A photo of Renee Macklin Good, who was shot and killed by an ICE officer in Minneapolis earlier in the day on Wednesday, is taped to a light post near the site where she was killed at 34th Street and Portland Avenue.
Ben Hovland | MPR News
Renee Macklin Good’s wife, Becca Good, said that the 37-year-old poet and mother of three was made of sunshine.
“She literally sparkled,” Becca Good said in a statement. “I mean, she didn’t wear glitter but I swear she had sparkles coming out of her pores. All the time.”
But behind that light was a well of deep values that Macklin Good lived by, including a conviction that every person — regardless of “where you come from or what you look like” — deserves compassion and kindness.
“Renee was a Christian who knew that all religions teach the same essential truth: we are here to love each other, care for each other, and keep each other safe and whole,” Good said.
Those were the values that brought the Goods to stop during an ICE operation in south Minneapolis on Jan. 7. Though they were relatively new in town, Becca Good said they wanted to support their neighbors.
“We had whistles,” she said. “They had guns.”
An offering at the memorial for Renee Good in Minneapolis on Friday.
Ben Hovland | MPR News
Bystander videos show a federal agent grabbing the handle of Good’s car and demanding she open the door. As she begins to pull away, footage shows another officer — since identified as Jonathan Ross — pointing his gun at her and firing through the windshield of the car.
A video taken by Ross that began circulating Friday also shows Macklin Good saying to the agent, “That’s fine dude. I’m not mad at you.”
The Trump administration has cast Macklin Good as a “domestic terrorist” who tried to run over federal agents, though that is not supported by eyewitness accounts or footage from the scene.
Her presence made ‘folks feel good’
Macklin Good was born in Colorado Springs as Renee Nicole Ganger. She graduated from Old Dominion University in Virginia in her early 30s, with a degree in English. In 2020, she won a prize from the Academy of American Poets for a poem called “On Learning to Dissect Fetal Pigs.”
MPR newscaster and poet Emily Bright reads Renee Macklin Good’s poem “On Learning to Dissect Fetal Pigs.”
While at Old Dominion University, she took a fiction workshop with associate professor Kent Wascom. That class with Macklin Good was the first class he taught there.
He said he could still clearly remember how her warmth and positivity shaped the experience for everyone as they shared their own writing with the class.
“She was incredibly warm with her peers, generous with their work, and was just a bright and engaging presence that made folks feel good,” he said. “When the temptation to offer a biting critique might have fallen on another student, she was there with something kind to say, something positive to say about the work or something insightful that might be helpful.”
He said at the time that she was taking his class, she was pregnant with her son. It was the early days of the pandemic too, and despite all she was balancing, she stood out in how she continued to uplift others, even remotely.
News crews film near the memorial for Renee Good on Portland Avenue in Minneapolis on Friday.
Ben Hovland | MPR News
Along with her son, who is now six years old, she was also a mother to two other older children. Her wife described them as “extraordinary children” and said the youngest had already lost his father.
The Minnesota Star Tribune quoted Macklin Good’s mother Donna Ganger, who described her as “extremely compassionate.”
“She’s taken care of people all her life. She was loving, forgiving and affectionate,” she said.
Macklin Good and Becca Good had moved recently to Minneapolis, in search of a new home.
When Macklin Good, her wife and their six-year-old son road-tripped to Minnesota for the chance to make a better life, the couple held hands the entire car ride, Becca Good said. Their son made drawings on the windows as the miles stretched on toward Minneapolis.
When they arrived, they found a vibrant and welcoming community and a “strong shared sense here in Minneapolis that we were looking out for each other.” Becca Good said she finally found peace and safe harbor.
But “that has been taken from me forever.”
A woman prays the rosary during a vigil for Renee Good, a woman who was shot and killed by an ICE officer in Minneapolis earlier in the day on Wednesday.
Ben Hovland | MPR News
Each night since Macklin Good was killed, thousands of people have shown up to protest ICE and hold candles in support for Macklin Good and her family, locally and in other cities. Online, a GoFundMe that aimed to raise $50,000 in support of the family, has surpassed $1.5 million and has since closed.
The support has come in from out of state and out of the country.
“I’m sorry that you lost your life so senselessly simply because you were brave enough to stand up for your neighbors,” one donation read. “Please rest in peace knowing that we will take it from here. Tyranny will not stand, Good will prevail.”
“Renee, your death weighs heavily on my heart. You stood up for your neighbors and for immigrants like me, a Somali who knows how much that protection matters. I am heartbroken for your children, who must now live without you,” another read.
“I’m truly sorry for your loss, we all know the truth and I hope you get justice,” read another.
Becca Good expressed gratitude for the wave of support and called for honoring Macklin Good by living her values and coming together “to build a world where we all come home safe to the people we love.”
“The kindness of strangers is the most fitting tribute because if you ever encountered my wife, Renee Nicole Macklin Good, you know that above all else, she was kind,” Becca Good said.
“In fact, kindness radiated out of her.”
Here’s the full statement from Becca Good:
First, I want to extend my gratitude to all the people who have reached out from across the country and around the world to support our family.
This kindness of strangers is the most fitting tribute because if you ever encountered my wife, Renee Nicole Macklin Good, you know that above all else, she was kind. In fact, kindness radiated out of her.
Renee sparkled. She literally sparkled. I mean, she didn’t wear glitter but I swear she had sparkles coming out of her pores. All the time. You might think it was just my love talking but her family said the same thing. Renee was made of sunshine.
Renee lived by an overarching belief: there is kindness in the world and we need to do everything we can to find it where it resides and nurture it where it needs to grow. Renee was a Christian who knew that all religions teach the same essential truth: we are here to love each other, care for each other, and keep each other safe and whole.
Like people have done across place and time, we moved to make a better life for ourselves. We chose Minnesota to make our home. Our whole extended road trip here, we held hands in the car while our son drew all over the windows to pass the time and the miles.
What we found when we got here was a vibrant and welcoming community, we made friends and spread joy. And while any place we were together was home, there was a strong shared sense here in Minneapolis that we were looking out for each other. Here, I had finally found peace and safe harbor. That has been taken from me forever.
We were raising our son to believe that no matter where you come from or what you look like, all of us deserve compassion and kindness. Renee lived this belief every day. She is pure love. She is pure joy. She is pure sunshine.
On Wednesday, January 7th, we stopped to support our neighbors. We had whistles. They had guns.
