The jury in the case against Shawna Forde, founder of  Minutemen American Defense, for brutally murdering 9 year old Brisenia Flores and her father Raul Flores, is still out.

Real justice would be not having to witness your partner and child killed in front of you because, as I wrote when little Brisenia and her father were taken, this is  a casa of violence used against a family viewed as expendable to help further their cause of using violence against those viewed as expendable.

Namely immigrants, Latinos and those perceived as such.

Since Brisenia and her father were taken, things have not gotten better for immigrants, their children, our community. The dehumanization continues, with laws being presented that refer to children as anchors, with laws proposed that want to make it illegal to exist. In the absence of real laws and more importantly, the absence of a  real shift that views the humanity of all people, especially women and children, the answer has become more violence. When that violence isn’t coming from someone like Shawna Forde, it comes from the policies itself, that detain, deport, and seek to disenfranchise whole communities by disappearing, one community member at a time.

Justice is a beautiful thing, it resembles the innocence of a 9 year old’s smile, and is worth fighting for in memory of that smile.