 9/11. Did anyone explain these events to them? How do we explain? And Jamey’s story is not over, apparently. On September 27, Tim and Tracey Rodemeyer appeared on the Today show with a story about their daughter, Alyssa, who attended a recent dance at her school to take her mind off her brother’s death (Alyssa was the one who found Jamey’s body hanging in the family’s backyard.). “We thought it would be great to be with all of her friends, then all of a sudden a Lady Gaga song came on and they all started chanting for Jamey, all his friends and whatever," Tracy Rodemeyer said. "Then the bullies that put him into this situation started chanting 'You're better off dead, we're glad you're dead.'" His sister left the school in horror, as the bullying of her brother continues even after his death.
I’m angry that Troy Davis is gone, killed by our government with all the remorse afforded a fly swatted at a family picnic. I’m angry that another gay child is dead, when things are supposedly “so much better” these days for gay people. I watch Michelle Bachmann on The Tonight Show, legs crossed, giving Sarah Palin “fabulousness” to disguise the Sarah Palin vacuity and tininess of spirit. When Leno asks about Bachmann’s “Christian Counseling Clinic” and about “praying the gay away”, Bachmann makes a joke about midlife crisis and that she originally thought the line was “pray the gray away.” She deflects the question, without even the slightest twitch of her facial muscles, clearly coached by handlers on how to discuss the “gay thing.” Not a single person in the audience laughs and Leno won’t let her off the hook.
Leno: To me, when I was a kid, they used to try to teach me to be right-handed. ‘You’re left-handed, that’s the hand of the devil.’ And to me it’s the same thing with gay. I don’t get why – like gay marriage….why be against it? I’ve been married 31 ye
ars, first wife, very happy… two gay guys get married, how does that affect my marriage?....Why is that even an issue?
Bachmann:…Well, because the family is foundational. And marriage between a man and woman is what the law has been for years and years and years.
Leno: I know, I tried it myself, it works great for me.
Bachmann: Well, there you go!
Leno: I got to admit, that’s the part I don’t get. I know gay families that are married, they have children, and they’re wonderful people. I don’t see why they shouldn’t be allowed to be happy. I’m not going to change your mind on that one.
History isn’t kind to the people who obstruct social justice – and it won’t be kind to Mrs. Bachmann (married, as she announced to Jay Leno, 33 years.) I hear the apologists: the woman is entitled to her opinion. But as Desmond Tutu once said, “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.”
And that’s the problem, we’re still seeing gay people, and gay lives, as something one can have an opinion about - like people used to have opinions about slavery or whether blacks were equal in humanity to whites, whether women deserved the right to vote. You can argue whether checkers is more fun than chess, whether Chinese food is tastier than Italian, but you can’t “argue” gay people - we exist. Denying someone their human rights because of their orientation is not an opinion, it’s the hate that leads to hate crimes, murder and suicides.
Michelle Bachman and her gang of bullies may not be aware of this, but Jamey Rodemeyer was her child too, he needed her, because he was an American, and she’s a politician and a mother. She had a responsibility to protect Jamey, and she failed him. We all failed him.
If this were an 80s film by Robert Benton (Places In the Heart), Troy and Jamey would meet in a Hollywood heaven, perhaps standing in line next to each other. In my fantasy Troy would put an arm around Jamey and guide him, helping him figure out where he needed to go. To some this may be a despicable fantasy, but it brings me comfort, and the generosity on Troy’s part isn’t inconceivable. Before his execution, and after proclaiming his innocence a final time, Davis said, “For those about to take my life, God have mercy on your souls. And may God bless your souls." The scene may recall something out of Janet Langhart Cohen’s play, Anne and Emmett, in which Emmett Till and Anne Frank meet– other victims of intolerance and hate. Perhaps, as teenagers, they would welcome Jamey, they would understand his pain.
The state of Georgia has made Troy Davis a martyr. He is now the face of the death penalty as the ultimate racist act. The question still remains whether a black person can get a fair trial in America, and whether the people who tried him, from the bullies in Georgia to the ones on the Supreme Court, were really his peers? Troy and Jamey may not stand in line together in heaven, but they stand together in history; tried, convicted, and ultimately bullied and betrayed by their peers.
Bullying is about entitlement; who belongs and who doesn’t, who can be “othered.” I was ganged up on that day in 4th grade because I was new to the school; I didn’t belong. The image of Troy and Jamey stays in my mind, and begs the question: Who is the face of America? One of the reasons that Michelle Bachmann can be so smug, despite what was once considered the fringe politics of the Tea Party, is that in her whiteness and privilege, her belief is unshakeable that she is America. She owns; blacks and gays are renting. The only way out of this hell is for those of us who have been marginalized to insist on visibility, to find solidarity and stand together.
