By Joe Moody
It was seven years ago now, but it still feels like yesterday that 23 people were gunned down in El Paso because of how they looked. And today, as much as I’m thinking about the 23 taken from us, I’m also thinking of a 24th.
Just a few weeks ago, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was shot to death by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Houston.
Lorenzo was an unarmed man with no criminal history who was killed on his way to work. Witnesses say ICE agents rammed his vehicle then opened fire – and that they were never in any danger from Lorenzo.
The federal government has insisted on investigating itself and claimed no one had any of the body cameras ICE was given $20 million for. It has yet to provide any evidence to justify the shooting other than leaning into a lie that drugs were found in the vehicle afterwards. Testing revealed that was never true.
What happened in Houston was very different from what happened in El Paso, but it’s on my mind because it came from the same place.
In the years since Aug. 3, 2019, I’ve written and spoken repeatedly about the danger of the political rhetoric being used against immigrants and Mexican Americans. The murderer who drove to El Paso back then did it to stop what he called “the Hispanic invasion of Texas.” His own manifesto and statements by his attorneys specifically talked about the political influences that drove him to pull the trigger.
Politicized hate has only gotten worse since then. National and state voices have shamelessly turned to naked racism and dehumanization, and footage uncovered through recent lawsuits has shown ICE agents using racial slurs on the job.
It’s no wonder that immigration enforcement has turned into an unprofessional and brutal spectacle that’s killed people across the country and led to thousands of detainees, including at camps in El Paso, suffering inhumane conditions that would’ve once been unthinkable in the United States.
That can only happen when people aren’t thought of as people. You don’t shoot someone who’s just going to work or going to Walmart unless you believe they’re “invaders” who are “poisoning our country” or “bringing drugs, bringing crime . . . rapists” who’ve been emptied out of prisons and mental institutions south of us.
Taking personhood is what makes it possible to take lives.
I used to think these deaths would change people’s hearts and minds, but I’ve come to realize that lives mean nothing to those who don’t recognize the humanity of the dead in the first place. They’ll never see us if we don’t make them. I know we can, though.
We saw how to do it right here in an El Paso courtroom.
When the Walmart shooter was sentenced, Yolanda Tinajero, the sister of one of the 23, actually hugged him. “I want you to see and feel all of us who have been impacted by your actions,” she told him, adding that if he’d just come to El Paso, “We would have opened our doors to you to share a meal, breakfast, lunch or dinner, Mexican-style, so then your ugly thoughts of us that have been instilled in you would have turned around.”
What Yolanda did in that moment was put the incredible heart of El Paso and communities like it on public display. She recognized that the only way to disarm and defeat hate is by showing the world (even the worst parts of it) who we are and how we love. She forced the killer to see her. It was the first time in all these years he showed any emotion in court.
There’s a lot to be angry about these days, but anger alone isn’t transformative. We’ll never end racist rhetoric – never be safe or equal – until our personhood can’t be denied.
As we remember the fallen this year, let’s also honor them by showing up and showing out every day and everywhere. And let’s do that not just with our strength and resolve and excellence as a border community, but like Yolanda, with the undeniable love that defines us as people.
Joe Moody represents El Paso’s District 78 and serves as speaker pro tempore in the Texas House of Representatives.
The post Opinion: From the Walmart massacre to an ICE shooting, denying personhood has deadly consequences appeared first on El Paso Matters.
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