Dear fellow white Americans,
ICE continues to be a terrorist group protected and legalized by Trump’s presidency. Countless victims go unheard of and unspoken for. We can only assume these kidnapped adults and children are pushed into trafficking, go missing, tortured, and killed. While the death of Renee Good, a mom of three, is beyond devastating, it took a white female American to cause even more of a protest and outrage.
This narrative – that ICE is dangerous –is all too familiar in cases typically targeting people of color and nonwhite immigrants. More than once, people of color have called out ICE’s crimes, most which started off as racist and xenophobic attacks
Why are people getting mad now that ICE has started targeting white Americans?
It never should have gotten to the point where Renee Good had to die to begin with.
Every human should have been enraged at the domestic terrorist group. They’ve crossed too many boundaries and broken numerous laws. But white Americans didn’t care when they saw the slaughter, encampments, and cruelty ICE and this current administration throws against many immigrants and people of color. It was only when ICE started targetting people looking like them that they cared.
This phenomenon – the Missing White Woman syndrome – has existed for years..Â
As the name implies, it occurs when police, people, and government officials (usually) do not take cases and public safety seriously enough until it affects white Americans – particuarly white women.
If all Americans turned to activism at the very start of ICE’s crimes, Renee Good –among hundreds of others– would still be alive.
ICE also killed a beloved rottweiler, too, but try to find that incident, you won’t. Renee Good’s news coverage has blocked out that old news. And it’s our fault, not hers.
Now, that death by animal cruelty killing got more people paying attention, but not nearly as enough. And it isn’t just normal Americans who follow the Missing White Woman syndrome phenomenon; it’s also the news.
The legacy media fails covering deaths, kidnappings, and all other events where white people are not victims or survivors.
We see this happen all the time. When the news showed Jeffery Dahmer’s crimes, they failed to spotlight the male victims – people from poorer neighborhoods and predominantly Black and Asian American.Â
Every day, the news, police, and media tells people of color and immigrants that their lives are not important.
That is such a slap in the face when it surrounds a whole damn domestic terrorist group, initially there to target them and their communities.
Enough is enough.
We white people should have always been on their side, speaking out for voices often muffled and ignored. People are so damn tired and they are being killed and trafficked. Why do we always have to wait until it comes for us to take a stand?
Angrily sincere,
A white woman.
Photo by Chad Stembridge on Unsplash
