Remembering Marcelo One Year Later

MARCELO LUCERO’s is one of those stories that haunts you. Stories that become iconic because of how terribly well they illustrate great wrongs that our human society has yet to escape. Marcelo’s story is very plain, the truth very ugly, the loss permanent.

I shudder to think of what it means to die in such a way. It should happen to nobody. That’s one of the parts that haunt me. I know what it’s like to be set upon by many hands. But to never make it home? To die there, bleeding to death in the dark. Because someone decided that you are a spic.

Because you were on the way to meet up with a friend and some crazy human or humans projected demons from their own soul onto you. And for sport they band up and go “beaner jumping” to scratch their sadistic itch. Mexican, Guatemalan, Cuban…they don’t care what kind of spic you are. “Beaner” is good enough.

Those bad seeds in Patchogue, the hate-pundits on the radio, the hate groups calling themselves “immigration restrictionists” while broadcasting the evil of that monster in their soul against the very same targets? They are all part of a fungal faction of our society that must be seared clean from the conversation so that sanity and a modern-day sense of humanity can prevail.

We must remember and act upon the better parts of the human spirit. We must not tolerate hate aimed so carelessly, into energy so fatal. We must band up to remember the truth and to remain moving forward. And to fight on in the name of Marcelo. And Luis. And all the others. And hope there are not too many others too soon. At the same time, we have to have each other’s backs.

We can all change this. If we want.

Salúd, Marcelo.

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There will be a vigil in Patchogue