Special Episode: The Killing of Renee Nicole Good by ICE w/ Angela Denker
In this special episode of Straight White American Jesus, Brad Onishi is joined by the Reverend Angela Denker to discuss the killing of Renee Nicole Good by ICE in Minneapolis on January 7th. As video footage circulates and national leaders offer sharply conflicting accounts—from Minnesota officials describing an unjustified killing to figures like JD Vance and Kristi Noem framing it as lawful self-defense—the episode centers on the human cost of gaslighting and state-sanctioned violence. Denker, a Minneapolis resident who lives near the site of the shooting, offers an on-the-ground account of the aftermath: canceled schools, traumatized children, vigils and protests, and a city once again forced to grieve amid gaslighting and cruelty from those in power.
Drawing on her experience as a Lutheran pastor, journalist, and leading critic of Christian nationalism, Denker reflects on courage, solidarity, and the widening scope of state-sanctioned violence. Together, she and Onishi explore why this killing—of a white American woman—has jolted public consciousness, even as similar violence has long been inflicted on Black, Indigenous, and immigrant communities. The conversation situates Minneapolis’s response within its history of resistance, faith-based organizing, and collective care, while naming the lie that white supremacy protects anyone. This episode is a raw, urgent meditation on grief, truth-telling, and the moral stakes of this political moment—and a call to remember Renee Nicole Goode not only in death, but in the fullness of her life and humanity.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Yesterday, January 7th, a woman named Renee Nicole Good was killed by ICE in Minneapolis.
Most of you are familiar with the story already.
Videos have emerged showing that Renee Nicole Goode was trying to leave the scene when an ICE officer put his gun in her car and murdered her.
Since then, conflicting reports have emerged with Governor Tim Walz and Jacob Frey, the mayor of Minneapolis, saying that there was nothing involved here except for a woman trying to leave the scene and who was then murdered in cold blood.
Others, like Christy Noam and JD Vance, have said that this officer was defending himself, saying that if one is resisting or somehow threatening law enforcement, then they should expect to be hurt or punished.
Today I speak with the Reverend Angela Danker, who is a Minneapolis resident.
The Reverend Angela Denker is an award-winning author and journalist.
She wrote the book Red State Christians and also Disciples of White Jesus, The Radicalization of American Boyhood.
We feature both of those books on this show, and she is, to me, an insightful voice when it comes to Christian nationalism and the ways that the church has turned towards authoritarianism.
We're going to talk about what happened yesterday.
I'm going to get her account of what took place, what is happening on the ground with vigils and protests and the general feeling of everything that is going on in the city, and her perspective as both a journalist, as a pastor, and a critic of Christian nationalism and MAGA Trumpism about what's really going on here.
I'm Brad O'Nishi.
This is a special episode of Straight White American Jesus.
Welcome to Straight White American Jesus.
As I just said, I'm here today with the Reverend Angela Denker, who has been on the program before to talk about her great writing and her last book, Disciples of White Jesus.
Today, we're here to talk about what happened in Minneapolis yesterday, January 7th, and the killing of Renee Nicole Goode.
Angela, you live a few miles from where this all took place.
There are conflicting reports coming from, on one hand, your governor in Minnesota, Tim Walz, and the mayor of Minneapolis, Jacob Fry, who are saying what I think most of us are seeing with our eyes when we watch the videos, which are that this was a woman trying to leave the scene and to essentially get out of the way.
JD Vance and Christy Noam are saying that is absolutely not the case and that this was a matter of law enforcement's self-defense and law and order.
Randy Fine, the congressman from Florida, even said he does not feel bad for what happened because this was somebody who was getting in the way of those taking invaders out of our country.
As a Twin Cities resident, as somebody who's very connected to the community there, what does all this look like from your perspective?
Yeah, wow.
I do have to say, you know, I've had quite a few people ask me to talk about this today, and I've said no, but I trust you, Brad.
So we're going to, I'll do my best here, but this is certainly raw.
We had a clergy press conference this afternoon with hundreds of clergy in attendance, you know, in all different faith communities.
And that really was a moving experience because it's this reminder that one of the gifts of being here in Minneapolis is that we have a strong organizing tradition of clergy who come together for love, for justice, for truth.
And so I think I'm going to hold on to that as we talk about this because it's so triggering and traumatizing to hear people gaslight and to hear people deny the evidence of their own eyes.
And also, you know, as you share Randy Fien's comments, the cruelty.
And, you know, I guess I'm glad they're saying it, that they don't care because that's been evident for a while.
And I truly think that, you know, as we saw with the Black Lives Matter movement, as we've seen throughout our country, and I'll say, I think white women need to wake up and realize that this is us too.
You know, it's about time that we realized that aligning ourselves with white supremacy and with violent masculinity is a threat to us as well.
