Negro, Please!

I watched some of the pre-Stanley-Tookie-Williams-execution coverage on MSNBC, where Rita Cosby interviewed folks from both sides of the death penalty / clemency debate. Her interview with Rev. Jesse Jackson (who unsuccessfully kept trying to get invited as one of Tookie Williams's guests at the execution, as his spiritual adviser) stuck out for me. Jackson actually had the nerve to compare Tookie Williams with Malcolm X and former President Nelson Mandela of South Africa, in terms of redemption and the need for forgiveness. Excuse me? President Nelson Mandela was a political prisoner. What murder or other crime did he commit? Malcolm X was an ex-con - drug dealer, thief, pimp, and numbers runner - but I don't recall murder being on his resume. His was a choir boy in his crime days compared to Tookie...and Malcolm X redeemed himself. To his dying breath, Tookie refused to (1) fess up to his crimes and (2) work with law enforcement officials to help root out the vicious gang co-created by him. To compare these two men to a murderer and organized crime boss is low, even for Jackson. No moral equivalency here.