Grieving a Murder
For Marcellus Khaliifah Williams, reading this tomorrow might be too late.
Today, the State of Missouri and Governor Mike Parson plan to execute a man, knowing there is DNA evidence exculpating him of the crime. The man is Khaliifah Williams, a father, an imam, and a poet like me.
Khaliifah is scheduled to be murdered not because he is guilty but because the governor does not want to admit the system is often wrong. Despite all the legal and political machinations, Khaliifah’s testimony about himself holds weight. It’s an inconvenient truth the penal system would prefer to silence to maintain its power and illusion of moral superiority.
This sadness, this violation, is ancient and deep. I cannot help but think that though Muslim, Khaliifah is in more intimate solidarity with the Crucified Jesus than many of his followers, including me. And now, a man who calls himself a Christian is about to execute Khaliifah despite no evidence against him except witness statements bought with a bribe. Much like the Pharisees and Sadducees of Jesus’ day, the state would rather kill a man than admit they got it wrong. Governor Parson doesn’t see how a lethal injection has become a Roman cross.
Scripture is pretty straightforward: if you cannot identify with Jesus’s death, you cannot participate in his resurrection. If Parson cannot see Jesus in this man, how will he recognize the Lord when he returns in glory, wielding justice in his hands?
I believe that Jesus identifies with all people, whether Christians or not. I desire to do the same, so I started searching for a way to testify to the dignity of Khaliifah’s life. How do I stand up for justice when those in power are hellbent on obstructing it?
Yesterday, journalist Frances Madison asked me to write some brief commentary on one of Khaliifah’s poems for an article she is writing for Truth Out about Khaliifah’s life and imminent execution. This was the Spirit’s way for me to do more than stand up for justice and stand up for life. Here’s how I could honor Khaliifah Ibn Rayford Daniels, my fellow poet and believer in God.
Below I share Khaliifah’s poem and my commentary with you so you can bear witness to his life. Keep reading. If you feel led, please intercede for him however you can. We can’t afford to look away now.
Anchor
“The Net Zero/Morality Equation”
Indeed corruption does appear upon the land and sea
– as a direct result of what hands have done clearly
now a question is asked and put quite simply:
is it possible to return to a state of emission free?
behold the carbon footprint and its manifest distorted body
plaguing and distracting minds with self-inflicted anxiety
with a cognizant-dissonant actuality
along with consumer insatiability
as the thirst for materialism borders on a global norm of insanity
proceeding by far from developed countries
where bureaucracy hinders
limits
or even ignores necessary policy
– that addresses with substance better life quality
countering with comprehensive plans to conquer greenhouse gas
and fragile ecosystems
like carbon removal and low carbon technology
innovative and sustainable solar energy
capable of running power grids to produce conscientious electricity
embraced by a forward thinking industry
– those who partner with scholars
intellectuals
and activists to bring about enhanced efficiency
who will remind the leaders of geopolitics
and geo-economic blocs –
that a 2050 net zero will be an impossibility
or unobtainable reality
absent a serious commitment to uplift and assist the underdeveloped
nations people’s lives and productivity
and without the essential factor of a high standard of morality.
— Khaliifah Ibn Rayford Daniels
Sea
Whenever we divide zero, we end up with nothing. In Marcellus Khaliifah William's poem "The Net Zero/Morality Equation," this mathematical fact becomes both a warning and a plea. The poem alerts us that a deadly math is being carried out. The slash invokes the operation of division and the violence of binary thinking. Khaliifah situates us amid a zero-sum game.
The poem starts with an impossible balance sheet. On one side, industrialized nations demand commitments to curbing carbon emissions by 2050. On the other, industrializing nations demand the right to enjoy the same growth and industry benefits that others have. After all, is it fair that countries only now at the brink of industrialization should have to go without due to the centuries of environmental damage caused by previously developed nations?
This is undoubtedly a quandary, but the title suggests that another query lurks within this poem below the question of climate change: that of morality.
I'm drawn to the poet's choice of words in the opening line. If environmental degradation is the only issue at stake, why use the word "corruption?" Why not choose "pollution" since it is more apt in this context?
A good poet deploys words with great care and attention. A poet is precise, more precise even than the law.
Out of Khaliifah's practiced and intentional curation of words emerges a hidden subtext: We read about environmental contamination on the poem's surface, but the conditions under which the poem was written percolate to the surface.