We're not protected by this violent movement.
We too are victims of it.
And it shouldn't take the death of a 37-year-old white woman and mother to make people care.
And clearly many of them don't.
But I think that it is a critical moment to mark and to note the expanding scope of violence that's being sanctioned in this administration.
And you asked, you know, like, what are we seeing in Minneapolis?
What on the ground?
And I, one of the major things that I'm noticing is that, yeah, our kids were home today.
They're home Thursday and Friday this week.
Minneapolis public schools completely canceled school across the district, canceled all athletic activities, canceled, you know, an exciting field trip my kids have coming up.
And no, is that as important as people getting abducted up the street?
Absolutely not.
But it's also a mark of the disruption of childhood and family life and the markers of American community that people cling on to.
And for kids who've lived through COVID and George Floyd and we had a teacher strike a couple of years ago, our community is strong.
And also like the Annunciation school shooting that also deeply impacted our family a few miles from my house as well.
Like there is so much trauma.
And so to see people just not care in the face of real trauma and pain.
You know, the local high school that was terrorized by ICE yesterday is right next to my church.
And we had kids coming to confirmation totally traumatized last night.
So to see and experience this pain as a faith leader, as a mom, as a community member, and then to see the outright rejection of that pain again and again and again.
And again, I know this is something that our non-white communities in America have experienced for a long time, but it's very painful.
Yesterday, I saw people continue to protest, people to gather and to hold vigils for Renee Nicole Good to remember her and also press on.
I'm wondering, you know, what that is like just in terms of you being there in the city, from my vantage point as somebody who's far away, it seems to me to be incredibly courageous to stand out in the street when people in unmarked cars in masks have been deputized to do this and told by the vice president that there will be no consequences.
It just shows, I think, Minneapolis and the Twin Cities fortitude and solidarity.
Is that part of what's happening there on the ground in your city?
It is.
And I think that it's really emblematic of things we've seen across this country.
And I have a lot of close clergy friends and friends who are organizers and moms who became organizers in Oak Park and in Chicago.
And they set such an example of resistance when ICE did this to their city.
And so I think that we have gained a lot of encouragement.
And I hope that, you know, this continues to be a movement of solidarity across the whole country.
I also do notice that this, there's been so much, as you and I both know, like cosplaying of bravery by the Christian right and by men like Mark Driscoll and Pete Hegseth and even by ICE.
You know, there's this sense that if you carry, and even Christy Noam with her camouflage outfits and her trucker hats, there's this sense that if you carry a big gun and if you have body armor, that that makes you brave.
And seeing ordinary citizens unarmed continuing to go out, continuing to be present with their bodies to see all the clergy members who gathered there today and citizens who gathered.
And also like one of the Minneapolis schools near our house, a really small local school that was closed today.
Some of the parents organized a march for the kids.
And this is just blocks from the Annunciation shooting.
And this was in support of their immigrant neighbors.
And it was primarily white kids who are marching, you know, with their families, with their parents.
And I just thought that was really powerful too.
You know, when you see real bravery, you know it.
You can mark it.
And it's a dynamic contrast to somebody wearing a mask carrying a gun that does not look brave.
I think that's such an amazing description.
And I think it's something that is under tragic consequences spreading throughout the country, people realizing that true courage is not wearing a mask and waving an automatic weapon.
It's people standing side by side on street corners saying, we're here and we're not going to be scared to stand up to what's happening.
I'm wondering, you know, if there's things we can convey to people who are not in the Twin Cities about the ways that Minneapolis has sort of learned how to respond to tragedy.
This is the place where George Floyd was murdered.
This is a place where there was a school shooting a couple of months ago.
You know, how is the community finding the resilience to continue to show up in the wake of all of these things?
Well, we are an overwhelmingly white state.
And while we were a northern state that did not have slavery, we have a long history of tragic treatment of Indigenous Minnesotans.
And that continues to bear out in long after effects for Native Americans in our state.
And so I think part of the resilience has been for our white population in Minnesota, you know, certainly not as a monolith, but for key white leaders to be able to acknowledge the ways in which racism has been a part of what has happened here and to take accountability, to take responsibility.
I think that, you know, I guess it's a key part of my faith as a Lutheran is that when you engage in that act of repentance and in understanding your own role in sin, that frees you to love your neighbor, to do actions together.
It frees you from this shame.
It frees you from this sense of having to be perfect.
It allows you to say, I have been complicit and I am forgiven, not because I deserve it or because I've been the best Christian ever or because I'm better than other people, but because God is a God of love and forgiveness and grace.
And so that I think in some ways has set us free to do this work without the burdening effect of having to think that we're better than other people.
And I'm not saying, you know, we figured it all out because we certainly haven't, but that's something that I do see.
