The Midwest is known for many things. We’re known for our hospitality, our farmland. We’re known for our dairy, the great lakes and the repeated killings of Black Americans at the hands of officers who are sworn to protect us. For many Midwesterners, the story is long sung and tragic. We remember George Floyd, Daunte Wright, Tamir Rice, Tony Robinson, and now, Corey Ruiz.
Today in Madison, Wisconsin, Corey Ruiz was fatally executed by police officers. These officers were called because someone made a report about a person checking parked cars on the street and stealing bikes. When they arrived, Ruiz allegedly fled on his bike, and the officers followed. Upon finding Ruiz, they tackled him from his bike, per Michael Doubek, a Madison resident who was filming the incident.
According to the official police report, after the tackle, there was an altercation in which an officer was allegedly injured by Ruiz with a knife. Ruiz was tased by the officers, and all four moved to take him down, as seen in online video footage currently circulating. Then, when Ruiz was struggling, down on the ground, his arms pinned, an officer carefully moved back onto one knee and fired three shots into the back of Ruiz’s head. This was the same officer injured in the struggle.
Doubek described it as an execution.
In both Wisconsin and Minnesota, there is no death penalty. No criminal convicted will ever face capital punishment (Wisconsin outlawing it in 1853, Minnesota in 1911). The worst of the worst will not face such cruel and unusual punishment for their crimes in our states. These criminals are sentenced to life without possibility of parole. However, this isn’t the case if you’re Black. In these states, if you’re Black, then you will face the death penalty over a stolen bike, a counterfeit bill, acting erratically or for brandishing a fake gun as a 12-year-old.
When will this end? When will police departments stop?
The answer is quite simple: never.
In the system that our white patriarchy has cultivated, no Black American will be safe from the threat of death by officer. No man, woman or child will ever be able to walk the sidewalk, care for their family or work a job without being violently murdered and taken from the world. As tragic as it is, it’s the truth. We see it play out in front of our eyes, every day, every night, every time we open our computers or turn on our phones.
The officer who killed Corey Ruiz wouldn’t have killed him if he was white. This is a fact that many Americans have accepted, though there are quite a few stragglers. Some preach that Ruiz should’ve died for harming the officer who killed him. Others say that dead, Black Americans shouldn’t have resisted. They’re wrong on all accounts, as the people who say these things typically are.
Ruiz did not deserve to die, even if he harmed an officer. That man shouldn’t have been allowed to play God. But he did. He was judge, jury, executioner, and all he will face, historically speaking, is a slap on the wrist with zero charges. In two years, no one will care. In five, Ruiz will show up as another statistic in a long-standing trend that nothing will be done about.
Unless we stop it.
In the society we live in, this will always happen. White people will always have power over any Black man, woman or child. Even if this white person is queer or a woman. Because whiteness will always be valued in our country until we step up and stop it.
After Ruiz’s horrific murder, a protest began only hours later at the scene of the crime. Protestors marched to a concert, where what seemed to be hundreds of white people sat in their chairs, silently, either twiddling their thumbs, typing on their phones or rolling their eyes. They didn’t care about the protest, nor did they join in on the chants. They sat there, quietly.
Which is all white Americans ever seem to do.
Though Black Americans have spearheaded change for the entirety of their lives, their parents lives, their grandparents lives, and beyond, it seems that they are expected to continue the change. I have had white people in my life tell me that these things aren’t their place. They shouldn’t speak on it. It isn’t their issue.
But it is.
White Americans need to speak. They need to fight. Because white woman will tell their children that, if they’re in trouble, to find a Black woman— because she will protect them. But these same white women are silent. They aren’t marching in protests. They’re sitting, watching from their comfortable seats, waiting for the protest to be over.
There needs to be radical change to the world we live in. And it is time, for once in our lives, to use our white privilege to do something.
I’m tired of white Americans sitting back. I’m tired of white Americans waiting for it to be over. If we want this to be over, then we need to step in. We need to stand with our fellow Americans as they are getting murdered in the streets by the people that look exactly like us. Stop staying silent. Stop being friends with white men who say slurs for fun. Stop being cowards.
What happened to Corey Ruiz is despicable and tragic. But it happened because of the system that our relatives created and still, to this day, support and hide behind.
Not only should white Americans be calling their representatives and voting— they need to be on the ground, protesting, now. Get up, out of your seats, and find a movement near you. Donate to every cause you can. Fight for the safety of every single soul, because that’s the American dream in the land of the free.
Many white people are stuck in the mindset that there’s nothing they can do. Maybe they can’t donate, or don’t know who to call. Maybe they don’t understand exactly what to do. But every single day, there is something they can do. Call our relatives, peers, friends, bosses, coworkers. If you’re uncomfortable, don’t stay silent. Speak up. Spearhead change for our fellow Americans, as they have for us.
There is no more time to sit. There is no more time to stay quiet. You either speak up now, you either push back now, or face the consequences.
Remember First They Came by Pastor Martin Niemöller. Soon, there will be no one to speak out for the white women. Soon, there will be no one to speak out for the white members of the LGBTQIA community. So you need to speak out.