In his 1984 address to the Democratic National Convention, Jesse Jackson recalled the making of his grandmother’s quilt:
“When I was a child growing up in Greenville, South Carolina… grandmama could not afford a blanket, she didn’t complain and we did not freeze. Instead she took pieces of old cloth, patches, wool, silk, gabardine, crooker sack…barely good enough to wipe off your shoes with. But they didn’t stay that way very long. With steady hand and a strong cord, she sewed them into a quilt, a thing of beauty, and power, and culture.
Now…we must build such a quilt. Farmers, you seek fair prices, and you’re right, but you cannot stand alone. Your patch is not big enough. Workers, you fight for fair wages, you’re right, but your patch, labor, is not big enough. Women, you see comparable worth and pay equity, you’re right, but your patch is not big enough. Women, mothers, who seek Head Start, and daycare, and prenatal care on the front side of life, rather than jail care and welfare on the backside of life, you’re right, but your patch is not big enough. Students, you seek scholarships, you’re right, but your patch is not big enough. Blacks and Hispanics, when we fight for civil rights we are right, but our patch is not big enough. Gays and lesbians, when you fight against discrimination and a cure for AIDS, you’re right! But your patch is not big enough. Conservatives and progressives, when you fight for what you believe, right wing, left wing, hawk, dove, you’re right, from your point of view. But your point of view is not enough.
But don’t despair, be as wise as my grandmama. Pull the patches and the pieces together. Bound by a Common Thread, when we form a great quilt of unity and common ground we’ll have the power to bring…hope to our nation.”
4
On this morning, Troy Davis haunts us from the posters in my neighborhood; now it is clear: someone is refusing to take them down. Perhaps if the posters stay up, somewhere in our consciousness, Troy Davis hasn’t been executed yet. Which means that in our denial, there is potential and hope. Not hope for Troy, but for us.
The same hope makes me wish someone had saved Jamey Rodemeyer from harming himself. Even for those who say that Jamey killed himself to make a statement; he believed he was worth more dead to us, than alive, which still makes him tragic. I want some gay superhero to climb in his window and to tell him he has everything to live for, that his life will be different in a few years (might be different next week!); and that when he gets to be 41, like me, he’ll see that the bullies grow up and lose their hair, hate their jobs, and have kids that they turn into bullies too, or have to protect; and that he’ll have a partner one day who loves him, he’ll have his own kids to raise. And life goes on. But only if you live.
When asked, “What do you want people to take away from what happened to Jamie?” Tim Rodemeyer said to Anderson Cooper: “One is the message of Jamie. His message was that people should be treated the same no matter how different they are, no matter if they’re black, white, gay, bisexual, disabled, fat, skinny…that was his big thing. He treated everyone equally.”
Troy Davis and Jamey Rodemeyer are dead, both killed at the hands of the State, and the sad news, beyond the fact that no one saved them, is that no one is going to save us, either. And as horrifying as it is to consider, we all know: Troy Davis will not be the last person executed on Death Row who may be innocent, Jamey Rodemeyer won’t be the last gay child to take his life. And the bullies will thrive, and will continue to thrive until gay white men and women will say, “I am Troy Davis”; and blacks - rich and poor, Christian and secular - step out front and say, “We won’t allow you to bully our gay children anymore. I am Jamey Rodemeyer”.
In an online video created before his death, Jamey said:
“I always got made fun of because I virtually have no guy friends….and it bothered me because people would be, like, “faggot”….and they caught me in the hallways and I felt like I could never escape it…and people would constantly send me hate, telling me that gay people go to hell…And I just want to tell you that it does get better…You were born this way. Hold your head up and you’ll go far. Because that’s all you have to do. Just love yourself...”
Everyone is essential. There is no one who can be thrown away. And we who are called different will not be “othered” any longer. We stand together. We are America. And the day will come when we all realize there is no “Them”; there never was. It always is, and always will be, “Us”.
copyright Max S. Gordon
www.maxgordonworks.blogspot.com
Max Gordon is a writer and activist. He has been published in the anthologies Inside Separate Worlds: Life Stories of Young Blacks, Jews and Latinos (University of Michigan Press, 1991), Go the Way Your Blood Beats: An Anthology of African-American Lesbian and Gay Fiction (Henry Holt, 1996) and Mixed Messages: An Anthology of Literature to Benefit Hospice and Cancer Causes. His work has also appeared on openDemocracy, Democratic Underground and Truthout, in Z Magazine, Gay Times, Sapience, The New Civil Rights Movement and other progressive on-line and print magazines in the U.S. and internationally.
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