The Compassion Test
Today I went to the vigil preceding the execution of Troy Davis. This was the first time I attended such a vigil, and this one in San Francisco was across the continent from Georgia. I must say it was very sad. A few came to speak into the megaphone, two sang beautifully. Ten minutes before four o’clock, we moved from a loose pack to a huge circle there on Justin Herman Plaza, held hands, in silence. Even the zip line above us was silent for that time, as they had eerily sent a few tourists down before, shouting their joy above somber statements. It was city silence, the sirens and the street noises in the background. The Ferry Building’s clock rang at four, waking me from meditation. Actually, it startled me, knocked me out of meditation. Many people checked their smart phones for several minutes. Then someone announced there had been no execution. There were cheers and tears, but the Amnesty person then announced it hadn’t been a stay, just the Supreme Court asking for more time.
I went home and watched the live coverage at home on democracynow. Three hours and a half later, the Supreme Court announced they were not going to hear the case, and the execution procedure resumed. To me this just represented the power structure wanting to preserve their image. This was the ideal case to demonstrate that the death penalty is the wrong way to go. Many countries have abolished it, just because the people involved, from the judges to the executioners, couldn’t go on with it.
I can think many people will ask, why should I care? It’s true that once these people are on the inside of prison walls, they become so remote from us and “bad people.” We have enough to worry about, we think, in our “good life.” I find I do the same every day as I walk by the homeless. True, I can’t stop at every one of them lying on the sidewalk to figure out if I could help, but I’ve been tested and failed the compassion test. It’s so much easier to be charitable with entities that shield us from the riffraff. It would be so much easier to organize a life in which no such contact is possible, and stories of street people shown on TV. So this morning I pulled a dollar out for a Street Spirit, and exchanged a few words with the man, wishing him good luck. I find it hard to get involved, but I became curious about who they were, where they came from, how did they get here. They failed to go along with the mainstream, and drifted on the sides. Some of it must be just bad luck.