Renee leaves behind three extraordinary children; the youngest is just six years old and already lost his father. I am now left to raise our son and to continue teaching him, as Renee believed, that there are people building a better world for him. That the people who did this had fear and anger in their hearts, and we need to show them a better way.
We thank you for the privacy you are granting our family as we grieve. We thank you for ensuring that Renee’s legacy is one of kindness and love. We honor her memory by living her values: rejecting hate and choosing compassion, turning away from fear and pursuing peace, refusing division and knowing we must come together to build a world where we all come home safe to the people we love.
As the flu and covid are on the rise again vaccines are on the decline due to the tRump admin claiming that the best science we have is wrong based on feelings and in the case of the people like JFK Jr it is greed. People don’t realize he makes his money suing drug manufacturers that produce vaccines. Every time he thinks he has some wacked out idea he sues and nothing they can show him will matter to him, all he wants is money and to stop vaccines for other people, as his families kids are protected. Think on it, he is vaccinated, their family has the money to get the vaccines without medical insurance, all he is doing is making it harder and more costly for your kids to get them because you need the medical insurance to help pay for it. Hugs
Under Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s guidance, the CDC no longer recommends routine vaccination to protect against meningococcal disease.
Jan. 11, 2026, 7:00 AM EST
By Kaitlin Sullivan
Deaths from a rare and dangerous bacterial infection could rise if fewer teens are vaccinated, doctors warn.
After the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended that all adolescents get vaccinated against meningococcal disease in 2005, cases of the potentially deadly illness plummeted in the United States by 90%.
However, cases have sharply risen since 2021, likely due to a combination of mutating bacteria and declining rates of vaccination overall, especially among teens getting a booster dose for bacterial meningitis, doctors suggest.
Dr. Luis Ostrosky, an infectious disease doctor at UT Health in Houston, is concerned that as cases of bacterial meningitis climb in the United States, the CDC’s recent overhaul of the childhood vaccine schedule could lead to more deaths.
Under Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s guidance, the CDC is no longer recommending a meningitis vaccine for all adolescents. The vaccine and booster protect against the most common types of the infection in the U.S., serogroups A, C, Y, W.
“We see quite a few cases of meningitis per year,” Ostrosky said.
Under the new guidance, the vaccines will be recommended for “high-risk groups,” although parents can still ask doctors to vaccinate their children through a process called “shared clinical decision making.”
Teenagers and college-age adults, who often spend a lot of time in groups or communal living spaces such as dorms, and people with HIV are considered at highest risk for the infection, caused by a group of bacteria called Neisseria meningitidis.
Vaccination is important not because the disease is common — around 3,000 people are diagnosed with bacterial meningitis in the U.S. each year — but because the infection is both extremely serious and fast-moving.
Bacterial meningitis can progress quickly, causing the brain to swell and limbs to develop gangrene and sepsis, and can kill within 24 hours.
Symptoms such as headache, stiff neck, vomiting and fever come on suddenly, and may be mistaken for other minor illnesses. It can be treated with antibiotics, but even with rapid diagnosis, about 15% of patients die.
Fast-acting and life-threatening
Why some people are susceptible isn’t well understood. The infection develops when usually harmless bacteria travel through the respiratory tract and infiltrate the membranes surrounding the brain and spinal cord, causing severe inflammation. These bacteria, which commonly live in the back of the throat, can spread from person to person through close contact.
It can lead to a life-threatening infection in someone whose immune system is compromised — sometimes by a simple cold or flu virus — or who doesn’t have immunity to those bacteria. Viruses and fungi can also cause meningitis, but bacterial meningitis is the most serious.
Among patients who survive, as many as 20% have lifelong disability or complications, including amputated limbs, hearing impairment and neurological problems.
“You can die from a brain hernia, or from sepsis,” Messacar said. “And if you survive a brain hernia, you will most likely have severe complications.”
In 2024, the CDC issued an alert about a rise in cases of a type of invasive meningococcal disease. More than 500 cases were reported, the highest since 2013. Most of the infections were due to a specific strain of the Y serogroup of bacteria, which is included in the previously recommended vaccine. The cases were more common in adults ages 30 to 60, in Black people and in people with HIV.
“It’s even more important now that we get meningococcal vaccines out to people given that we are seeing a spike in this Y strain,” Messacar said.
The Food and Drug Administration has approved three types of meningitis vaccines. In 2005, the CDC began recommending that 11- and 12-year-olds get vaccinated against the most common meningococcal serotypes, A, C, Y and W. Because of waning immunity, the CDC in 2011 added a booster recommendation for 16-year-olds to protect them through young adulthood. A vaccine for meningitis B and a combined shot are available for children or babies who are considered at high risk.
In a statement Monday, Kennedy said that the CDC’s new childhood vaccine schedule was “aligning the U.S. childhood vaccine schedule with international consensus.”
Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious disease doctor at the UCSF School of Medicine in San Francisco, said the new approach to meningitis vaccination in the U.S., which is based on Denmark’s, is flawed.
“You can’t just look at another country’s vaccine approach and photocopy it. You really have to look at what is happening in your own country,” Chin-Hong said. Given the safety of meningitis vaccines, “it makes sense to vaccinate.”
Alicia Stillman, who serves on a World Health Organization task force for eliminating meningitis, worries that by moving the vaccine into shared decision making, the CDC is creating hurdles for parents who want to protect their children.
Stillman’s daughter, Emily, died from meningitis B in 2013. Emily had been vaccinated against meningitis A, C, W and Y, but the FDA didn’t approve a vaccine for meningitis B until 2014.
Emily Stillman, pictured with her mother, Alicia, was 19 when she died from meningitis B. Courtesy Alicia Stillman
Because many types of bacteria can cause bacterial meningitis, different vaccines are needed. The meningitis B vaccine hasn’t been recommended for all children but is available for people at high risk through the shared decision making process.
“I have watched medical professionals not bring [meningitis B vaccination] up,” said Stillman, who is the co-executive director of the American Society for Meningitis Prevention. “I have watched parents who are maybe a little less educated and not know how to ask about it, or they go to a public clinic instead of a private clinic where they have less time with a provider.”
She believes that could happen more broadly with the changed guidance.
What the research says
A CDC statement said the changes to the recommendation reflect the need for more data on certain vaccines, “including placebo-controlled randomized trials and long-term observational studies to better characterize vaccine benefits, risks, and outcomes.”
