I had lived in Michigan for about a week when I found myself paging through the March 1, 2000, edition of the Detroit Metro Times as I sat in my car in a Ferndale parking lot, waiting for a friend. Among the week's offerings was a column examining then-candidate George W. Bush's enthusiasm for the death penalty that explained Michigan's longstanding disavowal of capital punishment, banned here since 1846 after neighboring Windsor, Canada, hanged a man who, it turned out, had been innocent.
That was 24 years ago, but I vividly remember the sense of relief I felt. Born and raised in Alabama, I had moved here from Louisiana, both states where the electric chairs had nicknames – "Yellow Mama" and "Gruesome Gertie," respectively – and for the first time, I was living in a state where my tax dollars wouldn't support state-sanctioned killing.
That's not why I moved to Michigan, it just was a benefit I hadn't anticipated. I had been relieved of a burden I did not realize I was carrying.
These days, I'm not sure I could live, or pay taxes, in any state with the death penalty.
Particularly not Texas ("Old Sparky"), where 587 people have been executed since 1982, more than any other state in the nation.
Including in 2004, Cameron Todd Willingham, who was almost certainly innocent, and just last month, Ivan Cantu, about whose guilt serious questions had emerged.
People convicted of murder in Texas are significantly more likely to be sentenced to death if the victim was white. Texas death row inmates are disproportionately Black and Hispanic.
And I have a hard time squaring that with the news that more members of Generation Z are moving to Texas than any other state. Gen Z, born after 1996, is widely regarded as the most diverse generation, the most educated, the most politically progressive and most focused on equity and racial justice. One recent survey found that more members of Gen Z identify as LGBTQ than Republican.
Yet in 2022, more than 76,000 Gen Zers moved to deep red Texas, the real estate website Zillow found in an analysis of the Census' American Community Survey. California was second, with 43,913 new Gen Z residents.
Dead last? Michigan, which actually lost 2,858.
US plummeted in world happinessranking because of young people like me. I'll tell you why.
I'm........