VivirLatino

While I was reading this post comparing the brutal murders of men of color and town reactions to the murders from Elle PhD, I came across this older article about the murder of Luis Ramirez in Pennsylvania.

By May, Ramirez had settled in Shenandoah, working two jobs after spending six months picking berries in Georgia.

“He worked hard so his kids would have more than he had growing up,” Dillman said. “He talked a lot about how we take so much for granted here.”

His diamond-encrusted religious medal, which cost him $300, now hangs over the fireplace in the three-story home on Main Street where Dillman and the children live.

“I just don’t understand how you can beat someone so badly when you don’t even know them,” Dillman said. “People here are just ignorant. They think life begins and ends in Shenandoah.”

It made me so sad to read this section. Earlier in the article, the author mentions that Ramirez had been kicked so hard by his murderers that the cross from that necklace left a cross mark on his chest.

Even as the article let’s the reader in on a detailed understanding of the lives of the “boys” accused of murdering Ramirez (honor students, football stars, etc), the one detail it tells us about Ramirez is that he spent $300 on a diamond encrusted necklace.

Oh, and he had two children out of wedlock. With a white woman. And was last seen walking down the street with a teenage girl.

Does it surprise anyone that the men accused of killing Luis Ramirez have been found not guilty?

Is it murder when you’re just doing something that everybody imagines doing themselves?

What right do dirty Mexicans have to “ruin the lives” of good boys, clean boys, who are doing their best to live day to day in a world that rewards criminals (with $300 necklaces) and denies jobs to hardworking “real Americans?”

Is it justice to punish those poor boys? Or is it justice that the visible display of Ramirez’s arrogance was used against him to destroy him?

Elle notes in her post:

Dr. King once said something to the effect of the arc of history** is long, but it bends towards justice.

Right now, I’m just stuck on how achingly long it is.

And all I can say is me too.