While there haven’t been placebo-controlled trials for meningitis vaccines — which would test how well a vaccine works either by deliberately infecting people with bacteria or by seeing how well they fare if they are infected in the real world — there have been many randomized clinical trials and other studies that use decades of data collected from both vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals in the real world.
Chin-Hong said placebo-controlled trials aren’t realistic or ethical for every drug, especially for life-threatening and rare diseases.
“A well-designed observational study, especially using decades of experience, can be just as informative as a randomized controlled trial,” Chin-Hong said.
A 2020 CDC report analyzed 20 clinical trials on meningococcal disease vaccines, including data from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) and the Vaccine Safety Datalink (VS). The most common reported side effects were “mild to moderate,” and included swelling, fever and headache.
In 2005, Katie Thompson, now 39, was infected with an antibiotic-resistant strain of bacterial meningitis when she was a college freshman, the same month the FDA approved the first MenACWY vaccine.
“I don’t know how to describe it besides it’s pure hell,” she said.
After five weeks in the hospital and nearly dying, she went home, but not without lifelong complications. Thompson, who lives outside of Charleston, South Carolina, still struggles with migraines and vestibular disorders that cause vertigo and nausea. The infection was hard on her organs and she uses a bladder stimulator that helps regulate both her bladder and nerves in the base of her spine.
“It’s just not a disease that you want to take a risk on,” she said. “It’s not one that you want to gamble with your child’s life.”
Two vaccines that remain universally recommended by the CDC — the Haemophilus influenzae type b, or Hib, vaccine and the pneumococcal vaccine — protect against some causes of bacterial meningitis. However, these vaccines don’t protect against meningitis A, C, W, Y or B.
Kaitlin Sullivan
Kaitlin Sullivan is a contributor for NBCNews.com who has worked with NBC News Investigations. She reports on health, science and the environment and is a graduate of the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at City University of New York.
Belle talks about the right wing propaganda being generated to discredit the woman shot by ICE in Minnesota, Renee Good. It was not even a good fake hit piece as Belle describes it. I posted a few weeks ago about Russian and other enemy off the US countries posting stuff that is not true so that once it is circulated it discredits the real news in peoples minds. Ron fell for that himself.
Ron watches YouTube clips in the morning with his coffee. Yesterday he was listening to what he thought was a financial newsgroup called Buffet Unfiltered. That site reported that Deutsche Bank had called in tRump’s loans and seized tRump Towers. I questioned it because no other news source reported anything and I felt with news that important they would have. Today they reported how underwater on loans and to creditors tRump was, again that is believable but not the way Ron was telling me was being reported. So I again warned him about misleading propaganda. He asked me who to check the stuff out. I showed him how to both search out the group, which on their YouTube about page said they were fictional dramatizations, then I showed him how to search new groups like ground news for the story reported. Now he is upset these groups do this. But it was a good lesson for both of us. I post a lot of what I think is real news. However I have made mistakes and posted stuff not true or quite accurate. Thankfully the people who come here are smart and have pointed these out to me and I can correct or take the posts down. Thank you for helping keep this site as honest and correct as it is important to me. Hugs
This is an important story of growth and rejection of your core identity. The fact that those closest to you can not accept you and that which makes up who you are. I have not changed the text of the story in any way as I want the voice of the author and his agony of his childhood to shine clearly. This is the way the right wing Christian Nationalist bigots want every family member to be and all children raised. Remember this was only the 1990s. In the 30 years since great progress was made in acceptance, tolerance and education of / about LGBTQ+ kids and how to raise them in loving acceptance of how they feel inside themselves. The Christian hate groups that make their living trying to return the country to a much more regressive hateful time rolling back all rights gained by minorities. And in a very short time they have had a huge effect on how LGBTQ+ people especially LGBTQ+ kids are treated. They stated their goal of driving these kids back into hiding terrified of being outed for fear of being beaten, harassed, and ostracized. That is what they want. Several Christian lawmakers who are trying to make being an out LGBTQ+ kid illegal along with showing any media that represents the LGBTQ+ community have said that when they were kids in school they used to gang up and beat the shit out of LGBTQ+ kids. I know in the 1970s I was not out but targeted as a “faggot” and constantly harassed and attacked. How any adult would want to return to such a time, to having any kid or adult be treated that way is horrendous. Especially from those trying hard to force the country to follow their idea of a Christian lifestyle. Hugs
At 30, I’m finally living as myself. But the man whose acceptance I wanted most still can’t say the word gay.
Jan 10, 2026
Content warning: This story includes mentions of homophobia, childhood trauma and suicidal ideation.
By CorBen Williams
The seventh time I came out to my father wasn’t dramatic. It didn’t happen at a kitchen table or in a parking lot or after he’d found one of my journals. It happened casually, slipped into a conversation like it was nothing:
“As a gay man—” I began.
“You’re not gay,” he interrupted.
“Dad,” I replied. “We’ve done this too many times before.”
Even now, at 30 years old, married to the man I love, fully myself in ways I once thought impossible, my dad still can’t say who I am out loud. It hangs there, suspended between us, as though acknowledging my homosexuality would unravel something he’s built his entire life around.
I’m not sure what exactly. Control? Image? Masculinity? Maybe he simply doesn’t have the language.
Photo courtesy of CorBen Williams.
I grew up in North Pole, Alaska, in a red-sided house at the end of a gravel turnaround. It was the kind of home where the winter light never quite reached the living room and silence carried through the walls like a second language.
North Pole felt like its own universe. A 2,500 person military town where there’s snow on the ground for up to 187 days a year and the Christmas lights never come down. About 70% of the town is white and roughly 30% of the voters are registered Republican, with almost half listed as “undeclared,” which in Alaska is usually just Republican without saying it out loud.
Most families were tied to the church or the base, so you learned fast what was considered normal and what was not. People knew your parents and your business.
Growing up Black and queer made me stand out without trying and forced me to learn early how to tuck parts of myself away.
My parents had both served in the military, and even though my mother had the warmth and softness to move past it, my father emulated parental rejection. Dad demanded respect and expected excellence in the way a man shaped by the military does: loud and without room for negotiation.
You could feel his energy before you heard his footsteps because there was always a tension that entered the room with him. He yelled more than he spoke, and as a kid I was told to listen to what he was saying, not how he was saying it, even when he was screaming in my face.
My father didn’t know what to do with a son who felt things deeply, and before I ever came out to him—the first of seven times—he had already shown me exactly which parts of myself were unsafe to reveal.
But that didn’t stop me from trying. The first time I came out, I was in first grade, sitting in the parking lot of a McDonald’s on Geist Road, right beside my future high school.
