OPINION: White people, it’s time to reflect on your selective political outrage
Opinion, Politics March 2, 2026, 0 CommentIn light of the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, demonstrations across the nation have sought to illuminate the brutality of Trump’s campaign against immigrants. And yet, across the subsequent reactions to state-sanctioned violence, I have observed little discourse on a critical demographic component: the whiteness of Good and Pretti. We did not see national outrage from white progressives after the murder of Ruben Ray Martinez, a twenty-three year old Texan who was shot under similar conditions to Renee Good. I have heard little anger from my white peers about the murder of Keith Porter Jr in Los Angeles. At least 32 people have died in ICE detention facilities under disputed circumstances, and U.S. citizen, Marimar Martinez, was targeted and shot five times by an officer who hurled profanities at her.
So, today, I offer a critique to white moderates and liberals, as I feel they are more apt to productive reflection of their racial identities. Where was your outrage for the non-white victims of ICE brutality? The execution of whites has been the threshold for your social action, and unfortunately, this is less than surprising in a culture that fails to question the structures of white supremacy, regardless of political affiliation.
Saturday Night Live’s Teyana Taylor and Kenan Thompson performed a sketch in late January addressing the cognitive dissonance among white Americans. In the skit, two white reporters discuss the “unprecedented” outcomes of heightened policing. One reporter says, “You got federal officers…pulling people out of their cars, based on how they look. I mean, this just doesn’t happen in America.” Taylor and Thompson respond by humorously sharing their disdain. Similarly, I found the reactions to recent ICE and DHS killings to be inadvertently ignorant.
How can white Americans be so horrified by these brutal killings when our nation has produced continuous news clippings of Black and brown individuals being murdered by police? It was, of course, distressing to see a Minneapolis nurse executed in a public space by border patrol officers; however, in an age where police brutality is consistently shared through social media, I suppose many people feel desensitized. For white liberals, the detail that makes this situation so appalling is the fact that the victims are white.
Beyond the irony of white Americans finally internalizing institutional injustice, there is a particular phenomenon across our culture that journalist Gwen Ifill dubbed “missing white woman syndrome.” I am reminded of the 2021 killing and media coverage of Gabby Patito, a white social media influencer who was reported missing. Despite the countless missing indigenous women across the region, there is consistently disproportionate and selective national exposure to the plight of white people. But if we, as white liberals, seek to truly advocate against the tyranny of the Trump administration, we must consider if our outrage is equally selective as the conservatives we so often criticize.
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