Coffee with Chuck

To context these thoughts I am writing on the morning of the day that Julius Jones is scheduled to be executed in Oklahoma. It is in this context that I am speaking to moral authority. Often the state claims moral authority when they choose to practice the death penalty. But, how can the state be the enforcer of moral authority when it was operated as a juggernaut without any morals? This is to say America has no morals and has never had any. Moreover, how can you have moral authority when your whole civilization has been built on genocide, the stealing of land, the commodification of Black bodies as property, and Black death. And today, this same state is driven and operates on the dependency of a constant Black suffering and the exploitation of the poor. Therefore, America can never claim a moral authority because there is nothing moral about the United States, not its past or present. Ultimately, it is this lack of morals that the United States CANNOT and SHOULD NOT decide a person’s life! Thus we need to ABOLISH the death penalty if we have any hope for a future that is not barbaric and filled with violence.