“Dad, I think I’m bisexual,” I said.
I knew my ass was gay. But I also knew enough about my father to try to ease him into it. He asked if I knew what that meant, and even though I did, I told him “no.”
“It means you like sucking penis,” he spat harshly.
I was six.
People think kids don’t understand things, but children clock everything. That moment didn’t confuse me about who I was. It clarified who he was. It showed me that there were parts of me he couldn’t handle and wouldn’t protect. I didn’t leave that day understanding my sexuality better. I left understanding the risk of telling the truth.
The second time, I was forced out when my father found my journal. I was 10 years old, and in those pages, I’d written unpolished thoughts about men, about how I felt around them, questions I didn’t yet know how to ask anyone.
He burst into my bedroom and tore the journal up in front of me, little pieces of paper flying around me as I sat in my bed. I tried not to cry.
“As long as you’re a kid in my house, you don’t get privacy,” I remember him barking. It showed me that I need to be wary about how much I trust people and what information I give them.
This rejection led me to the darkest part of my childhood.
“I am tired of living,” I remember muttering to my sixth grade teacher.
I was exhausted by my dad, exhausted from hiding, exhausted from feeling wrong in my own skin.
I should have stopped writing after that, but writing was how I survived. When you don’t have anyone to talk to, you talk to the page.
By 13, I had another journal. This one had drawings of a classmate and fantasies about kissing him. When my dad found it, he brought it up on the car ride home from school, saying “the correct way” to feel about other boys was “brotherly love” and nothing else.
But the third journal set off the biggest explosion.
It was filled with details, drawings and fantasies about my first hookup with a boy. The way I wrote about them, at 15, was more adult. The kind of writing he didn’t want to believe his son was capable of.
“I fucking told you about this shit,” he shouted, with the journal gripped tightly in his hand. “This isn’t appropriate. This isn’t what we do.”
My mom was sitting next to me, shocked, both of us caught off guard by how quickly he had gone from discovery to explosion. I almost cried, but I swallowed it down. My mom guided him into the other room to calm him down.
He didn’t speak to me for seven days. He couldn’t look at me. Each day felt like another nail in the coffin.
Photo courtesy of CorBen Williams.
I kept coming out to my dad anyway. At 17. At 22. At 24. Nothing changed.
Part of me used to think that I was an embarrassment to my family. I felt for so long that I needed to apologize for being the mistake. But in my late teens, I started to see it differently. I realized I just wanted his acceptance and his love in a way that I was never gonna get.
Because of this, I don’t think I ever really got to be a child. Even in first grade, when other kids were talking about Barbies and Legos, I felt like I was always bracing for impact, performing a version of boyhood that never fit. My childhood was spent preparing for adulthood and a career. People would always say to me, “You seem so much older. You seem so mature.”
I left North Pole for good and moved to New York City when I turned 19. I became a performer, a traveler, someone who learned to build softness and resilience, where my childhood had taught me to live in fight-or-flight mode. And then, almost when I wasn’t expecting it, I met Travis.
He was older. Wisconsin-born. A wildlife biologist. Patient in a way I didn’t even realize I needed. My mother said he softened me, brought grey into my black-and-white worldview. With him, I don’t brace for criticism. I don’t edit myself. I don’t shrink. I don’t hide my journals.
We’ve been together five years now, married for three. He’s met everyone in my life, except for my dad.
Photo courtesy of CorBen Williams.
Now, when I think about my upbringing in North Pole, I think about the path through the woods that led to my house, hoping someone on the other side would understand me. I think about how many times I tried to hand my father my truth, and how many times he handed it back to me with rage.
Even now, with the life I’ve built and the love I’ve chosen, acceptance is still complicated. I wish I could say that learning to love myself erased the sting of not being understood, but the truth is I still wrestle with where I fit—inside my family, inside Black spaces, inside queer spaces, inside the places that were never built with someone like me.
I’ve learned to be confident, to be gracious, to be the person who makes others feel seen, maybe because I know exactly what it feels like not to be. But some days, even as a grown man, I feel an instinct to shrink.
I’m learning that acceptance is a practice, one I have to return to again and again. I don’t have it all figured out. But I’m trying. And maybe that’s the real truth at the end of all this: I haven’t just been coming out to my father all these years—I’ve been slowly, steadily learning how to come home to myself.
Uncloseted Media and GAY TIMES reached out to CorBen’s father for comment, but he did not respond.
Sam Donndelinger assisted with the writing and reporting in this story.
If objective, nonpartisan, rigorous, LGBTQ-focused journalism is important to you, please consider making a tax-deductible donation through our fiscal sponsor, Resource Impact, by clicking this button:
tRump has never purchased anything personally like normal people. He doesn’t go to stores and shop. He has always been a pampered rich boy even in bankruptcy. I don’t know about anyone else but Ron and I have to stretch our first half of the month income to be able to afford groceries and medications. We ended last month with $30 in the checking account. This month is always bad for us. So I want to know where this lowering of costs are. Ron wears me and the car outgoing from store to store to get the best deals. We suffer in too cold or too warm a house to keep the electric bill down. But yes Florida is a high cost of living state, would love to move, but … yup we can’t afford it. Hugs.
Donald Trump’s claims about bringing down prices comes just weeks after he told families to limit the number of presents that they buy for their children
When not finding dependable news, and all the other things that make up your days? I just finished Judy Blume’s “Smart Women,” and am now reading a Courtney Milan M/M romance set during the US’s very early days; the protagonists are a white British absconder, and a freed Black US soldier, and they’re making their way to Rhode Island to the Black soldier’s family who they hope will be safe at home. I’m not very far into it, but they’ve self-acknowledged that they’re having feelings for each other, and had tacitly acknowledged they know, to each other. Tonight over supper, I will read on. It’s got a lot of humor, from the British guy.
OK, so I ran across this list from The Root, and thought a snippet could be of interest here I’m also leaving in the related-or-not links because those stories are also of interest. Enjoy!
From a Kenan Thompson picture book to a memoir from the CEO of The Honey Pot, the first month of 2026 is full of great Black books for lovers of every genre.
A new year is here, and if one of your resolutions is to cut down on your screen time, you’re in luck…because with a new year comes great new books by Black authors for every kind of reader, so make room on your bookshelf!
SNL star Kenan Thompson’s hilarious picture book, The Honey Pot CEO Beatrice Dixon’s story of her road to success and Dr. LaNail R. Plummer’s guide to counseling Black women are just a few of the books by Black authors we can’t wait to read this month.
