It’s a recurring nightmare.
Well, that isn’t quite true because nightmares are not real. You sweat and shudder as you sleep, but then you wake up and the terrible remnants of your nightmare slowly start to fade away. But with the death of Corey Ruiz, there is no waking up from this. There will be a mother that never gets to hold her son again. There will be a daughter that never gets to laugh with her father again. There will be a sister that never gets to tease her brother again. There will be the familiar carousel of thoughts and prayers, of pressers and conferences, with explanations and justifications but with no justice. There will be insinuations and allegations, with people in the media that will question the humanity of Corey Ruiz and will scrutinize the deeds of his past. Before we know it, it will fade back into the recesses of our minds, like a nightmare.
But it is not a nightmare.
This feels more like a never-ending bullet, one that has been consistently fired since 1619. A bullet that has taken the shape of a patrol, a bomb, a chokehold or a knee on our necks for more than 9 minutes. This is the never ending bullet that took the life of 19 year old Tony Robinson, 11 years ago, a couple of blocks from where Corey Ruiz was gunned down. The police that fired the shots? Cleared of all wrongdoing. No punishment. No justice in from the criminal legal system. This is the never ending bullet that also struck 18-year-old Ty’Rese West in Racine. The police that fired the shots? Cleared of all wrongdoing. No punishment. No justice. This is the never ending bullet that shattered the spine of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, WI. The police that fired the shots? Cleared of all wrongdoing. No punishment. No justice.
This bullet goes through the community.
This never ending bullet isn’t one that just takes one life. It isn’t a bullet that just paralyzes one person. It is a bullet that goes through a whole community. Even though someone may not be hit by it, the community feels it. It is felt through trauma. A calamitous event that is passed on through generations and manifesting in deleterious and dangerous ways. It is felt through a prism of insanity. You know the tale of insanity? Repeating something again and again, expecting another result? This same bullet gets fired and the same people die and the same people cry and the same people are tried but are rarely held accountable, and the same platitudes are given, with the same promises and the ease of forgetfulness washes over us and we are asleep once more. Until we are jostled awake again by this never ending bullet.
We must end this never ending bullet.
This never ending bullet seems to be covered by inevitability. There are rounds of collective anger and protest, but that is quelled and squashed by the same forces that fire this never ending bullet in the first place. It can seem worthless to fight and persevere because there are systems in place to ensure that reason and logic gives way to hyperbole and fearmongering. There are dire consequences to resisting this never ending bullet and the exhaustion, fear and isolation can be overwhelming. But we cannot stop now. As has been the case too many times, lives are at stake. So the conversation must change. Less about what the victim could have done differently, or what they did in their past, but focusing squarely on the police and coming to terms with the propaganda (or copaganda) and praise that the police receive and how we can best change those narratives. Just like how there has been a significant change in the attitudes towards ICE, that same fervor must be directed at the police. It has to be more than implementing body cameras (which the Madison Police Department does not have on its officers) and changing certain mandates and protocols. Laws like qualified immunity allow the police to act, to kill with impunity and that simply must end. Your local activists, organizations and the ACLU-WI are continuing the fight.
Because we refuse to believe that this bullet is never ending. All of us must come together and say, or better yet show, that enough is enough. We want no more blood on our streets. We want justice. We want the police to fundamentally change its relationship with Black people and communities of color and those that are economically disadvantaged.
This can no longer be a nightmare. Or to simply just hope for something better like a dream. It must become our reality. RIP to Corey Ruiz.