The poet writing about climate crisis is someone the state wrongfully and willfully intends to execute today. This is the context in which we must read this poem.
Although a work should always be taken on its own terms without relying on the author's biography to explain its meaning, it would be morally obtuse in this case not to speak to those conditions. What better way to describe those conditions than the poet's own words? The State of Missouri and Governor Parson's persistent commitment to executing Khaliifah, despite forensic evidence supporting his innocence, reveals systemic corruption.
The word corruption can be used in a constellation of contexts to refer to internal decay, a spiritual and ethical poison, or governmental bribery. In the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox traditions, a godly person is said to be "incorrupt" if their bodily remains do not show typical signs of decomposition. In such cases, the church may deem the person a saint. Scientific evidence has already found Khaliifah incorrupt. There is no need to put him to death to examine his remains. There is no need to make him a martyr.
No matter how sharp the guillotine, a blunt truth is still sharper. The blunt truth is that Khaliifah cannot pay for someone else’s moral failure and shotty police work. Parson does not want to admit Khaliifah (and others) are innocent because that would also mean admitting to antiblack policies and government culpability. Instead, he wants to double down on killing Khaalifah to erase the penal system’s debt. But that’s like dividing a number by zero. It is an invalid operation. The result has no meaning. It’s a moral math that doesn’t compute.
Like the less fortunate nations that Khaliifah mentions as the poem concludes, he is being crushed by the burden of someone else's past and present misconduct. And yet, Khaliifah risks hope by asking a question in the poem's fourth line. Though the rhyme scheme is heavy-handed, leading to the sense of a slowly encroaching, inevitable doom, he asks tentatively, "Is it possible to return to a state of emission-free?"
Consider the enormous stakes of this poem. A man on death row is writing about an environment he is not permitted to return to. My cousin was incarcerated most of his adult life and spoke tearfully of missing the rain while in prison. He ached to recall the sensation of a raindrop splashing on his skin. Amid this devastating estrangement from the elemental building blocks of ecological life, Khaliifah dares to ask a question about the world's health outside.
Some may ask, "Why should he care?" Those who are incarcerated endure baffling heat waves that melt everything from tablets to toothpaste. They are often left behind during life-threatening hurricanes. At the forefront of energy crises and environmental ravages—of course, incarcerated people care. However, it takes a particular sort of daring for Khaliifah to ask the questions many of us are still too comfortable to contend with. He is grappling with imminent mortality. He reminds us, so are we.
From deep inside, he dares to ask about outside. Is it possible?
Freedom?
For the world? For me?
Khaliifah knows that we are not just jabbering on about systems, laws, and policies. Lives are at stake. Today, it's his. We could save his and so many others if we broke out of the deadly binary of innocence and guilt and instead focused on what it means for all of us to breathe free air.
“Is it possible to return to a state of emission-free?” I wish the poem broke the rhyme scheme here, woke us up out of our slumber, and demanded we pay attention, attend to the sudden volta and the urgent threat to planet and life that are at hand—but then again, hope alone is not enough to stop the steady, euthanizing leak of injustice.
The poet and political prisoner makes this point at the end of the poem:
that a 2050 net zero will be an impossibility or unobtainable reality absent a serious commitment to uplift and assist the underdeveloped nations people's lives and productivity and without the essential factor of a high standard of morality
Is avoiding environmental crises possible? Yes, but not without solidarity and a commitment to caring for the dignity and flourishing of others. Hope is not enough without actions rooted in public justice and personal righteousness.
Hope is not enough today, at least not hope in man. Unless you act Lord, Governor Parson will sanction a poet's murder. You have given him authority through the state to save Khaliifah’s life. Compel Parson to submit to You in humility, for he will have to give an account before You, "The High Standard of Morality.” Strengthen Khaliifah with the presence of the Resurrected Jesus in these hours. Father, You have stayed his execution before. Nothing is too impossible for you. Rulers are nothing before You. What You did before, surely You can do again.
Sail
This week, the word sail carries heaviness like a wind through the branches of a tree bearing strange fruit. I leave you with a decade-old collaboration between my friend Tina Colon Williams and me. We wrote “Baby Boy” for our former incarcerated loved ones and their sons. Today it’s for Khaliifah Ibn Rayford and his family.
Verily,
Alysia Nicole Harris
Yes, the Lord is using your gifts and talents for good. He is using you for His glory!