Since President Trump was inaugurated, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has been serving under the DHS as the administration’s dirty right hand in rounding up “illegal” immigrants.
Since the beginning of his second term, ICE has been running around the nation destroying families and creating fear. In the beginning of 2026, Renee Good and Alex Pretti were murdered by the law enforcement. The aftermath resulted in the people of Minneapolis to revolt.
The chaos that this administration and ICE have caused is unacceptable and they should be held responsible for all the people it has murdered. However, it is essential to note that with the unfortunate deaths of Good and Pretti, there has been an uptick in white activism, particularly on TikTok.
It begs the question: are these examples of the “ideal” victim?
The concept of the ideal victim holds that a victim has certain attributes and characteristics that make them “better” victims than others. This idea was first proposed by the Norwegian sociologist Nils Christie in 1986. In this case, the ideal victim is white people. Those who carry (in theory) the highest amount of social capital in America were murdered in broad daylight on video.
There is no argument that the unfortunate passings of Good and Pretti are more visible due to evidence, because there is video evidence of the murders of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Breonna Taylor. Do Floyd, Arbery and Taylor matter less because it is the death of the Black body? And in America, the Black body is not considered human?
Law enforcement killing its citizens is not new. There are so many Black and brown people who have lost their lives at the hands of the police or ICE. Yet suddenly, the deaths of two white people are able to trigger a political movement that has been necessary for years?
The Black body should hold the same worth as a White body and should be seen as human. It is exhausting learning and protesting the deaths of Black and brown people who have been wrongfully murdered at the hands of the government and watching nothing be done. No news coverage and barely any white protestors and activists speaking out.
Yet we are called on to protest when a person with social capital passes. This follows an election where we watched the majority of the country vote against human rights for the Black body. There should be no hierarchy in who matters more once they pass. The tears that are shed when a white person passes, should be the same tears shed for the Black and brown body.
