ICE’s killing of Renee Good has revealed how the state will only defend those who uphold a white racial order. A 1915 film points to the origins of this social pact

In the hours after the 7 January fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old Minneapolis mother of three, gut-wrenching footage of her killing was released, discrediting initial claims from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents and the Department of Justice that she was shot in self-defense. As a response to the public outcry, the Trump administration and a chorus of conservative public figures unleashed a litany of dehumanizing and defamatory remarks about Good, a beloved wife, neighbor and dental assistant, in ways that were unduly callous.

The Fox News host Jesse Watters derided Good’s queer identity, and mocked her as a “self-proclaimed poet from Colorado with pronouns in her bio”. The homeland security secretary Kristi Noem vilified Good as a domestic terrorist who “weaponized” her vehicle in an attempt to run over officers – a patently false comment. Laura Loomer, a personal adviser to the president, posted to social media, “She deserved it … I’m shocked her lesbian girlfriend wasn’t shot with her.” JD Vance lobbed the biting accusation that the victim was “a deranged leftist”, before adding that “it’s a tragedy of her own making”. Donald Trump justified the shooting, telling reporters that “at a very minimum, that woman was very, very disrespectful to law enforcement”. And on 17 January, the justice department announced a criminal investigation into claims tying her grieving widow, Becca Good, to unnamed “activist groups” (six federal prosecutors resigned in objection to the investigation).