Who We Grieve – And Why

I’ve been thinking a lot about the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti. Like many people, I’m angry. I’m heartbroken. I want accountability. No one should die at the hands of the state. Ever.

But to be honest, I’ve been extremely uneasy with parts of the discourse that’s emerged in response.

I keep seeing posts, memes, and commentary emphasizing that Renee and Alex were white and U.S. citizens. Often the subtext is explicit: ICE is killing white people now. As if this is the shocking part. As if this is the line that, once crossed, finally demands our collective outrage.

That framing matters — and not in a good way.

When outrage hinges on whiteness or citizenship, it quietly implies that violence against non-white people or non-citizens is either expected, acceptable, or at least less urgent. And I don’t believe most people sharing these posts actually believe that. I think something else is going on.

I think we empathize most easily with people who feel familiar. People who look like us. People whose lives resemble our own. People we can imagine being.

I’ve seen a lot of “any of us could be next.” And yes — that’s true. But it was always true. The moment we normalized state violence against some groups, we made it possible for that violence to expand. Fascism doesn’t start by targeting everyone equally; it starts by testing how much cruelty a society will tolerate when it’s aimed at the “right” people. (And a lot of our fellow U.S. citizens very gleefully voted for a party who promised violence against those “right” people.)

If we’re only galvanized when the victims are white, documented, or otherwise legible as “innocent,” then we’ve already accepted a hierarchy of whose lives are grievable.

That doesn’t mean you’re wrong for feeling shaken by these deaths. It doesn’t mean you’re a bad person for feeling a deeper gut-level fear when you see someone who looks like you killed by the state. These reactions are human.

But being progressive — being committed to justice — means we don’t stop at our first instinct. It means asking ourselves uncomfortable questions.

Why did this particular story break through for me?
Why didn’t I react the same way before?
Whose deaths have I learned to accept as background noise?

Renee and Alex deserve our grief. They deserve accountability. They deserve justice.

So do the countless Black, brown, and undocumented people who have been killed, harmed, detained, separated from their families, or disappeared by the same system — often without names trending, photos circulating, or protests erupting.

If the lesson we take from this moment is “this is scary because it could happen to people like us,” then we’ve missed the point.

The real lesson is that it was always happening — and it was always wrong.

I’m not writing this to shame anyone. I’m writing it because I believe we can do better. Because expanding our empathy doesn’t weaken our movements; it strengthens them. Because justice that only activates when we see ourselves reflected isn’t justice at all.

If even a few of us pause, reflect, and widen the circle of whose lives we fight for — that feels like a start.