Old (73), white woman here and I have been outraged almost my entire life at the way this country treats any one who is not white. No, I've never experienced it personally and perhaps don't understand it "in my bones", but I have a brain, eyes, and empathy. How we treat the poor in this country (all colors, ethnicity, etc ) is also disgraceful. Our system is designed to keep people poor, not lift them out of it. (And don't give me that bootstrap shit). I have been outraged by ICE from the very start. When I heard about Renee Good's murder, my first thought after the initial horror that someone innocent died was, "maybe this will wake up more white people.". Like the ones who haven't been outraged by the deaths of mostly brown people that are happening in ICE facilities. Deaths that are just as awful as Renee Good's. I love my country but sometimes it really sucks.
Amen, Robin. And this: The way we treat the poor, the way we use hunger and housing and healthcare, the way we have for generations treated black and brown and all the other colors of the human rainbow are policy choices by our rulers. And: Our rulers are becoming increasingly few. They the few want us dumb and divided, destitute and diseased. Know it.
Yup - another older white woman here & like you, never experienced it personally and agree about the bootstrap shit. I wonder - if the harassment, brutality & killing of any ethnicity that has a different appearance than yours and mine had continued - without Renee Good's murder - would that make it easier to keep turning away from anything that doesnt personally affect someone? So I guess now this is more important.
Perhaps another "issue" that might come to light is the number of individuals and families who are homeless - I guess its called "unhoused" now. Speaking of turning away from things!
Xavier, this is an extensive take on a tangential reality of biases. Many hold these and don’t realize until you bob them up the side of the head with it and say “Look at this!” That said Renee Good was never the issue. She did nothing notable or wrong. Jonathon Ross is, was, and remains the issue.
The general strikes you've long been calling for are beginning to happen Carl. We're down to the nitty-gritty my friend. I'll be there too. Count on it!
White people (me) mourned George Floyd's murder and cheered for BLM. But, yeah, it did feel different when they killed a white woman. It shouldn't have mattered -- but we aren't there yet in America. But, X, we ARE trying.
I don’t even know how to begin. This essay, again, a great piece of writing, reports reality, but also falls into the trap.
The trap that works overtime to divide people. I am looking forward to the day when we, the people, realize we are stronger together. I still can’t get people to boycott, to do work walkouts, to protest when it’s inconvenient. We still don’t realize the oligarchs, their politicians, their owned media, their own companies, seek to divide us and fight amongst ourselves.
I’m not glad Ms Good was murdered, but I remember being actually glad when I found out she was white.
As an organizer, I don’t care how people wake up and get real. I knew if she had been black, it would not have had the impact it did. The circumstances would have been the same: her children would still be orphaned, she would still have suffered waiting for medical help, she still would have been innocent, but we wouldn’t (black or white) be holding her up as a cautionary tale. How many of you know who Keith Porter is?? Quick, tell me the name of the high school student who lost his eye in an altercation with ICE.
If Ms Good had to become the martyr, her death, Keith Porter’s death, and all the other unnamed people who have died will not have died in vain.
They added another term in addition to AWFUL, "wine moms". Over my lifetime, I feel that I am seeing the waking of white folk. While moral outrage is easy for those of us with our eyes open, the sleepers are fellow human beings. I will welcome them AS LONG AS THEY STAY AWAKE. My racial justice activism began in college and has continued and grown and blossomed ever since. But I realize we are not all built alike. Living in San Jose, CA, I have seen people of all shades and backgrounds wake up. The ones most loudly shouting "Say her Name" for Renee Good, were the ones who have never stopped marching and were using this moment to pull people in. A black gentleman heckled our parade, asking us if we understood why black people weren't there. The organizers flanked him without getting in his way to make sure no one bothered him. Because many of us (I include myself as a so-called model minority, child of wealthy immigrants, white-adjacent) did and do know: 1. Red-lining kept black people out of San Jose, 2. The police crackdown of the BLM protests when black people were at the front encouraged us to step up front ourselves and show the face of "the good ones" 3. If we are grouped by race, black people and particularly black women did so much more than their part to prevent Trump from winning, and our skin folk did not. 4. White tears are enraging when only shed for white folk. I don't claim to speak for anyone but myself, but I see an awakening. I see the beginnings of shared language and attitudes around law and justice and freedom. I see the Promised Land as MLK Jr did from the mountain top. We may not make it there, but every drop of effort we put into getting all of us there together is sowing the seeds of love. I walk joyfully in this time of tears and rage; thankful to have the opportunity to see what I am made of.
