Renee Good was not white, at least not to the ICE agent that murdered her in Minneapolis last week.
See, Renee Good was a woman who had short hair, she had a wife who also had short hair, she was a woman. She also was not intimidated.
In a video from the ICE agent’s phone, you clearly hear Renee state “it’s cool dude, I’m not even mad at you.” In that same video, you see the ICE agent purposely walk in front of Renee’s vehicle and move his phone from his right hand to his left hand, allowing him to easily grab his gun. It is clear what happened.
America is outraged. Black America is tired.
Masked men with weapons killing innocent people without any repercussions or concequences is nothing new to Black America. We have shed tears, laid awake at night wondering what Black people could have ever done to deserve such treatment. Our ancestors were stolen and chained, raped, and dehumanized, totally robbed of agency, body and soul. The ones who survived the treacherous voyage across the Atlantic Ocean were rewarded with hundreds of years of chattel slavery, being bought and sold on auction blocks, our cultures erased. We survived hell. Even after emancipation, Black people have never been truly free, not free economically and certainly not free from the fear of violence from those in power.
What America is feeling right now is the loss of innocence and privilege.
No longer are white Americans or brown Americans safe from the threats Black Americans have been facing for centuries. Welcome.
This regime is not made of Nazis, it is pure American fascism, the same authoritarian ideology that allowed Black Americans to be held and tortured in this country for centuries. The same authoritarian ideology that sees Black men, women, and children gunned down by police officers without accountability.
Before America was ever called a “nation of immigrants,” it was foundationally a nation of enslavement. We cannot move forward until that reality is acknowledged and accepted.
I say Renee Good wasn’t white because, in the eyes of that ICE agent, she lost her relative status to whiteness. Those who justify her murder see her the same way, including those in the White House.
“She should’ve complied.”
“She shouldn’t have been there.”
“She deserved it.”
These are lines Black Americans are familiar with.
“White” isn’t real, it’s what those in power created to build a coalition of white supremacy. Race is a social construct and everyone understands that, either consciously or subconsciously. That’s why the some people are justifying her murder.
Renee was a race traitor, in a long line of American race traitors. And she was treated as such.
Renee was woke.
Black America is tired because we always been woke. White and brown Americans are just now waking up and we welcome that, but it should’ve been sooner. Black liberation has always been the liberation of all Americans. It ALWAYS will be.
In the tug of war of justice, pull with us.
Because we’re tired.
"This regime is not made of Nazis, it is pure American fascism, the same authoritarian ideology that allowed Black Americans to be held and tortured in this country for centuries. The same authoritarian ideology that sees Black men, women, and children gunned down by police officers without accountability."
And still people are shocked. "Oh, this is new! Oh, we've never seen anything like THIS before!"
But, of course we have. As you say, Senator, "woke" people are now included in the scope of who it is OK strip of constitutional right to LIFE and LIBERTY.
Thank you for all you do.
It’s shocking to see black and brown ppl working for ICE. Many of them probably have ancestors who fought fascism or were slaves. Churchill was right. “Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it”.