“Unfunny Bunny” by Kenan Thompson with Bryan Tucker (Jan. 13)
SNL star Kenan Thompson can add children’s book author to his already amazing resume. “Unfunny Bunny” is a picture book that centers around Bunny, who wants to be the funniest kid in his class, but worries when his jokes don’t land with his classmates.
“With Love, From Harlem” by ReShonda Tate (Jan. 27)
Amazon.com
Set in Harlem in 1943, ReShonda Tate’s novel, “With Love, From Harlem,” is inspired by the life of jazz performer Hazel Scott and her relationship with pastor-politician Adam Clayton Powell Jr. and how they balance their relationship with their personal ambitions.
You’ll love the references to Harlem legends, like Billie Holiday, Langston Hughes and James Baldwin.
“The Soul Instinct” by Beatrice Dixon (Jan. 27)
Amazon.com
“The Soul Instinct” is an inspiring memoir from The Honey Pot CEO Beatrice Dixon. In the book, she writes about a dream of her grandmother that led her on a journey to create a successful line of feminine care products now available in more than 30,000 stores across the United States, and how she had to learn to trust herself along the way.
“Sweet, Sweet Memory” by Jaqueline Woodson (Jan. 20)
Amazon.com
“Sweet, Sweet Memory” is a beautiful children’s book by Jaqueline Woodson about a young girl who learns about the power of community and our connection to our ancestors after the death of her beloved grandfather.
“Behind These Four Walls” by Yasmin Angoe (Jan. 1)
Amazon.com
“Behind These Four Walls” is a thrilling new novel from Yasmin Angoe. At the center of the story is Isla Thorne, who met her best friend, Eden Galloway, while the two were growing up in a group home. The two planned to run away to Los Angeles when they turned 16, but Eden never made it. Now, ten years later, Isla is determined to solve the mystery of her friend’s disappearance.
“The Book of Alice: Poems” by Diamond Forde (Jan. 20)
Amazon.com
Winner of the 2025 James Laughlin Award from The Academy of American Poets,“The Book of Alice” is a collection of poetry inspired by the life of Diamond Forde’s grandmother Alice, who found her way to New York City during the Great Migration. Using stories from the King James Bible, Forde draws parallels to the Black experience.
“Black Founder: The Hidden Power of Being an Outsider” by Stacy Spikes (Jan. 24)
Amazon.com
In “Black Founder,” MoviePass co-founder Stacy Spikes writes about his journey to becoming a successful tech entrepreneur and how he found power in his position as an outsider to fuel his success and disrupt the status quo.
“Fire Sword and Sea” by Vanessa Riley (Jan. 13)
Amazon.com
“Fire Sword and Sea.” is a page-turner based on the story of real-life female pirate Jacquotte Delahay, Set in 1675, Delahay is the mixed-race daughter of a wealthy tavern owner on Tortuga who hides her identity for the chance to explore life at sea.
“A High Price For Freedom” by Clyde W. Ford (Jan. 13)
Amazon.com
“A High Price For Freedom” is a new book by historian Clyde W. Ford. In the book, Ford explores some of the most fascinating moments in Black history and sheds new light on the stories we thought we knew.
“Just Right” by Torrey Maldonado (Jan. 20)
Amazon.com
“Just Right” is the first picture book by well-known middle grade author Torrey Maldonado. The story, which deals with the special relationship between a little boy and his uncle, emphasizes the power of positive adult role models.
“Getting to Reparations: How Building a Different America Requires a Reckoning with Our Past” by Dorothy A. Brown (Jan. 20)
Amazon.com
“Getting to Reparations” is a new book by Dorothy A. Brown, which explores the idea of reparations for Black Americans through the lens of other communities that have been compensated by the government for past wrongs throughout history.
“The Essential Guide for Counseling Black Women” by Dr. LaNail R. Plummer (Jan. 27)
Amazon.com
In “The Essential Guide for Counseling Black Women,” mental health expert Dr. LaNail R. Plummer shares a guide on how mental health professionals can best support Black women on their healing journey.
“The Ex Dilemma” by Elle Wright (Jan. 27)
Amazon.com
“The Ex Dilemma” is a fun romantic novel that tells the story of nepo baby Wesley Batchelor, whose dating life is put on blast by a mysterious social media influencer. Things get even more complicated when a private investigator, who just so happens to be Wesley’s ex, is hired to find out who is working against him. (snip)
Annie at the link above has some grand information that we all should be aware of. She even included things people can do even if they can’t or are frightened to go to a protest. Please give the site a read, at this point we all need to do anything we can to stop the Stephen Miller’s out of control unrestrained untrained Gestapo gang thugs from terrorizing the public while demanding complete unquestioned obedience. Hugs
I would like to thank https://personnelente.wordpress.com/2026/01/08/causing-problems-on-purpose/ for the link to the story. I am listening to congressional republicans drown on about the US being the apex predator so our country has the right to do what ever we wish to on the world stage. Our country has the right to take what we want because Nazi Stephen Miller who seems to be running the country because that might makes right and the US has the military might. Every time I listen to Miller punch his words out like a poor imitation of Hitler and his entire mocking of anyone in the media or that disagrees with his stance I get a sick horrible feeling in my core being. He is unhinged and the most powerful person next to tRump. Hugs
Protesters clash with law enforcement outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility on January 8, 2026. (Photo by Mostafa Bassim/Anadolu via Getty Images)
More than 2,000 U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents are on the ground in Minnesota in what President Donald Trump’s administration officials have called the “largest immigration operation ever.” Deployed just days ago by Trump, one agent has already shot and killed a person and federal law enforcement has deployed tear gas and pepper spray against protesters.
The massive operation and subsequent violence in Minneapolis comes against the backdrop of Trump’s announcement Tuesday that he’s freezing $10 billion in federal funds approved by Congress for child welfare programs, including Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, foster care, and childcare subsidies in Minnesota and four other blue states.
This sharp escalation in action has its roots in a yearslong law enforcement investigation into widespread fraud and misuse of federal funds in Minnesota that in late 2025 was seized upon by the right-wing misinformation machine and, this week, reached a screeching fever pitch. Minnesota Governor Tim Walz announced Monday he would not be running for reelection, in part so he could devote his time to addressing the crisis.