This 63-year-old white woman was in shock after seeing the videos of LA police officers beating Rodney King in 1991. I was 29 at the time, and I was terrified the police would do that to me if they thought I had done something wrong. I had no awareness that Mr. King was any different than me. If 5 police officers beat me so badly that I had to be hospitalized (and the entire beating was on video) and then a jury acquits all of them - I'd go insane.
Maybe I was born with some kind of unusual "walk a mile in your shoes" trait or too much empathy, but when I see injustice perpetrated on anyone, I instantly think, "This could happen to me." And when it's an authority figure, I feel terrified. Because they have lost all control over their emotions. And maybe they won't stop kneeling on my neck until I stop breathing. RIP George Floyd.
Thanks, David. I'm going to remember that. "There's no such thing as too much empathy." So much more supportive than, "What are you? Another effin' bleeding heart liberal?"
My answer now is, "No, I'm just a human with humanity. Try it sometime."
While this incident may have "undeniably exposed the raw nerves of American society in 2026," let's please not ignore those of us who have been outraged at every single murder of a Black person and any other person of color. I'm not on any social media (FB, X, Instagram, etc.), but I have certainly been aware that many people are suddenly awake and afraid because it happened to a white woman, and it is deeply saddening and ignorant. For me, it was another tragic, horrific, senseless, murder that produced the same moral outrage and indignation as all the others, and I know there are many more like me. The "Dear White People" point is well taken, but we are all not reacting the same way and for me, that needs to be said and acknowledged.
Xavier, reading this piece, my thoughts circled back to controversial Scottish psychiatrist/philosopher RD Laing from the 60-70s. His books “The Divided Self” and “Knots” written during a time of great turmoil, may also describe the profound confusion of our current time. I found his writing annoying back then, but, now from a different perspective, I’m considering a reread. https://awaken.com/2024/08/r-d-laing/
Societal pressures to conform are as old as the human race. Suspicion of the “other” is as hard wired as the need to belong. This natural impulse is in existential conflict with the globalized world we live in on an evolving planet in an evolving universe. The growing tension between tradition and evolution/exploration has caused the rupture we all face now. Tragically, instead of exploring this dichotomy, we’ve taken sides and declared war on one another.
In this all or nothing landscape, we brew a tempest in a teapot about a confused white woman who feels guilty crying at a memorial for another white woman. I’m not surprised conservatives have jumped on this, I am troubled that liberals have. We have a terrible history of eating our own.
We’ve also made learning from our mistakes too costly to risk. This is a tragic mistake.
Also, It's always taken allied to wake up the masses. I've thought of doing a hunger strike. Limited opportunities for activism exist in my isolated world*, and it's not enough to just write about injustice. Also, I am quite skinny already, so maybe it won't take long to get noticeable results.
* I moved to a rural red area of Appalachia from Chicagoland years ago to afford a piece of land to homestead on a partial disability income. After being in poverty in a city, rural poverty (with the right skills and teamwork) is more peaceful than the urban corner my first tiny home sat on for a decade. But alas, I have few peers here and almost no outlet for activism. I was able to participate in the No Kings 2.0 protest (which was before this extrajudicial killing), but protests out my way are rare, and I have a little kid and chickens and dogs, so cannot travel as I would like to the larger protests. As you can probably deduce, I am Rubia, pale with blue eyes. Posterchild, as I am also a U.s. military veteran with a partial disability.
Anyone here think a broadcast hunger strike would help?
That very kind of you. It seems a small price to pay. But most likely those MAGATs will remark that I'm crazy, just like they did with Renee Good. They will not care, they will say "Good riddance".
Kindness, including to yourself is important. Non-violence, including toward yourself, is very powerful. Take good care of yourself. You are part of a community that cares about the things you care about.
If White people are still confused, uncomfortable, or hesitant about understanding the effects of White supremacy, at a minimum, "Dear White People" perspectives should be taken as a lesson in personal survival. They better start reading those "Dear White People" essays as liberation manuals. Too many are still too interested in comfort and continued domination. Many still think they can ride this shit out. They will not take the lesson or understand the mechanics of why Black and other marginalized people are irrelevant in this society. The elites are moving on to the next group to remove as a threat—White people. Although admirable, the "ICE OUT" protests going on in Minnesota should be a nationwide White people riot...a 2nd American Revolution. Especially after J.D. Vance called a dead White woman (Renee Good) a "deranged leftist" and indicated that the government is coming after the "brainwashed." By this administration's own standards and language, White citizens should consider the government and ICE "Domestic Terrorists" and "National Security Threats." But I think that after these local threats are settled, life in the United States will return to business-as-usual--waiting for the mid-terms as salvation.
