These were the last words of Renée Good before an ICE agent shot her in the face. A few weeks later, Alex Pretti, a dedicated ICU nurse who was helping others at a protest, was also killed by a federal agent in Minneapolis. These deaths have cut deeply into families, communities, and our national conscience.
I don’t want to bury the pain. I want to name it. But I also want to widen the frame, because if our only response is anger, we’ve already lost something deeper: our capacity to see each other as human.
I’m angry. I’m heartbroken. I grieve with the families of Renée and Alex and all families being split up based on immigration status. What happened troubles me deeply. And yet I shake my head when I see people reduce this to a cartoon of good versus evil, because that kind of thinking sells simplistic comfort in place of honest complexity.
Many of my friends talk and post as if every ICE agent is a bully, a hateful man trying to prove something because of some human or sexual deficiency. They speak with righteous certainty about people they’ve never met. That’s unfair. Most of these officers are fathers and mothers, husbands and wives, trying to provide for their families. They took jobs that are dangerous and horribly thankless in ways most of us will never understand. Recognizing someone’s humanity does not excuse brutality by some. But it does prevent the very polarization that allows brutality to grow.
We can hold two truths at once. We can acknowledge that excessive force happened, that these deaths demand investigation, accountability, and justice, while also acknowledging that the vast majority of people wearing a uniform aren’t monsters. They are our neighbors and deserve respect for working in a position that helps keep us safe. Nuance isn’t neutrality and empathy isn’t agreement. Seeing complexity doesn’t make you complicit.
Nonviolent protest isn’t just a tactic, it’s a moral posture. If we stand against injustice, let’s stand without replicating the very things we oppose. If we want change, let it be change that lifts humanity, not tears it apart. That means that we should be singing rather than shouting profanities. That means we should be handing out flowers rather than throwing fists and kicking officers. It means praying for those we disagree with, even when it feels impossible. Let our protests be invitations, not ultimatums.
Our philosophical battles belong where law and democracy can actually adjudicate them, such as courtrooms, at the ballot box, in legislation, and in organized, sustained civic action. When we march, let it be with conviction and respect. When we vote, let it be with clarity and purpose. When we speak, let it be with truth and generosity. I’m sorry, but I would be willing to travel and protest too, but I can’t if I am surrounded by those whose actions and words are disgraceful.
We need a higher standard. Jesus prayed for his enemies, not because evil isn’t real, but because hatred corrodes the soul of the hater long before it conquers anything outside. We could use that wisdom right now.
I’m not asking you to agree with me. I’m asking you to see the fullness of what’s before us, including the pain, the injustice, the human lives lost, and the human hearts on every side of this debate.
There is a way forward that refuses to surrender our humanity. It begins with recognizing that every person, whether grieving a loved one taken by ICE and whose future is uncertain or trying to do a hard job under impossible pressure, bears a story we cannot reduce to a hashtag.
If we keep our hearts open, our protests nonviolent, and our pursuit of justice unyielding, we might yet transform pain into purpose.
Dr. Wesley