The journey from legitimate local and federal investigations into fraud to the so-called largest ICE operation in history, the pausing of federal funds to blue states and the end of Walz’s gubernatorial tenure is a long and tangled one. As has become common in the Trump era, a serious situation was dispersed throughout the unserious realm of right-wing media and content creation, catching the attention of the president and yielding very real consequences.
Here’s the backstory you need to understand these events.
How the Scandals Started
Amid the right-wing uproar, there are elements of truth: Minnesota has grappled with Medicaid fraud for more than a decade, which has been the focus of federal and state investigations and local news reporting. The schemes were further fueled by the COVID-19 pandemic, during which an influx of federal funding for social programs came with relaxed vetting standards in an effort to allow speedy access for vulnerable populations.
Republican furor over widespread fraud has also flared up periodically over the years. But it reached new heights in recent months after a wave of new claims — ranging from the well-founded to the baseless to the entirely histrionic — caught the attention of the president.
Some of the first claims of fraud arose in 2015, and focused on day care centers that local authorities accused of overbilling state welfare agencies. This gave rise to an early instance of right-wing outrage, when a local Fox affiliate in 2018 speculated that hundreds of millions of dollars were being stolen from the program and sent to terrorists in Africa. State officials found that claim to be baseless.
In 2021, feds began investigating fraud claims connected to a child nutrition program. By early 2022, the FBI seized property from a nonprofit called “Feeding Our Future.” The revelation of the investigation prompted bipartisan outrage toward the fraudsters; Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), for example, questioned the U.S. Department of Agriculture about the misuse of funds, asking about the investigation and steps that could be taken to prevent “fraudulent misuse of federal funding meant to feed hungry children” in the future.
In September 2022, the Department of Justice announced federal criminal charges against a network of people connected to Feeding Our Future, alleging they defrauded the government of $250 million in federal child nutrition funding, using the funds instead for mansions, cars and other lavish personal expenses. Former Attorney General Merrick Garland said the indictments represented “the largest pandemic relief fraud scheme” to date. At the time, 47 people were indicted, many, but not all of whom, were members of the Minnesota Somali community. State Republicans began pointing a finger at the governor.
The scandal continued to unfold. Even the ensuing criminal proceedings were rife with corruption, with one juror dismissed after fraud defendants tried to bribe the juror with a literal bag of cash. The Feeding Our Future scheme has proven vast and deep. Between 2023 and 2025, more indictments came down connected to the case, with the 78th person indicted this past November. It has become the poster child for Minnesota’s tangled fraud network that has so far extended to autism services, Medicaid fraud, addiction services and housing..
The state has also investigated the network. In August 2023, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison charged 18 people with defrauding Medicaid of $9.5 million with fake home health care businesses. Ellison in December 2023 announced charges in what his office called the largest Medicaid fraud case it had investigated. Three people were charged in an $11 million prosecution. A June 2024 state audit found the Minnesota Department of Education had received dozens of complaints about the nonprofit and failed to oversee the distribution of the $250 million at the heart of the case.
The Politics of the Scandals
State Republicans continued to use the fraud investigations and indictments as evidence of Walz’s unfit leadership. When Walz became Kamala Harris’s vice presidential candidate in August 2024, the governor became a punching bag for Republicans in the state running for local and national office. On the Hill, House Republicans subpoenaed Walz for information about his actions and responsibilities related to the Feeding Our Future scheme.
ST. PAUL, MINNESOTA – JANUARY 5: Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz speaks during a press conference at the State Capitol building on January 5, 2026 in St. Paul, Minnesota. Walz announced today that he is abandoning his re-election campaign for governor, blaming scrutiny from President Donald Trump for his decision. (Photo by Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)
In September 2025, eight people were charged in a multi-million dollar housing fraud scheme for a state program that used Medicaid funds for certain housing services. Then-Acting U.S. Attorney for the District of Minnesota Joseph Thompson called the indictments “the first wave of charges in a massive fraud” program. The abused housing program was dissolved in late October.
In addition to the political advantages of blaming the Democratic governor, some conservatives exploited the fact that most of the people implicated in each of the fraud investigations were members of Minnesota’s Somali community. That became paramount when Trump and prominent members of the MAGA-sphere got involved.
Trump Grabs the Story
On Nov. 19, City Journal, a publication produced by the conservative New York think tank The Manhattan Institute published a post co-authored by Chris Rufo, the notorious anti-woke crusader who is also a fellow at the think tank. The report alleged Minnesota fraudsters were wiring their spoils to a Somalia-based terrorism organization called Al-Shabaab, citing “federal counterterrorism sources.” Two days later, news website and television station The National News Desk — owned by the conservative Sinclair Broadcast group — covered the City Journal report. Those posts may have been what caught the president’s eye. Two hours after The National News Desk report was published, Trump posted about the Minnesota fraud investigations on Truth Social. “Minnesota, under Governor Waltz, is a hub of fraudulent money laundering activity,” Trump wrote, misspelling the governor’s name. In the same post, he said he was removing a special immigration status that covers about 700 Somalian people in the U.S., and introduced the idea that “Somali gangs are terrorizing” Minnesotans.
The Truth Social posts marked the beginning of a far-right frenzy that has seen the president and extremist influencers feed off of one another, spinning narratives and pushing policies pulsating with outrage, xenophobia and Islamophobia. On Nov. 29, the New York Times echoed Republican talking points blaming the Somali community for federal funds theft, saying that the “fraud took root in pockets of Minnesota’s Somali diaspora as scores of individuals made small fortunes.” On Dec. 1, the White House issued a one-pager about the Minnesota situation, repeatedly highlighting the ethnicity of most of the people who had been federally charged and blaming Walz.
Trump on Dec. 2 deployed a first round of ICE agents — about 100 — to Minneapolis and St. Paul to target the Somali community, an official told the New York Times. All the while, legitimate federal investigations continued to play out.
Prosecutor Thompson is now the First Assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of Minnesota. Appointed by Trump, Thompson has served as a longtime prosecutor. On Dec. 18, he charged five new people in the housing program Medicaid fraud scheme. Thompson said more than $9 billion in federal funds may have been stolen from Minnesota.
“The magnitude cannot be overstated,” Thompson said. “What we see in Minnesota is not a handful of bad actors committing crimes. It’s staggering, industrial-scale fraud.”
Following this announcement, the total number of people indicted in Minnesota fraud schemes reached 92. Eighty-two of those were of Somali descent, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Minnesota, PBS reported. While a significant share of the scammers are Somali, the number is less than 0.1% of the entire Somali population in Minnesota, where the majority are U.S. citizens, and just about 0.03% of the Somali population nationwide, according to U.S. Census Bureau data cited by PBS.