Xplisset, thank you for going into the nuances of these painful issues, for going past the simplicity and superficiality of the headlines and dumbing down of everything into black/white, liberal/conservative, urban/rural, etc., divisions and easily labeled issues. There is much to be learned in the spaces between the loudest arguments. No group of people has complete agreement about anything, and nothing good is accomplished by assuming everyone of a particular label thinks or acts in a specific way. Keep on parsing the nuances and bringing them to light. Your words need to be heard although unfortunately it's too much detail for most people I know. But some of us really need to know we're not alone. Been following you for awhile here and other posts. Today is the day to go paid. Thank you
X-we are living in the poem by Pastor Martin Niemoller
First they came for the communists and I did not speak out
Because I was not a communist
Then they came for the socialists and I did not speak out
Because I was not a socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews and I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left to speak out for me
We could replace any race, name, color in any one of those lines of poetry right there, right now and we would be
well within the realm of possibility of living it. We do not know what they are doing when we’re not looking. I don’t even want to imagine because what they do right in front of us is bad enough. All white people don’t have to wake up some of them have always been awake and aware, some will always be blind and ignorant, if some are just waking up now welcome to the 21st century mother f-er it ain’t pretty. I don’t give a crap what they call us just don’t kill us! WTF
Old (73), white woman here and I have been outraged almost my entire life at the way this country treats any one who is not white. No, I've never experienced it personally and perhaps don't understand it "in my bones", but I have a brain, eyes, and empathy. How we treat the poor in this country (all colors, ethnicity, etc ) is also disgraceful. Our system is designed to keep people poor, not lift them out of it. (And don't give me that bootstrap shit). I have been outraged by ICE from the very start. When I heard about Renee Good's murder, my first thought after the initial horror that someone innocent died was, "maybe this will wake up more white people.". Like the ones who haven't been outraged by the deaths of mostly brown people that are happening in ICE facilities. Deaths that are just as awful as Renee Good's. I love my country but sometimes it really sucks.
Amen, Robin. And this: The way we treat the poor, the way we use hunger and housing and healthcare, the way we have for generations treated black and brown and all the other colors of the human rainbow are policy choices by our rulers. And: Our rulers are becoming increasingly few. They the few want us dumb and divided, destitute and diseased. Know it.
Yup - another older white woman here & like you, never experienced it personally and agree about the bootstrap shit. I wonder - if the harassment, brutality & killing of any ethnicity that has a different appearance than yours and mine had continued - without Renee Good's murder - would that make it easier to keep turning away from anything that doesnt personally affect someone? So I guess now this is more important.
Perhaps another "issue" that might come to light is the number of individuals and families who are homeless - I guess its called "unhoused" now. Speaking of turning away from things!
Xavier, this is an extensive take on a tangential reality of biases. Many hold these and don’t realize until you bob them up the side of the head with it and say “Look at this!” That said Renee Good was never the issue. She did nothing notable or wrong. Jonathon Ross is, was, and remains the issue.
The general strikes you've long been calling for are beginning to happen Carl. We're down to the nitty-gritty my friend. I'll be there too. Count on it!
White people (me) mourned George Floyd's murder and cheered for BLM. But, yeah, it did feel different when they killed a white woman. It shouldn't have mattered -- but we aren't there yet in America. But, X, we ARE trying.
I don’t even know how to begin. This essay, again, a great piece of writing, reports reality, but also falls into the trap.
The trap that works overtime to divide people. I am looking forward to the day when we, the people, realize we are stronger together. I still can’t get people to boycott, to do work walkouts, to protest when it’s inconvenient. We still don’t realize the oligarchs, their politicians, their owned media, their own companies, seek to divide us and fight amongst ourselves.
I’m not glad Ms Good was murdered, but I remember being actually glad when I found out she was white.
As an organizer, I don’t care how people wake up and get real. I knew if she had been black, it would not have had the impact it did. The circumstances would have been the same: her children would still be orphaned, she would still have suffered waiting for medical help, she still would have been innocent, but we wouldn’t (black or white) be holding her up as a cautionary tale. How many of you know who Keith Porter is?? Quick, tell me the name of the high school student who lost his eye in an altercation with ICE.
