OPINION

Renee Good was Bending the ‘Moral Arc of the Universe’ Towards Justice

By Anthony J. Paradiso

The killing of Renee Good, by a U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent in Minneapolis, Minnesota on January 7, has sparked protests and outrage across the United States. Good was a 37-year-old mother of three and an award-winning poet who was “extremely compassionate” according to a quote from her mother Donna Ganger in BBC News.

Since Renee Good’s death, high ranking members of the Trump administration have blamed Good for her own death. DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said that Good, who was driving her car at the time she was shot, “attempted to run a law enforcement officer over.” During a White House press conference on January 8, Vice President J.D. Vance said “you have a woman that aimed her car at an ICE agent and pressed on the accelerator. Nobody debates that.” After watching the video of the shooting myself, I believe Good was trying to drive away from the scene and not trying to run over the ICE agent.

At that same press conference, Vice President Vance also insinuated that the actions of Good and other protesters at the scene the day Good was shot were acts of “terrorism” when he said “I think that we can all recognize that the best way to turn down the temperature is to tell people to take their concerns about immigration policy to the ballot box. Stop assaulting and stop inciting violence against our law enforcement officers. That’s the best way to take down the temperature … We’re not going to give in to terrorism on this and that’s exactly what’s happened.”

Rachel Levinson-Waldman’s article “Labeling Renee Good a ‘Domestic Terrorist’ Distorts the Law” on the Brennan Center for Justice’s website, points out that to “actually be called a ‘domestic terrorist’ an individual must commit one or more of 51 underlying ‘federal crimes of terrorism.’ ” These federal crimes are all gravely serious and do not apply to what Good was doing in Minneapolis that day. Good was not committing terrorism, she was countering it.

Just three days after Good’s death, thousands of people marched and protested ICE and the Trump Administration nationwide. On MLK Day (January 19) dozens of anti-ICE protesters walked over the Brooklyn Bridge into Manhattan. Protesters began at Brooklyn’s Cadman Plaza and walked over the bridge to ICE’s NYC headquarters at 26 Federal Plaza where they walked a lap before heading to Manhattan’s Foley Square to protest.

The march was organized by The Arc of Justice, a nonprofit rights organization based in Brooklyn. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is famous for having popularized the phrase “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice,” in many of his speeches including his final one. However, the arc will not bend on its own, people have to bend it.

If Dr. King had seen what was done to Renee Good, he would have been outraged. It is on us, the people, to not be indifferent to the damage that ICE continues to do to our communities every day, to call out their evil where we see it and to bend the long arc of the moral universe towards justice.