All Africa blogs and the progressive Americans who have not thought.

The All Africa blog platform is back, as a ( initially involuntary ) contributor to the site I am pleased to see it back. Think Progress is a contributing blog and today I couldn't help but spot this post.

"If You Support The Death Penalty, You Are Probably White"

                                                                                                Death Chamber

Well I am white and don't support the death penalty although there have been times and will be again I am sure that as a watcher of the DR Congo and neighbouring countries I have and will again want the death penalty used. A great friend of mine Ross Blanch has actually felt the need to tell me to pull my head in on this subject. He was of course correct, he usually is. 

A new Pew Research Study reveals that the percentage of Americans who support the death penalty declined from 62 percent in 2011 to 55 percent in 2013 — and that support for executions is driven largely by white people. According to the survey, 63 percent of America’s white population support capital punishment, whereas only 36 percent of black people and 40 percent of Hispanics do.

I suspect and I have no evidence to back this up, that these figures would alter massively in the other direction if the study was done globally rather than just in America. Western European states and the Anglo Saxon derived states such as New Zealand don't want capital punishment. The headline for this blog probably should read more along the lines of:  " If you are white and don't support capital punishment you probably are in the majority unless you live in the USA "

This racial disparity is unsurprising in light of the way death sentences are often dolled out in this country. Florida, for instance, has never executed a white person for killing a black person. Defendants are 97 percent more likely to receive the death penalty if the victim in question was white, and Alabama follows a similar trend: African Americans are six times more likely to be sentenced to die for murdering white people with college degrees than white people who kill blacks. All told, 32 of the 39 executions that occurred last year were cases in which a white person was victimized.

" African Americans are six times more likely to be sentenced to die for murdering white people with college degrees than white people who kill blacks."

I have no doubt that the USA is totally screwed. The domestic citizens of Lego Land never fail to astonish me and always for the wrong reasons. However could anyone explain to me the relevance of college degrees ?  

I am totally in favour of college degrees, I think every one should be allowed the opportunity to get them ... but that statistic has made me wonder,  perhaps in the interests of fairness we should stop white Americans being allowed to matriculate. 

OK I am taking the piss but the author of this blog is also doing so. lets face it, this could be read as an instruction to black people planning to kill white people to select their victim carefully and make sure they don't have a college degree. 

Batshit crazy ? Yup.