If Ms Good had to become the martyr, her death, Keith Porter’s death, and all the other unnamed people who have died will not have died in vain.
They added another term in addition to AWFUL, "wine moms". Over my lifetime, I feel that I am seeing the waking of white folk. While moral outrage is easy for those of us with our eyes open, the sleepers are fellow human beings. I will welcome them AS LONG AS THEY STAY AWAKE. My racial justice activism began in college and has continued and grown and blossomed ever since. But I realize we are not all built alike. Living in San Jose, CA, I have seen people of all shades and backgrounds wake up. The ones most loudly shouting "Say her Name" for Renee Good, were the ones who have never stopped marching and were using this moment to pull people in. A black gentleman heckled our parade, asking us if we understood why black people weren't there. The organizers flanked him without getting in his way to make sure no one bothered him. Because many of us (I include myself as a so-called model minority, child of wealthy immigrants, white-adjacent) did and do know: 1. Red-lining kept black people out of San Jose, 2. The police crackdown of the BLM protests when black people were at the front encouraged us to step up front ourselves and show the face of "the good ones" 3. If we are grouped by race, black people and particularly black women did so much more than their part to prevent Trump from winning, and our skin folk did not. 4. White tears are enraging when only shed for white folk. I don't claim to speak for anyone but myself, but I see an awakening. I see the beginnings of shared language and attitudes around law and justice and freedom. I see the Promised Land as MLK Jr did from the mountain top. We may not make it there, but every drop of effort we put into getting all of us there together is sowing the seeds of love. I walk joyfully in this time of tears and rage; thankful to have the opportunity to see what I am made of.
Yes, indeed. Thank you for sharing your words of wisdom. I'm just a crazy pale liberal woman, not affuent, nor a drinker.
What about a category for us poor, tune-in, turn-on, drop-out Democratic Socialists and Greens?
This 63-year-old white woman was in shock after seeing the videos of LA police officers beating Rodney King in 1991. I was 29 at the time, and I was terrified the police would do that to me if they thought I had done something wrong. I had no awareness that Mr. King was any different than me. If 5 police officers beat me so badly that I had to be hospitalized (and the entire beating was on video) and then a jury acquits all of them - I'd go insane.
Maybe I was born with some kind of unusual "walk a mile in your shoes" trait or too much empathy, but when I see injustice perpetrated on anyone, I instantly think, "This could happen to me." And when it's an authority figure, I feel terrified. Because they have lost all control over their emotions. And maybe they won't stop kneeling on my neck until I stop breathing. RIP George Floyd.
There's no such thing as too much empathy. We are humans.
Thanks, David. I'm going to remember that. "There's no such thing as too much empathy." So much more supportive than, "What are you? Another effin' bleeding heart liberal?"
My answer now is, "No, I'm just a human with humanity. Try it sometime."
I'm a white woman. And, I hate it , too. This is excellent and I'm glad that I am following you.
While this incident may have "undeniably exposed the raw nerves of American society in 2026," let's please not ignore those of us who have been outraged at every single murder of a Black person and any other person of color. I'm not on any social media (FB, X, Instagram, etc.), but I have certainly been aware that many people are suddenly awake and afraid because it happened to a white woman, and it is deeply saddening and ignorant. For me, it was another tragic, horrific, senseless, murder that produced the same moral outrage and indignation as all the others, and I know there are many more like me. The "Dear White People" point is well taken, but we are all not reacting the same way and for me, that needs to be said and acknowledged.
You are right. We have been seeing this in other contexts, too, for far too long.
Xavier, reading this piece, my thoughts circled back to controversial Scottish psychiatrist/philosopher RD Laing from the 60-70s. His books “The Divided Self” and “Knots” written during a time of great turmoil, may also describe the profound confusion of our current time. I found his writing annoying back then, but, now from a different perspective, I’m considering a reread. https://awaken.com/2024/08/r-d-laing/
Societal pressures to conform are as old as the human race. Suspicion of the “other” is as hard wired as the need to belong. This natural impulse is in existential conflict with the globalized world we live in on an evolving planet in an evolving universe. The growing tension between tradition and evolution/exploration has caused the rupture we all face now. Tragically, instead of exploring this dichotomy, we’ve taken sides and declared war on one another.
