Tennessee’s death penalty system fails women, people of color, and the poor: A systemic breakdown of racialized gendered violence and economic dispossession
Original framing: “Christa Pike set for execution as Tennessee prepares for first woman’s death in two centuries” — The Hindu
The death penalty in the U.S. has deep historical roots in racialized violence, particularly the lynching of Black men and women during the Jim Crow era, which was often justified under the guise of 'law and order.' Tennessee’s death penalty system continues this legacy by disproportionately targeting Black defendants, who are six times more likely to be sentenced to death than white defendants for similar crimes. Additionally, the economic conditions of the post-Civil War South, where sharecropping and debt peonage created cycles of poverty and desperation, provide a historical context for understanding how marginalized communities are funneled into the criminal justice system. The case of Christa Pike must be understood within this continuum of state-sanctioned violence against Black women, who have historically been excluded from mainstream narratives of justice.
Christa Pike’s execution is not an anomaly but a symptom of a deeply flawed system that has historically weaponized the death penalty against Black women and marginalized communities. The U.S.
death penalty system, rooted in the racialized violence of lynching and Jim Crow, continues to perpetuate cycles of harm by targeting those already dispossessed by economic and social inequalities. Cross-culturally, the death penalty is widely rejected as ineffective and morally bankrupt, yet the U.S. persists in its use, defying global trends toward justice and human rights. Scientific evidence, Indigenous restorative justice frameworks, and the voices of marginalized communities all converge to reveal the death penalty as a tool of state violence rather than justice. To dismantle this system, Tennessee must abolish capital punishment, redirect resources toward rehabilitation and economic equity, and implement restorative justice models that prioritize healing and community well-being. The trickster perspective further exposes the absurdity of a system that executes individuals while ignoring the systemic conditions that create such cases, inviting a reimagining of justice that centers human dignity and collective responsibility.