Then They Came for Me

     The nation is in an uproar, and rightfully so, after federal law enforcement officials have killed two people in Minneapolis this month under curious circumstances. The video is ambiguous, but it seems to suggest that Renee Good was turning her car in an effort to get away from the ICE officer pointing his gun at her, and, while Alex Pretti was carrying a firearm, what he was holding in his hand at the time of his death was a cell phone, not a gun. I have my own opinions about the wisdom of concealed-carry laws, but the fact remains that Pretti was not breaking the law in any way.

     None of this stopped Kristi Noem and Stephen Miller from immediately and without proof alleging that Good was a “domestic terrorist” and that Pretti was "brandishing" a gun and threatening CBP officers. This kind of rhetoric, especially in advance of even a cursory investigation, is irresponsible and incendiary, and we should expect better from our public officials.

     Something else about the situation in Minnesota bugs me, though. The news media keep referring to Good and Pretti as “US citizens,” which, of course, they were, but what is left conspicuously unsaid is that they were both white citizens. The Latinx community must wonder where the outrage was when in 2025 thirty-two persons died while in ICE custody. Not all of them were US citizens, but they were human beings, and they differed from Good and Pretti primarily in their native language and the color of their skin. The public outcry about the deaths of these two white people must ring a little hollow in the ears of Black people who have for years watched their friends and loved ones—US citizens all—get shot down and killed by law enforcement personnel.

     Black people have a long history of abuse at the hands of white people, from slavery through Jim Crow until today’s scandalous problems of mass incarceration and police brutality. Lynchings of Black people often took place under the watchful eye of local sheriffs and other white officials, and white police officers have only recently started to experience consequences for their violent behavior. The legacy of violence and injustice is so stark that a few years ago somebody came up with a slogan that speaks of rage and desperation: Black Lives Matter. That’s a pretty low bar—acknowledging that the lives of a group of people actually have meaning—but the response in too many cases was to counter that claim with a shrill “All lives matter!” which functioned superbly as a way of dismissing the legitimate concerns of our Black neighbors.

     I think of Colin Kaepernick, whose Christian faith compelled him to embark on a silent peaceful protest of police brutality against Black people by kneeling during the national anthem at NFL games. From the reaction of many white people, you would think he had burned the American flag, melted down the Liberty Bell, and blown up the Statue of Liberty. He was roundly accused of treason, his football career was torpedoed, and the president called him a “son of a bitch.” People started displaying those “Thin Blue Line” flags and saying, “Blue Lives Matter,” and the entrenchment deepened.

     So now a couple of white people have tragically been killed in the midst of a short-sighted and mean-spirited enforcement action in Minnesota, and we’re suddenly aghast that “US citizens” have been killed. Well, that sort of thing has been going on for centuries now, and where has our outrage been hiding for all those years?

     Martin Niemöller, a pastor in the Confessing Church in Germany during the Third Reich, wrote a famous poem after World War Two. You know how it goes: “First they came for the Communists, and I did not speak out because I was not a Communist,” and so on. The poem concludes with the ominous lines, “Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak out for me.”

     Our silence in the face of past injustices that we felt did not touch us is not a neutral choice. “They” have started coming for us. Will we still remain silent, or will we speak out…oppose Christian nationalism…foster our identities as anti-racists…be allies of the LGBTQ+ community…take a knee for justice? It’s time to act boldly and forthrightly in defense of people who are nothing like us and yet entirely like us—neighbors, children of God, siblings in Christ. It’s time to let our voices be heard.