![\"FolkDanceSalgado\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1784567774_933_720x0.jpg\")
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Folks dancers perform at a protest following the fatal shooting of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo by ICE agents.<\/p>\n
Evan Mintz \/ Houston Chronicle<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve been to plenty of protests, from\u00a0Zuccotti Park<\/a> to Hermann Park<\/a>, but the march for justice at Dunlavy Park on Sunday was the first time I had ever seen one that involved a performance by dancers in traditional Jalisco skirts \u2014 a whirl of color amid black-and-white protest signs.\u00a0<\/p>\n In fact, nearly all of the events I\u2019ve been to following U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents fatally shooting Lorenzo Salgado Araujo have involved music in one way or another. And that has been an intentional choice. Anything you read about Salgado is bound to mention his love of music \u2014 specifically ranchera. Songs by genre legend Antonio Aguilar<\/a> played in the background at his funeral on Thursday. I heard \u201cEl Rey\u201d on a Bluetooth speaker at a City Hall vigil last weekend. And there was a DJ blasting Tejano music under the shade of live oaks in the Montrose park on Sunday.\u00a0<\/p>\n In my car, however, you\u2019ll hear a very different sort of music. The Mathletes \u2014 a local low-fi indie rock band led by singer-songwriter Joe Folladori<\/a>, who has been a prolific contributor to Houston\u2019s music and avant-garde theater scene for the past quarter-century or so. You may have seen his latest performance, Katy Perry Candy Darling Mary Magdalene<\/a>, at the Match Theater earlier this year.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n That\u2019s because I\u2019ve found myself listening to one of his songs on repeat ever since federal agents killed Salgado: \u201cThat\u2019s When I Reach For My Culture<\/a>.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The title is an inversion of a line often misattributed to Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels, but actually is dialogue from Nazi playwright and poet Hanns Johst.\u00a0<\/p>\n Roughly translated from the original German: \u201cWhen I hear the word culture, that\u2019s when I reach for my revolver.\u201d<\/p>\n Consider that, as one New York Times theater critic put it, the \u201cessence of the cultural ideals of the Third Reich<\/a>.\u201d Values like freedom and democracy are secondary. The violence is the point.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Of course, in our free society, things are supposed to be the other way around. The point of the revolver, the reason why we have police and military and have given them a state monopoly on bloodshed, is to foster a peaceful, copacetic republic where culture can flourish. Any violence that we allow should be considered means to that greater end \u2014 means that should be rarely seen, highly controlled and only barely tolerated.\u00a0<\/p>\n John Adams put it well.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy.\u201d<\/p>\n Reading so many interviews with Salgado\u2019s sons, it seems that the longtime Houstonian had his own way of expressing that sentiment.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI love our dad, he worked hard,\u201d Ronaldo, the oldest of Lorenzo\u2019s three boys, told The Bulwark\u2019s Adrian Carrasquillo<\/a>. \u201cHe always told us that we needed to do well in school so we don\u2019t end up like him in the sun.\u201d<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n I almost laughed when I first read that line. It\u2019s practically a paraphrase from 30 Rock character Jack Donaghy.\u00a0<\/p>\n