The right to take tomorrow for granted
For Lorenzo Salgado Araujo
On the morning he was murdered, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo got out of bed in a house he built himself. He drank a cup of coffee and ate a hot breakfast prepared by his wife. Had he come home that evening, he would have played with his dogs on his porch, because that’s what he did most nights.
At moments like this, we are often reminded that we shouldn’t protest that the human being murdered by government forces was a good person. To do so is to buy into the logic that there exist in our midst monsters so heinous that they must be eliminated extra judiciously. The moment we say “but this time it was a good guy,” we pretend that we are not saying “.... unlike _____” but of course the ellipses and the blank-to-be-filled-in are always there. That’s how you maintain a country more interested in excusing death than nurturing life, with the latter halves of callous sentences.
Whether necessary or not, it sounds like Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was a man who both loved capaciously and was loved in return. According to those mourning him most intimately, he embodied all the things that we claim to celebrate as a country (fatherhood, small business ownership, treating his community with kindness and intentionality).
But not that father. Not that small business owner. Not that community member.
The people who murdered Lorenzo Salgado Araujo claim that he weaponized his vehicle, just like that other cold blooded criminal, Renée Good. Yes, they were looking for a different guy, but he was the guy they killed, so he must have had it coming. They will say many more things in the days to come. They will request your gratitude for removing Lorenzo Salgado Araujo from your life. If a vehicle can be weaponized, so too can a narrative.
I have lived in a culture of death long enough to have metabolized hundreds of stories like this, of human beings no longer with us. I have listened to family members desperately make the case for their relative’s lovability, and then heard the state’s cold counterpoints about the murdered person’s unredeemable rottenness.
This time, I am fixated on the cup of coffee, about how it smelt and tasted, about whether he found a song he loved on the radio after he turned on the ignition, about whether he got a good night’s sleep the previous evening, about the dumbest thing he recently got distracted by on the Internet. Lorenzo Salgado Araujo should still be alive today, not as a reward for being a decent dad and boss, but because we are told that how we spend our days is how we live our lives, and so who are we to decide, for each other, which day will be the one when all that living stops.
Before Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was dead, he was living. He may have been running late. He may not have gotten to savor that cup of coffee. But no matter, as there would be another one tomorrow, just as there would be dogs at home and guys to pick up for work and adult sons to both adore and fret over. There’d be work and home and a new Liga MX season starting this weekend and the chance that, this year, Chivas might win the cup.
Maybe he hated Houston in the summer, or maybe the thick, humid air felt like home. Maybe he said something he regretted a few days ago, or maybe he just heard a joke that just cracked him up so much, that he couldn’t wait to tell the fellas. Maybe that night, when his wife asked about work, he would have said “oh man, I don’t even want to get into it,” or maybe “actually it was pretty great, thanks for asking.”
That should have been enough, because that’s all there is. A day and a routine and the inalienable right to pet your dogs and go to bed and say, well, let’s do it again the next day.
-GoFundMe for Lorenzo Salgado Araujo’s family.
-GoFundMe for Daniel Tirado Pantoja’s family. Daniel was Lorenzo’s friend and employee. He is currently in detention as a result of the same traffic stop where Lorenzo was murdered.
-I will update this space with future protests/fundraisers.
-This week’s announcements (unrelated to this story) can all be found at the bottom of my Tuesday essay (including our next Interdependence Relay event, this Saturday in Santa Fe, NM).
As a child I was always taught the biblical law that even a murderer couldn't be put to death without 3 witnesses to the actual crime, thus assuring that we didn't overreact to the small stuff. Recently I started pondering how easy it would be for some of our pols and criminal enforcers to grab 2 buddies and fabricate a reality to justify their actions
Looking up the quote I'd lived with, I found this: The Role of the Witnesses In ancient times, being a witness was a heavy job. The witnesses had to be so sure they were telling the truth that they had to throw the very first stones during the execution. If they were caught lying (false witness), they would receive the exact same punishment they tried to give the accused.
Stones, not bullets, and if investigation proved their testimony false, receive the same fate. I can't help but wonder what might change if today's bible thumpers were held to the same standard.