I was shocked when my father told me about this story the other day... A woman beheaded here in the U.S? Is this an honor killing? A simple homocide? Is homocide ever simple? I find this story pertinent because we are all dealing with cases regarding various human rights abuses. It's a little ironic that the very abuse that many come to our country fleeing happens here, less than 500 miles away from our school. I like to think that I am culturally sensitive, but I have no tolerance for customs that dictate a painful death. I'm sure death by decapitation is far from comfortable.
2 comments:
A woman beheaded in Buffalo, NY? Now that’s something that catches all of our attention, huh? This horrific story should remind us to not overlook the atrocities that occur within our borders. It is much too easy to believe that human rights abuses and horrific killings in which victims are beheaded are things of the foreign world that we must go abroad to address. However, along with that, we must remain conscious that there are parts of America in which the crime rate, lack of health care and lack of infrastructure are equivalent to towns in developing countries. Undocumented women used as sex slaves, forced to prostitute themselves, human trafficking-including children, are being moved through U.S. state borders tonight. These things happen in our great U.S. of A.
It’s ironic that we see an article talking about decapitation in the U.S. and are shocked, when people are LEGALLY killed in this country each year.
Amnesty International cites that, in 2008, at least 2,390 people were executed in 25 countries and at least 8,864 people were sentenced to death in 52 countries. The five countries with the highest number of executions in 2008 were China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and, yes, the United States of America. The U.S. was one of five countries that carried out 93% of all executions this past year.
The death penalty (masked under the less brutal title “capital punishment”) is dehumanizing and hypocritical. The fact that executions in the U.S. are no longer carried out through the use of a guillotine, noose, or electric chair does not suggest that we have progressed.
Does it matter how you kill? Guillotine? Noose? Electric chair? Lethal injection? Does there exist such a thing as “humane” killing?
Perhaps the killing of human beings each year by state governments throughout the U.S. should be met with the same amount of shock and disgust as this horrible incident of decapitation – especially because it is a state-sponsored form of killing.
Post a Comment