I cannot write about books today
I cannot write to you about books this morning. I cannot write about travel or personal growth or big dreams or finding the good in our regular, ordinary lives.
My anger is boiling over, rage threatening to consume me, because the government of my country murdered an innocent young man in Biddeford, Maine this week.
His name was Joan Sebastian Durán Guerrero. His daughter is three years old. My government murdered him just because he looked like someone they were looking for, because he wasn’t white, because he wouldn’t answer their questions, because they wanted to, because god only knows why.
It’s a tragedy that keeps repeating. And some of my family and friends voted for this. Some of my neighbors are putting up flags and signs saying they welcome it. I’m heartbroken, and I’m taking time to figure out what I can possibly do while joining the thousands of Mainers and millions of Americans speaking out, standing up, and saying “Enough! What are you doing? What is wrong with you?”
He was the second innocent person we know of murdered in broad daylight early in the morning by the US government in the past week. (Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was shot and killed in Houston in similar fashion a few days ago.)
But in Joan Sebastian’s case, not only did they murder him, they handcuffed his arms and left his body in the streets of Biddeford for hours, multiplying the trauma, multiplying the tragedy for his family and neighbors watching in horror nearby.
I cannot pretend anything else matters more than speaking out against this and trying to stop it from happening again.
From CNN:
“These are not isolated incidents: they reflect an immigration control system that continues to operate with very little transparency, very little accountability, and devastating consequences for our communities,” said New York Assembly member Jessica González-Rojas in a statement.
From a similar post I shared earlier this year:
“If enough people had stood up then, on Kristallnacht, and said, ‘Enough! What are you doing? What is wrong with you?’ then the course of history would have been different. But they did not. They were scared. They were weak. And their weakness allowed them to be manipulated into hatred.” ~ Eddie Jaku
Here’s to trying to change the course of history right now.
✌🏼️💓 📚
Celeste