Six days later, a 23-year-old content creator dropped a 43-minute YouTube video that had the effect of planting dynamite in a minefield. In a vague Dec. 26 video, former prankster turned anti-immigrant influencer Nick Shirley visited Minnesota day care and health care centers, demanded people who appeared to work at the centers show him children, and accused the businesses of fraud. Shirley in the video is flanked by two masked men, whom he identifies as his security, and is following a man called David who purports to have papers showing evidence of fraud. The Intercept identified David as 65-year-old David Hoch, an eccentric, far-right political operative in the state.
It doesn’t matter that claims made in Shirley’s video remain unfounded, and that it documents nothing untoward.
It also doesn’t seem to matter that the initial, 2018 report linking fraud in Minnesota to a Somalia-based terrorist group was debunked by the state, or that the only named source for the article told the Minnesota Star Tribune he was misquoted. (City Journal told the Star Tribune it stands by its reporting.)
Trump has since early December used the fact that the majority of the defendants in each of these fraud cases were members of the Minnesota Somali community as ammunition, opening a dark new chapter in his signature anti-immigration crackdown.
Layla A. Jones is a reporter for TPM in Washington, D.C., with experience covering government and economic policy, race, culture, and history. She has written for the Philadelphia Inquirer, Billy Penn, WHYY, NPR, and the Philadelphia Tribune, and participated in the Knight-Bagehot Fellowship at Columbia University. She attended Temple University for undergrad.
Randy in a post asked the question I think many ask here. Why do I champion the trans community so forcefully? Nan asked me a few years ago if I was feeling like I was trans, and no I am a cis gay male and happy in it. Although if not for my past I would have liked to be free to explore a more feminine side of myself. Ron and I do have trans people in our family but I have never met them. The truth is in the page why I do this. I want to give a voice to those that have no voice and right now the most targeted unfairly groups are trans people / kids and brown skinned people ICE is going after. Why do I put so much effort in to giving them a voice? Because as an abused little boy people in my town knew I was being abuse but no one gave me a voice, no one spoke up for me. Hugs.
How Americans are manipulated by online misinformation and political rhetoric.
Joseph McConville’s first memory of being online was at 13 years old when he started playing Neopets, a virtual pet game, at his home in Boynton Beach, Fla. At the time, he had no clue that just months later, the internet would suck him into the alt-right.
As a young, white man, McConville says he was taught to believe that he’d have everything he wanted.
He started to realize this dream wouldn’t come to fruition when he was pulled out of private school as his parents struggled during the 2008 recession.
McConville quickly graduated from kids games to popular social media sites like Myspace and Facebook. But it was when he found FunnyJunk.com in ninth grade that he started being exposed to alt-right content.
The website gave users the ability to upload memes and upvote popular content. When McConville began using it, he was initially exposed to dark humor and edgy right-wing memes.
He then migrated to 4chan, a website known for hosting anonymous, fringe, right-wing communities, where he started engaging with content used to stoke extremist meaning —pushing us vs. them narratives that alienated McConville from his multicultural South Florida community.
“Everyone else is wrong. … These guys are right. These guys get it,” says McConville. The deeper he got, the more anger he felt—especially towards transgender people.
“It’s all a psyop … there’s a big trans psyop to destroy manhood,” McConville remembers believing for nearly a decade. “It’s all about making men hate themselves, to become women, to weaken the American hegemony.”
McConville, now 30, eventually found his way out of the alt-right world around 2018 when he was deradicalized by a friend who had previously been a part of the community.
But since then, the pervasiveness of this thinking has grown. What was once conspiratorial thinking on fringe websites has now become commonplace. “The [2016] Trump election changed a lot of things, it all became serious,” McConville told Uncloseted Media and GAY TIMES. “You feel like, ‘Wow, we’re actually being listened to—we’re changing the mainstream talking points.’”
Transgender Americans have been one of the biggest targets of this alt-right rhetoric, and it’s effective. Since 2022, Americans have increased their favorability towards laws limiting protections for trans people and have become less favorable towards policies safeguarding them.
The site of Charlie Kirk’s assassination after it took place. (KSL News Utah)
This change in public perception may be because of the growing claims that falsely link transgender people as perpetrators of mass violence and domestic terrorism. After Charlie Kirk’s death in September, these narratives reached a boiling point.
But how did Americans get taken to believe this anti-LGBTQ lie? And what does it say about how people can be brainwashed to hate?
Who’s Pushing the False Link Between Trans People and Domestic Terrorism?
One reason many Americans began to believe that trans people are more likely to be linked to terrorism is because trusted sources in mainstream conservative spaces are telling them it’s true. Even though the overwhelming majority of mass shooters are cisgender men, the Heritage Foundation, notably behind Project 2025, recommended the FBI create a category of domestic terrorism called Transgender Ideology-Inspired Violent Extremism, which suggests transgender people pose an imminent threat.
“I think some people know that this is false, but push it,” Thekla Morgenroth, a professor of psychology at Purdue University, told Uncloseted Media and GAY TIMES. “It’s worth giving false information if you get people on your side and support your opinion, and I think that is malicious.”
Unlike when McConville was in the alt-right, many of the people behind the rhetoric today hold powerful positions in the government. After a shooting in August at a Minnesota Catholic school perpetrated by a transgender person, Rep. Lauren Boebert falsely said there was a “pattern of transgender violence in our country.” Trump officials and other members of Congress used this as an excuse to attack gender-affirming care. And Harmeet Dhillon, an assistant attorney general at the Department of Justice, has insisted that hormone replacement therapy played a role in the shooting, although officials do not believe the perpetrator was using hormones.
This narrative has bled into the mainstream media who are used to trusting government sources. Just a few hours after Kirk was pronounced dead, The Wall Street Journal and other media outlets picked up claims from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives that the bullet case engravings pointed to a motive related to “transgender ideology,” a term coined by transphobic commentators. The bullet casings ultimately did not have any reference to transgender people.
Nevertheless, suspicions around this shooter being connected to the transgender community spread like wildfire.
Megyn Kelly in her video. (Megyn Kelly on YouTube)
Former Fox News personality Megyn Kelly posted a video titled “Megyn Kelly Reveals the Truth About the ‘Trans’ Phrases Found on Ammo of Gun Which Shot Charlie Kirk,” to YouTube on Sept. 11, 2025, where she falsely told over 4 million subscribers, “There’s a particularly high percentage [of transgender people] committing crimes these days and it is responsible and important to say so.” The video now has 2.1 million views and Kelly has not retracted these comments.
