Below is a message from a migrant and scholar of migration. She has restrained from publicly speaking her mind on the horrors that are happening to the migrant community in this country and the anxiety that she lives with day to day because she is keenly aware of the risk in doing so under a regime that does not recognize her humanity. 

Yet she also understands that the fear she feels is a carefully calibrated tool to keep her silent and isolated and that her silence will not protect her (or anyone). So in a desperate attempt to encourage herself to exorcise the fear out of her body, she requested that I share the following words on her behalf. She hopes that if each small drop of anger can find one another and become a raging torrent, it may tear open the dark reality and bring a ray of light.

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I have seen so many posts going around highlighting what kind of a person Renee Good was. She was kind, a mother, a daughter, a U.S. citizen, and (unspoken but probably most importantly) white. In other words, she is, or is made to be, a perfect victim. Having studied media discourse surrounding immigration, I recognize and understand this pattern—it’s an effort to “humanize” the victim and make her more “relatable” so more will rally behind her and take action. 

But I cannot stop wondering: what part of “being shot multiple times in the face right next to your partner and in front of your dog” is not condemnable enough that we need to add qualifiers to the deceased so we can dare to act and demand actions? What if she had not been kind? Had no children? Weren’t white or citizen? Would her murder not be worthy of grief or outrage? Why do we have to humanize a human being with adjectives that exclude other humans? 

Maybe we all can and should relate to Renee Good not because how amazing and white she was but because she once lived and was murdered by a state yielding violence granted by its citizenry.