Doing the math after the Concerts on the Square protest

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Good morning bread friends,

Readers of this newsletter know that sourdough bread baking really became an outlet for me in 2020 as I was processing the stress of that year. As I’ve described, it was remarkably therapeutic as I was losing sleep trying to process the grief of the killings of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd at the hands of police.

That certainly wasn’t anyone’s first bout with that sort of grief though.

The modern public consciousness shifted almost a decade before that when Trayvon Martin was killed. That seemingly created the conditions for the national attention that would follow in the next few years when police officers killed Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Mike Brown, Freddie Gray… and of course Tony Robinson right here in Madison, WI in 2015.

Philando Castile was the first black man killed by the police that I remember happening after I became a dad. There was a Facebook live video that went viral after he was killed. Today I don’t recall if I watched it live, or shortly after… but I watched it over and over. I can still remember the upside down image of the baby girl in the back seat of the car. I can vividly picture her face. She was 4 years old when she watched the police kill her mom’s boyfriend. I sometimes wonder what she’s up to now.

If I do the math… she may have just finished middle school this year.

Last night I was at Concerts on the Square when I learned that Madison Police had killed a black man named Corey Ruiz that same afternoon.

Concerts on the Square is a lovely Madison tradition of taking over the grassy square surrounding the State Capitol to enjoy free music. A much older tradition here in Madison is the practice of protesting against injustice.

Shout out to the many many audience members that learned in real time what was going on, and eventually stood up and cheered in support of the peaceful protestors.

Back in 2015… when our city was protesting in search of Justice for Tony… I knew many of those organizers. I was barely 30 at the time and most of the organizers were a bit younger than me in their early 20s.

Last night, as I stood with the protesters, there was something heartbreaking about seeing their faces and realizing that most of the organizers were still in their early 20s.

The people had changed, but the heartache and righteous anger against injustice was the same for another generation over a decade later.

And then I did the math…

They would have been ~10 when our city reeled through the pain of Tony Robinson being killed by an MPD officer.

That’s just… the same age that my kids are now… as our city will reel through the pain of Corey Ruiz being killed by an MPD officer.

This reality takes my breath away.

I’m in a life stage where the friends that I interact with most are parents of young kids also.

I trust that we’re currently raising another generation capable of staring injustice in the face, and working hard to build a better society.

But LORD I pray that they won’t have to feel this exact same pain of black people being killed in the street over and over.

With Love,
Mo

Oh… btw… If you’re interested in buying sourdough bread, you can pre-order it now. As usual, pickup will be this Saturday at my home. 100% of profits from the sale of bread this week will be donated to Freedom Inc.