THE UGLY TRUTH HURTS. NOW WHAT WILL WE DO ABOUT IT?

The outrage about the recent slaughter of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in separate incidents by Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in Minneapolis has included statements such as “This is not who we are” by politicians, celebrities, and people who are not well known. However, Indigenous, Black, Latino, Asian, immigrant, queer, and women have long known the ugly truth that what ICE agents are doing in Minnesota and elsewhere across the United States is precisely what this society has done across its history.

Across the history of this society, indigenous people were massacred. Black people were massacred in Tulsa, Rosewood, East St. Louis, and Elaine. Government agents were involved in each instance.

Fred Hampton was shot to death in his bed in Chicago by FBI agents.

The Guardian newspaper has kept a tally of people who were killed by government agencies for years.

Women who defied social norms were publicly killed, by government agents.

We should condemn the slaughter of Renee Good and Alex Pretti. We should denounce the vicious efforts by Donald Trump, members of his administration, and their right wing followers to smear Good and Pretti. But there was no similar outrage about the Wounded Knee, Sand Creek, and other massacres of indigenous men, women, and children. There was no demand from the general society that the FBI be investigated and J. Edgar Hoover be fired after Fred Hampton was shot to death.

No white person was prosecuted after hundreds of black men, women, and children were slaughtered near Elaine, Arkansas in 1919.

And let's be clear. We have seen real time videos of Palestinians being shot, bombed, maimed, robbed, and starved by Israeli soldiers and settlers for years. The United States finances that state-sanctioned villainy. Yet the same politicians who now are finally saying “De-fund ICE” continue voting to superfund, arm, and diplomatically excuse Israel and Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) tactics.

The ugly truth is that this is who we are. The slaughters of Renee Good and Alex Pretti are ugly - but not new - proof of the racism, militarism, imperialism, and gangster capitalism that our society has always denied about itself but which Martin Luther King Jr. and countless others denounced and condemned.

The difference is that now, two white people are undeniable victims of the same heinous mentality that slaughtered indigenous people, enslaved, maimed, raped, and openly trafficked African people, lynched, terrorized, and cheated Latino and Asian people, violated women and LGBTQIA people, and vilified immigrant workers.

We should demand justice for Renee Good and Alex Pretti. But why ignore the injustices inflicted on countless others who are not white?

We should connect their deaths to the lies J.D. Vance brazenly told in 2024 about black immigrants.

We should connect their deaths to the lies Donald Trump told for years about immigrants from what he termed “shit hole countries.”

We should connect their deaths to the vile things Charlie Kirk uttered about women like Renee Good, and the lies Ron DeSantis, Greg Abbott, and other right wing politicians spout about immigrants, people who are “woke,” and people they call “ libs.”

We should connect their deaths to the hateful faith of religious bigots and their racism, sexism, xenophobia, homophobia, transphobia, and disregard for workers.

And we should admit to ourselves that this is who we are, have always been, who we have refused to admit we are, and who we have refused to change from being as a society. This is the way our society has always behaved towards people we refuse to treat as equal humans.

Only then will we begin to fully face and fix the ugliness that killed Renee Good and Alex Pretti. Until then, we will continue pretending that we do not have a societal sickness.

The Trump administration is simply the most recent ugly proof of the disease this society has bred, reproduced, nurtured, sacralized, and excused across its entire history.

The questions are what will we do to fix the disease and whether we have the candor, courage, and resolve to do it.