Her followers—who believed her false claims—began calling for extreme action in the video’s comment section. @WonkoTheDork wrote, “Trans insanity needs to end. I don’t care how, this has to stop.” And @kathleenbarton-m6c wrote, “As an American, I completely agree that this [Trans] movement needs to be completely eradicated.”
Referencing Kirk as a martyr, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton took it a step further, writing in a press release that “corrupted ideologies like transgenderism and Antifa are a cancer on our culture and have unleashed their deranged and drugged-up foot soldiers on the American people.”
The Social Psychology of Transphobia
Morgenroth thinks many people who endorse rhetoric around transgender domestic terrorism are threatened or afraid of otherness and of the breaking of traditional gender norms.
“People are very attached to the way that they think about gender because it gives them a sense of certainty—it gives them a sense of who they are and who they’re not,” they say.
Morgenroth says people come up with justifications for their discomfort, even if they don’t make sense.
“‘Here’s an explanation for why I should be scared. I’m gonna endorse that and I’m gonna believe that regardless of whether that makes logical sense or not,’” they told Uncloseted Media and GAY TIMES. “I think that’s what’s happening and why people are so willing to endorse these conspiracy beliefs or theories about trans people.”
Joseph Vandello, a psychology professor at the University of South Florida, says that when influential figures ramp up a threat, it triggers an emotional response of fear or anger, which leads to a desire to punish or exclude people.
“This is the same playbook that people were using against gay people going back to the 1970s or against other kinds of marginalized or minority groups like Jews,” Vandello told Uncloseted Media and GAY TIMES, referencing the gay panic of that era. “I think there’s this idea that if you frame the issue in terms of a threat, then it becomes an issue of moral protection of the community.”
Another One Down the Rabbit Hole
Vandello says many young men fall for anti-trans narratives because they confirm their place of privilege in the world and validate their insecurities. He coined the term “precarious manhood,” which is the idea that manhood is a social status that has to be won and can be lost. His research indicates that threats to one’s sense of manhood—like trans and queer identities—provoke not only insecurity, but aggression.
Jordan Peterson (right) being interviewed by Sean Hannity in 2025. (Fox News)
Ten years ago, Justin Brown-Ramsey became a case study of precarious manhood, lashing out when he began thinking that trans people were a threat. At 18 years old, and in search of an escape from his parents’ divorce, he started binge-watching YouTube lectures from Jordan Peterson, a clinical psychologist who’s best known as an outspoken anti-trans thought leader and has said that using someone’s preferred pronouns is the road to authoritarianism.
“He has a degree, he’s working at an institution, it seems like if that’s the kind of guy that has this opinion, I should probably also have that opinion,” Brown-Ramsey told Uncloseted Media and GAY TIMES.
This intellectualized version of transphobia appealed to the sense of insecurity Brown-Ramsey faced growing up in a household with strictly enforced gender roles.
Eventually, Brown-Ramsey became an active participant in anti-trans rhetoric. As an anonymous keyboard warrior, he’d fight in the YouTube comments against the #MeToo, feminist and trans rights movements.
Near the end of his senior year of high school, Brown-Ramsey brought this hatred into the real world against another classmate.
“They mentioned they were trans, and I recall always taking issue with that for seemingly no reason, and being just generally antagonistic about that,” says Brown-Ramsey, now 28.
He purposefully misgendered the student in class and started lashing out against friends, family and romantic partners until he was almost totally isolated.
“I think over time, the less acceptable my behavior was for people in person, the more it became acceptable to lean into the online version of that,” he says. “It went from those lecture videos to watching long rant videos about trans people and gay people, or seeking out stuff that was more 4chan-adjacent.”
Brown-Ramsey, who eventually left the alt-right after deeply engaging with U.S. history in college, believes he was manipulated to hate trans people because it helped him displace his anger about other elements of his life. “I think it was the fact that I was lower working class or lower middle class, and didn’t have an economic future ahead of me,” he says. “I was like, ‘Well if the world is that way then I just might as well be hateful and try to be more powerful than somebody.’”
Undercover in the Alt-Right
Anthony Siteman (Photo courtesy of Siteman, design by Sam Donndelinger)
This phenomenon of young men getting drawn in by alt-right algorithms fascinated 21-year-old Anthony Siteman, who started investigating online extremism ahead of the 2024 presidential election.
“My main goal was to understand how and why people became radicalized,” Siteman, a senior at Quinnipiac University, told Uncloseted Media.
Siteman immersed himself on right-wing sites like Rumble and Gab as well as encrypted messaging apps like Telegram where he joined channels that included Proud Boys. He noticed trends that draw people in: all caps text, red alarm emojis and inflammatory language, which all trigger a sense of urgency and concern.
He saw constant racist, sexist and transphobic language, but also violent videos and memes created from the livestreamed footage of the 2019 mosque shootings in New Zealand that left 51 people dead.
Even though he entered this project to learn about indoctrination, sometimes he felt his own views slipping. “ I was really questioning myself and what I believed,” he says, adding that he had to turn to his professor to keep him grounded. “They make you really question all of reality.”
“Social media companies are feeding people more extreme content, more emotional content,” Vandello says. He explained that emotionality is what has made the online alt-right successful at manipulating users against transgender people.
Siteman agrees: “ It’s always framed about fear, anger, and just some sense of belonging.”
The Way Out
Siteman believes that to exit these spaces, people outside the alt-right should use empathetic communication to help those in their network who have been radicalized.
For Brown-Ramsey, it was a professor that pulled him out.
“Unlike online spaces, where I curated the information that I wanted to see, and the algorithm fed me more of the same bigoted, hateful content, college was perhaps the first time I was required to engage with media outside of my usual diet,” Brown-Ramsey published in an essay about his experience.
Brown-Ramsey had to read books aloud in class like “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass,” which detailed the abolitionist’s experience being born into slavery. “The narrative turned a mirror onto me and, in upsetting detail, showed me that my inclinations toward antagonizing those who looked, acted, or believed differently than myself [were the same beliefs that] led to Douglass’ dehumanization,” he wrote.
“That trajectory is really just me learning, ‘Why should I be at odds with a trans person if both of us work crappy jobs and can’t pay our bills?’ Obviously, that’s not who I should be angry at, but it took a while to get around to that,” Brown-Ramsey says.
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