And I want to hope that that part of that is the Lutheran theology that has long been prominent in this state.
I think there's something about Minnesota that I think irritates Trump and Vance and others because it's a Midwestern state.
It's a northern Midwestern state.
And it's really, really, in terms of voting patterns, it's really, really Democratic.
You know, the mayor of Minneapolis, the governor, Tim Walz, you know, one of the things I failed to mention as I was listening, George Floyd and the Annunciation School shooting was the assassination of Melissa Hortman.
And I did fail to mention that just a minute ago.
Melissa Hortman at being a sort of integral part of moving through progressive legislation in the state legislature in Minnesota.
I think that if you look at your neighbors in Iowa, you know, Iowa is not a monolith, but in terms of voting patterns, it statewide goes Republican.
Michigan is kind of a mixed bag.
Minnesota is this irritant.
Christy Noam's home.
And North Dakota.
Yeah.
North Dakota, Christy Noam's home state.
And, you know, the rest of the kind of the plains and the upper Midwest, Minnesota stands out.
And I wonder if you feel as a resident there that there is a sense of having a target here in the way that Chicago as a city was targeted by the Trump administration.
Yeah.
And I think that, you know, in some ways we have to certainly be careful in Minnesota because the reason that Minneapolis is such a target and the surrounding suburbs are a target is because the rest of the state has moved to the right and has become more conservative.
And there's a lot of reasons for that, you know, certainly shared across the country.
But there is a real movement among Republicans to pit the rest of Minnesota against Minneapolis.
And so part of the work that I do that I find really important and critical is I do a lot of speaking events and sharing and preaching outside the Twin Cities.
I had a weekend up in Moorhead.
I've had time in the North Shore.
I've had time in western Minnesota.
I served a congregation in southwestern Minnesota.
And there is a long tradition, as you note.
I mean, Tim Walz comes from Mankato, which is in rural Minnesota, larger town, but in rural Minnesota generally.
And so there is, there's still a lot of folks that are more progressive in those communities.
And there's a lot of small church Lutheran pastors in particular doing really hard work to maintain those communities.
But that's why I think these videos are important.
And also finding ways to continue to get the truth out when there is so many lies happening.
When those lies are funneled into a narrative that says Minneapolis is against you, rural Minnesota, it continues to exacerbate that narrative.
And that's why it is important for so many of us to continue speaking out and to lift up voices from outstate Minnesota who are courageously doing this work in sometimes very hostile environments.
I have, as usual for me, you know, 300 more questions for you, but I want to just stop and say, you know, this is really soon after everything that happened that we're talking beyond anything I want to ask you,
I guess I just want to give you a chance to say anything you'd like anyone listening to know about what happened, what's going on in your city, what's going on in your state, what's going on for you as a person who is a Christian, an activist, a writer, somebody who's done a lot to combat the kinds of violence we see from Christian Trumpism, authoritarianism, violent masculinity, and so on.
So let me just sort of say, what is it you want us to know in the next couple of minutes?
I think in times like this, it's really important to cling to our shared humanity.
And so that's why I think it's important to share stories about Renee Good's life and not only about her death.
There's a reason why so many right-wing accounts are showing frame-by-frame depictions of her shooting and her death.
And they're not talking about the award-winning poetry that she wrote.
They're not talking about the fight she had as a woman from the working class who had children young, who fought to get her English degree in 2020 in her 30s.
That is a proud American pull yourself up by the bootstrap story.
And, you know, I tell that story not to say that if she had a different story, that it wouldn't matter, but to say that each of our individual stories matter, that our shared humanity matters.
And so I think that in times like these, I have a desire to isolate, to, you know, sometimes go into depression or sadness or wall myself off.
And I think a lot of people have those tendencies, but to be in community with others and particularly with your neighbors, you know, wherever you are.
I've lived all over the U.S. too.
I'm from Minnesota, born and raised, but I've lived all over.
And sometimes it's hard to get to know your neighbors.
But our neighborhood online groups in Minneapolis have been foundational to providing aid, providing assistance, creating observation networks.
You know, if we didn't have a video, if we didn't have people who were there witnessing and being willing to share their accounts of what happened, we would only have the VHS account that said that she tried to use her car.
And we wouldn't, in the same way with George Floyd, we wouldn't know what happened there either.
So that solidarity with neighbors is something that's really important.
And that's why Jesus talked about loving your neighbor so much.
And that's why Jesus talked about the story of the Good Samaritans.
And Jesus didn't talk about guns and didn't talk about closed borders.
And all of these things that the Christian Rite is lifting up were not in any way priorities of Jesus.
And in fact, the antithesis of his ministry, his witness, and his mission.
One of the things, first of all, thank you for that reminder.
And it's really moving.
