Riskless solidarity: when grief has a border

The officers who killed Renee Good and Alex Pretti were treacherous, sick-minded individuals who must be held accountable, just like every other coward who abuses power under the protection of an ICE uniform. Nothing written here is meant to dispute the magnitude of the harm that these deaths inflicted on each of their communities. 

Rest in power to Renee Good, Alex Pretti, Geraldo Lunas Campos, Victor Manuel Diaz, Parady La, Luis Beltran Yanez-Cruz, Heber Sanchez Dominguez, Luis Gustavo Nunez Caceras, and to every other innocent person whose life has been irreversibly ruined by this violent system.

In the weeks following these murders, protests erupted rapidly. Social media platforms were flooded with posts, calls to action and comparisons to the mass demonstrations of 2020 after George Floyd was killed. 

Yet one detail was difficult to ignore: these protests were marked by a strikingly high concentration of white participants. Although at least nine people have died at the hands of ICE officers in 2026, there are only two names that the country has fixated on. 

Why? Because they are the only two white people to have died so far through this modern cultural erasure. Many people were quick to notice this, and thus, ignited intense debate: not only about the crime itself, but about whose suffering the country is willing to recognize.

After the Good-Pretti murders, many people of color observed the way white Americans, who had long remained silent about ICE’s unconstitutional presence in their cities, suddenly began to speak out. They condemned state violence, questioned federal overreach, and expressed horror at crimes committed against innocent people. These were conversations that were conspicuously absent when the streets ran red with the blood of Black and brown victims. 

This would be bad enough if it were due to sheer ignorance, but it is more than that. Many of these people were on the streets protesting after George Floyd’s murder. Many of these people began reading books, attending workshops, listening to podcasts and claiming that they would show up to “do better” now that they recognized the benefits of white privilege. 

What happened? What was the precise limit to their empathy? Did they miss the comfort of their privilege too much? Must tragedy directly affect people in order for them to care?

As problematic as it is, we cannot pretend that performative activism is not significant. At a moment when authoritarian power is expanding, any spark of collective outrage matters. The real threat is not that people are protesting for the “wrong” reasons, but rather that we are being encouraged to turn on one another. 

Some communities undeniably carry longer and bloodier histories of oppression, and that reality must be honestly acknowledged. However, now is not the time to blame one another for inherited trauma. Responsibility lies with those who design and maintain systems of segregation, surveillance and exploitation because those systems keep them powerful. 

To those who prefer to sit with their privilege and do nothing more than say “thoughts and prayers” for each lost life, hear this: you are part of the problem. 

These are not issues that we can pawn off to a bigger institution. If you are not taking responsibility for your ignorance, if you are denying your inherent complicity with no desire to change the system that benefits you, then you will be just as culpable in the eyes of history as the person who pulls the trigger.

What we are witnessing in the United States today, from the aggressive deployment of ICE in major blue states to the endless circulation of political scandals and foreign bombings framed through dehumanizing language, is not random chaos. It is a distraction meant to keep people exhausted, reactive, and divided. 

Through a combination of design and indifference, the system shows no real remorse for deaths like Renee Good and Alex Pretti’s—even if our leaders claim to mourn them—because the resulting turmoil allows colonialism and capitalism to continue operating like well-oiled machines. 

Class, gender, race and sexuality are social constructs invented by colonialism to divide people. Those in power benefit when we argue over the identities forced upon us. A society that is fractured, confused and distrustful of itself is far easier to control than one that is united in purpose. When we let our differences outweigh our shared struggle, the billionaires and institutions that thrive on inequality win.

We cannot allow our actions or our anger to be dictated by a system that can only survive through active oppression. Justice will never come from ranking pain, rationing empathy or performative activism. It comes from solidarity and taking accountability, but most of all, it comes from compassion. 

The moment we turn against each other, we lose democracy. The moment we stop caring for one another, we lose our humanity.