Race and the Death Penalty.

Racism has been around since America was founded. We had slaves up until Abraham Lincoln abolished slavery in the 1860’s. We had segregation until the Civil Rights Act in the 1960’s. Some of you may think that racism has gone away in these past few decades, but when you look at statistics dealing with race and the death penalty, you will be shocked. The death penalty is very unfair towards African Americans and other races that are not white. Since 1976, 261 people have been executed for interracial murders. For those of you who do not know what that means, it is when a person for one race kills a person for a different race. Of those 261 people executed, 246 of the 261 executions have been of African Americans who killed white people. Only 15 white people have been executed for killing African Americans.(Death Penalty Information Center 2) That statistic is absurd. This is a major problem with the death penalty and one of the reasons why i strongly urge that the death penalty needs to be gotten rid of altogether. Whether you agree with the death penalty or not though you must admit that a change needs to be made. In today's society there should be no racism at all. Color should not matter when it comes to execution or anything else for that matter. A report to the government by a professor David Baldus says "In 96% of the states where there have been reviews of race and the death penalty, there was a pattern of either race-of-victim or race-of-defendent discrimination, or both. (Prof. David Baldus report to the ABA, 1998). 96% in fraction form is 24 out of 25. This means that 24 out of every 25 states displays a pattern of discrimination, when it comes to the death penalty. This is a huge deal and should not be taking place in America, the land of the free. I hope to have opened your eyes on the injustice that is happening here and I hope that something is done in the near future to change this.

Source: "Facts About the Death Penalty." Death Penalty Information Center. N.p., 20 Sept. 2010. Web. 22 Nov. 2011. <http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/FactSheet.pdf>.

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