In this all or nothing landscape, we brew a tempest in a teapot about a confused white woman who feels guilty crying at a memorial for another white woman. I’m not surprised conservatives have jumped on this, I am troubled that liberals have. We have a terrible history of eating our own.
We’ve also made learning from our mistakes too costly to risk. This is a tragic mistake.
Also, It's always taken allied to wake up the masses. I've thought of doing a hunger strike. Limited opportunities for activism exist in my isolated world*, and it's not enough to just write about injustice. Also, I am quite skinny already, so maybe it won't take long to get noticeable results.
* I moved to a rural red area of Appalachia from Chicagoland years ago to afford a piece of land to homestead on a partial disability income. After being in poverty in a city, rural poverty (with the right skills and teamwork) is more peaceful than the urban corner my first tiny home sat on for a decade. But alas, I have few peers here and almost no outlet for activism. I was able to participate in the No Kings 2.0 protest (which was before this extrajudicial killing), but protests out my way are rare, and I have a little kid and chickens and dogs, so cannot travel as I would like to the larger protests. As you can probably deduce, I am Rubia, pale with blue eyes. Posterchild, as I am also a U.s. military veteran with a partial disability.
Anyone here think a broadcast hunger strike would help?
No. Don’t hurt yourself. You have a little kid and chickens and others who need you to be strong and healthy even with a partial disability.
That very kind of you. It seems a small price to pay. But most likely those MAGATs will remark that I'm crazy, just like they did with Renee Good. They will not care, they will say "Good riddance".
Kindness, including to yourself is important. Non-violence, including toward yourself, is very powerful. Take good care of yourself. You are part of a community that cares about the things you care about.
If White people are still confused, uncomfortable, or hesitant about understanding the effects of White supremacy, at a minimum, "Dear White People" perspectives should be taken as a lesson in personal survival. They better start reading those "Dear White People" essays as liberation manuals. Too many are still too interested in comfort and continued domination. Many still think they can ride this shit out. They will not take the lesson or understand the mechanics of why Black and other marginalized people are irrelevant in this society. The elites are moving on to the next group to remove as a threat—White people. Although admirable, the "ICE OUT" protests going on in Minnesota should be a nationwide White people riot...a 2nd American Revolution. Especially after J.D. Vance called a dead White woman (Renee Good) a "deranged leftist" and indicated that the government is coming after the "brainwashed." By this administration's own standards and language, White citizens should consider the government and ICE "Domestic Terrorists" and "National Security Threats." But I think that after these local threats are settled, life in the United States will return to business-as-usual--waiting for the mid-terms as salvation.
Thanks to Jack Smith a rule of law hero or according to Trump a "deranged animal"?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyY9Acpl8Dg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85usHYSOcEA
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/22/us/politics/takeaways-jack-smith-congress-testimony.html?smid=url-share
[NYT 1/22/26] Jack Smith: "if we do not hold the most powerful people in our society to the standards of the rule of the law, it can be catastrophic”
Resist MAGA gangster authoritarianism! Vote Sane #VoteBlue!
Xplisset, thank you for going into the nuances of these painful issues, for going past the simplicity and superficiality of the headlines and dumbing down of everything into black/white, liberal/conservative, urban/rural, etc., divisions and easily labeled issues. There is much to be learned in the spaces between the loudest arguments. No group of people has complete agreement about anything, and nothing good is accomplished by assuming everyone of a particular label thinks or acts in a specific way. Keep on parsing the nuances and bringing them to light. Your words need to be heard although unfortunately it's too much detail for most people I know. But some of us really need to know we're not alone. Been following you for awhile here and other posts. Today is the day to go paid. Thank you
X-we are living in the poem by Pastor Martin Niemoller
First they came for the communists and I did not speak out
Because I was not a communist
Then they came for the socialists and I did not speak out
Because I was not a socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews and I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left to speak out for me
We could replace any race, name, color in any one of those lines of poetry right there, right now and we would be
well within the realm of possibility of living it. We do not know what they are doing when we’re not looking. I don’t even want to imagine because what they do right in front of us is bad enough. All white people don’t have to wake up some of them have always been awake and aware, some will always be blind and ignorant, if some are just waking up now welcome to the 21st century mother f-er it ain’t pretty. I don’t give a crap what they call us just don’t kill us! WTF
Y’all need to come up with a new title slogan. There are about 5’000 “Dear White People” posts.
Bigot.