Go ahead, try to pigeonhole me.

I was reading a PCV's blog and there was a post about how sad she was that Stanley "Tookie" Williams was executed. She expressed her sadness, and had a few quotes about the whole "eye for an eye...whole world blind". I suppose it was just anti death penalty sentiment. Whatever. I do support the death penalty, especially when it involves one of the FOUNDERS of one of the most powerful gangs in the country. Have you ever had to live with gang violence up close and personal? It sucks. I hate all gangs. White, black, hispanic, polynesian. If you've ever walked down the hall in school and been AFRAID to look someone you didn't know in the eye, you won't have sympathy for "Tookie". If you've ever been beaten up for wearing the wrong color of wetsuit to the beach, you won't have sympathy for "Tookie". If you've ever seen some jerk's pathetic gang moniker spraypainted on a wall about forty thousand times in a two block radius, you won't have sympathy for "Tookie". If you've ever been ridiculed in elementary school because you wore a red shirt with red pants and a red belt because it matched, you won't have sympathy for "Tookie". If you've ever just looked the other way while the kid at the locker next to you sold someone drugs because you were too afraid of what they'd do if they saw you, you won't have sympathy for "Tookie". If you've ever had the video production class at your school stationed up on the roof at lunch to videotape the gang fights for prosecution, you won't have sympathy for "Tookie". If the girls you used to have slumber parties with in elementary school all got to high school and joined the gang and jumped another girl and bit off her ear, you wouldn't have sympathy for "Tookie". If your best friend in sixth grade showed you her mom and her cousin's fight rings- the ones with the stones removed so that the prongs stick out and hurt more when you punch, you won't have sympathy for "Tookie". If that same best friend gets initiated into the gang a few years later by being gang raped by the leader and the rest of the gang, you won't have sympathy for "Tookie". A thug is not respectable. A gangsta is a criminal, and no, a criminal isn't cool, either. Tattoos with Old English writing are not a fashion statement. Tookie Williams deserved to die. I don't care how he said he mentored kids. Kids, come see me in jail. I was a big man in a gang, and now I've got cool rappers staging protest rallies for me because I was in a gang. He deserves to rot in prison, and if he earned the death penalty, he should get it. I think it is justice. I think they might kick me out of the Peace Corps for that one...