Kim K Just Took A Major Stance Against The Death Penalty For An Important Reason
Kim Kardashian might be the world's most famous reality TV star, but she isn't joking around when it comes to speaking out about her views and beliefs these days. Even though you might know her for her outrageous family reality show, makeup business endeavors, and her marriage to Kanye West, you probably also heard she helped facilitate a woman named Alice Johnson being granted clemency by President Donald Trump. Now, she's taking on one of the most controversial political conversations out there. Kim Kardashian's tweet about ending the death penalty highlights an important issue, and whether you love to hate or hate to love her, you have to admit: her reach is extremely far and her opinions often lead to action.
Fans watched both in the news and later on Keeping Up With The Kardashians as Kardashian attended a meeting with Trump to speak about Alice Marie Johnson, a woman who was arrested for a non-violent drug crime in 1996 and imprisoned for over two decades as a result. After Kardashian advocated for the now 63-year-old mother and grandmother, Johnson was granted clemency by the president June 6, 2018. The experience seemed to ignite a political fire in Kardashian, who has since committed to educating herself on more societal and political topics and getting involved with the issues she believes in.
According to her, this past year she dove into her home state's law on the death penalty with a particular focus on the racial biases that plague the United States justice system.
On Tuesday, March 12, Kardashian took to Twitter to explain her stance and updated her fans on the kind of action she's taken. She tweeted: "For the last year, I have immersed myself in learning about the criminal justice system. I visited prisons, met with formerly incarcerated people, and helped with cases of individual injustice – including two death penalty cases..."
Kardashian explained that she's met with California Governor Gavin Newsom, who is campaigning to end the California death penalty:
I have met with and am very supportive of Governor Newsom and his decision to help bring an end to the California Death Penalty. Racial bias and unfairness run deep throughout the justice system but especially when it comes to the death penalty.
Kardashian lastly tweeted about her concern for people who are wrongly executed, and her hopes that the government can shift their priorities to trauma aid and justice. She wrote, "...we should not be okay with the risk that an innocent person could be executed. I hope we can turn toward better solutions that focus more on healing victims of trauma and prioritizing fairness and justice." Elite Daily reached out to the Governor's office for additional comment on Kardashian's tweets but did not hear back by the time of publication.
For the rest of the day and as of publication, Kardashians tweets solely circulated around this important topic as she continued to share headlines regarding Governor Newsom's stance. According to an NPR report, Newsom plans to sign a sweeping order on March 13 that will suspend California's death penalty, thus ordering a reprieve for the 737 people on death row, arguing that capital punishment is inherently unfair because it's applied more often to people of color and those with mental disabilities.
"Our death penalty system has been — by any measure — a failure," Newsom said in a statement about his stance, according to NPR. "It has provided no public safety benefit or value as a deterrent. It has wasted billions of taxpayer dollars. But most of all, the death penalty is absolute, irreversible, and irreparable in the event of a human error."
While Kardashian will undoubtedly catch heat from haters who might feel she is outside of her expertise, you can't deny her efforts to fight for what she believes in. You know the phrase: With great (social media) power comes great responsibility.
