Stanley "Tookie" Williams

I was fortunate to have been at the premiere of the screening of Redemption, a film about Tookie's life which was screened at the Television Critics Association Conference. Academy-award winning actor, Jamie Foxx, who played Tookie in the movie, was present for the screening. I had a chance to meet Foxx and Lynn Whitfield, who played journalist Barbara Becnel, who championed Tookie's cause for many years.

My friend Iyawo NaNina and I almost shouted out in agreement when Foxx said during the press conference, "Tookie was railroaded into becoming who he was. The social services system failed him. Stan was one of thousands of orphaned Black boys growing up in the ghetto without a father or a mother. But he isn't that man anymore."

Foxx knows all about being parentless. He grew up without the benefit of having his mother or father in his life. He was fortunate to have a grandmother who stepped in and raised him. Tookie wasn't that lucky. The streets of Los Angeles became his parents after his father abandoned him in a motel when he was a young boy.

December 13, the day of Tookie's execution/murder, I remembered, almost affectionately, the warrior called Tookie who ruled the streets in my community.

I was 15 years old when I first saw Tookie. He was so beautiful. His brown skin was oiled up for his morning workout, which consisted of countless chin-ups on the park's monkey bars and dozens of crunches. His muscles were ripped and chiseled like blocks of steel. His long, thick black hair flowed down his back in two long braids. I would call him Ogun (a deity in the West African Yoruba tradition) if it weren't for his love for the pretty ladies. Perhaps he was Shango. In the end, I think he'd become Obatala, the deity of peace and unity.

My friends and I would sit and marvel at the famed gang leader. One morning Tookie smiled at me and my friends when we passed by on the way to school but quickly got rid of his smile when his "boys" looked over at him. He probably didn't want to appear soft. Appearing to be soft-hearted on the streets of L.A. could get you killed. Tookie understood that quite well.

I remember feeling that I had never seen a Black man in the "hood" as powerful as Tookie was. I'm not saying it was the right thing to do, but I totally understand why Tookie formed the Crips. When you are powerless, when you have no means to protect yourself and your people, you create something that can protect you.

Black men in L.A. were targets of police brutality and corruption. Being in a so-called "gang" gave them some sense of protection in a community where the choke-hold ruled. But eventually the gang wars backfired on him.

While the focus of the Crips gang was guarding territory and neighborhoods where poverty caused an unfair share of crime, there was another side to the Crips gang and membership in it. As someone who grew up in communities where the Crips and their rival gang, the "Family" walked the streets, I knew many Crips who were fathers and mothers. I knew Crips who worked regular jobs. I knew Crips who kept their communities violence free just by their presence. There was an odd sense of family among the members and the families that lived in the neighborhoods where they had turf. But that's not the stuff you hear about in the media.

Tookie transformed the negativity, helplessness, and violence the Crips were founded upon into a vehicle for change that impacted the lives of thousands, perhaps millions of Black and Latino youth who were considering a life of violence and who turned away because of Tookie's story. Tookie wrote dozens of books and launched a youth project from prison to educate young people about the perils of engaging gang violence. Tookie also explained the circumstances that led him to the life he led, circumstances that we, as African Americans know all too well. If we don't acknowledge the corruption and oppression that contributed to the shaping of the child Stanley into the gang leader Tookie, we're simply being unjust.

I have concluded that perhaps that's the real reason why Tookie was murdered. Tookie's transformation could've become a major proponent for decreasing violence in Black and other communities of color. What White man who supports an oppressive society would want a Black man running around stopping other Blacks from killing themselves?

But as my partner said the morning we got the news that Tookie had been murdered, "Tookie lived two lifes in one lifetime. They might've killed his body, but his spirit lives on. Blacks, Latinos, Native Americans, and Whites all acknowledged Tookie's transformation and his work. And we can be sure that Tookie will return. He'll probably come back as the next Ghandi or something like that. That's the kind of man he was destined to be anyway before the world got a hold of him."

My partner's words brought tears of joy to my eyes.

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's statement that Tookie hadn't expressed remorse for the murders is a lame excuse for executing a Black man who had become a world-renowned hero in the eyes of many. The all-White jury that imprisoned him and the suppression of evidence by a judge known for his racist tendencies indicates to me that Tookie was yet another victim of the system that has falsely imprisoned many a Black man.

Any man who could overcome the almost unbeatable odds that were stacked against Tookie from childhood, and to do it while in prison has more than atoned for whatever wrongs he committed. Tookie went beyond that. He became an anti-violence activist fighting in the struggle to end oppression and violence in the world and especially in Black communities. I find it very interesting that the White man who murdered the four little Black girls in cold blood remained a free man until he was almost 80 years old but Tookie, who admitted his crimes, except for the one he didn't commit, barely lived to see his golden years.

In closing I ask: what kind of judicial system keeps a White murderer free and kills a framed Black man? A racist one. And that's same racism took the life of Tookie. Racism kills. When will the killing stop? What will WE do to make it stop?


Editor’s note: Iya Ta'Shia Asanti is a civil rights activist, filmmaker, journalist, poet, and Yoruba priestess. More about her work can be found at her web site, www.sacreddoor.com.