By Ben R. Williams
As I write this column, we’re twelve days into the new year. If you’re someone like me who feels compelled to keep up with current events, you’re probably very tired.
In just twelve days, our country has kidnapped the President of Venezuela and his wife and President Donald Trump has declared himself the acting President of Venezuela. Also, we might be seizing Greenland soon for some reason, possibly by force, which will surely put us in good standing with our friends worldwide as our nation increasingly becomes about as reliable of an ally as a coke-addled chimp with a straight razor.
And then, on top of all that, we have ICE.
ICE has done a lot of horrible things. They have disappeared people off the streets with no records and seemingly no accountability. 32 people died in ICE custody last year, four have died in ICE custody so far this year, and two people have been outright killed by ICE this year, including, of course, Renee Nicole Good.
Renee Good seems to be the tipping point for a lot of people. A mother of three and an award-winning poet, Good and her wife got into an altercation with some ICE officers in Minneapolis, which led to ICE officer Jonathan Ross shooting her in the head and killing her.
There are several videos of the incident and they have all been picked apart like the Zapruder film to determine who is at fault. From what I’ve seen, the Venn diagram of people who believe the shooting was totally justified and people who support the Trump regime is just one perfect circle.
I’ve watched the videos, and it probably goes without saying that I don’t think the shooting was justified, nor do I believe that Ross was in any real danger at any point, nor do I believe that he was “run over” as the President claimed due to the fact that he clearly wasn’t. But I certainly understand why some people feel that the shooting was justified.
My problem is that they won’t give the real reason.
Oh, they’ll give you reasons, make no mistake.
“She should have just complied. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.”
“She was there to cause trouble and she found it.”
“She drove right at him. Of course she got shot.”
But we all know the real reason they believe the shooting was justified. They just refuse to come out and say it.
It’s because she was some uppity, smart-mouth pronoun lesbian who stuck her nose where it didn’t belong. It’s because she smarted off to a man with a gun, and what’s he supposed to do, just sit there and take it? It’s because she had the audacity to care about immigrants, something so unbelievable that surely she must have been a paid protester. It’s because she backed the wrong team, the team that we don’t like, and for that, she deserved to die, and you know what, maybe the rest of them do, too.
Tell me with a straight face that I’m wrong. You know in your heart that it’s true.
I’ve been saying for years now that we’re not on the brink of civil war in this country, we’re in the middle of it and we have been for a while. The question is when it’s going to cease to be a cold war and spill over into open violence. History may look back on Renee Good’s murder as the flashpoint for that transition, the needless murder of an American citizen that served as the straw that broke the camel’s back.
If not, then maybe it’ll be the next one.