And I think for me, what it brings up is, you know, this, something I shared on this podcast before taking a break for the holidays and the new year, which was that I think it's tempting in these moments, when events like this happen, in the entire kind of era that we're living through in terms of the Trump administration, to think that any form of joy or human desire, or levity, or laughter, or love,
is just not something we can afford right now, because our neighbors are fighting for their lives.
And we all are trying to deal with the onslaught that is coming to our institutions, our universities, healthcare, government programs.
We could go on and on and on and on.
And I think what you've just said is something that has been on my mind and heart a lot over the last month, which is that we were in this fight precisely because of all the things that make human being worth it.
The things that are beyond the physical pain of being a mortal creature.
Writing poetry is one of those things.
Being somebody who says, I'm in my 30s, but I'm going to go back to school and I'm going to like do something people didn't think I could do.
That's why we human.
You know what I mean?
And so I, you know, I'm going to get emotional now, but I think reflecting on her life is not a matter of looking away from what happened.
It's looking right at it and saying, this is why we're not going to forget, you know?
And that fabric of humanity is like under attack in so many different ways right now, especially with AI, you know, and that's a part of this story of saying that, hey, computers can write poetry.
Computers can create beauty.
Classic surgeons and filters are the ones who really create beauty.
And I think it's important to recognize all the ways at which that is under attack and how critical it is that we that we save it.
You know, both of us are parents.
And so I think this hits us too, because we want a world for our kids that is beautiful, that is loving, that is peaceful.
And we're fighting.
I read that article, you know, about the Cassandras and about the people who have been fighting Trump from the beginning.
And, you know, you and I have been at this a while.
But it said, so many of us are parents and we're doing it out of that sense of that parent who rushes in front of a moving bus.
And I think the people in Minneapolis, so many of us are parents or grandparents or caregivers or, you know, I think of the elders in my churches, some of them who don't have their own kids, they're doing it because of love.
And so I guess that's what gives me confidence that, you know, we're going to endure and triumph because that's why we're doing it.
You said early on in our time together today, you talked about white femininity, white women, and this lie that, you know, you'll be protected by the patriarchal white supremacist system, the Christian supremacist system that really does kind of make up, I think, Trumpism and Christian Trumpism and so on.
You mentioned people like Mark Driscoll or Pete Hegseth.
You know, we could talk about Doug Wilson.
We could talk about any number of people.
I want to try to say something that I hope will make sense and that people will allow me the 30 seconds it's going to take for me to explain it because there's nuance here.
What I told my partner last night is like, it's not lost on me that this is the city where George Floyd was murdered.
And for a long time, black people in this country, Indigenous folks, others, like, I mean, my family was put in camps, right?
Have known that it is possible for the American policeman to stick his gun in your car and shoot you.
And so in one sense, this is not new, and that there are communities who have said, please listen for a long time because this is what they're doing.
So in one sense, this is not a new thing.
It's a continuation of a really violent lineage of American law enforcement and a component of our public square.
What is new here is that this is a white blonde American citizen who is a woman.
Now, does that make it more important, less important?
No.
What is new about it?
So everyone, give me 30 seconds, okay, before you start writing me your email.
Give me 30 seconds.
When it's a white blonde woman with an American passport, a much larger population of this country is going to look up and say, what, what happened?
Who?
Wait, what?
You're telling me that could happen to me?
The folks who maybe were seduced even subconsciously by the lie that they would be protected as a white blonde woman by the violent male supremacist regime look up and say they can wait, they're allowed to put the gun in my car and shoot.
And the vice president will get on the TV and say, yeah, they're allowed to do that.
It's not new, but it is novel.
It doesn't mean that it's less or more important.
I am not comparing the value of George Floyd's life to Renee Nicole Good's life or anything like that.
I hope everyone can tell what I'm doing here.
What I'm saying is, is when it's a blonde white woman, a lot more Americans are going to look and think to themselves, maybe that could be me.
And that is an unfortunate, tragic, awful fact, but it is a fact.
And I'm wondering if that makes sense to you.
I wonder if that is something that clicks at all or tell me that I'm completely wrong and being, you know, misguided and inaccurate.
And I'm open to that too.
So.
Well, I think here, certainly onto something I read a similar point from Dr. Stacey Potten, who was sharing about, again, that this is not new and it's not about, but it marks a shift and a widening of the violence.
Another blonde woman, blonde American woman who I want to mention in this conversation is Virginia Duffrey, Virginia Roberts Duffrey, who died by suicide in 2025 and was one of the most outspoken victims of Jeffrey Epstein.
Epstein.
I just finished reading her book and I think everyone should read her book.
I think that this is another lie that American culture has told itself, that white supremacy protects white women.
And the reality is, and I think I realized this a few years ago, they've never cared about our lives either.
In very obvious ways, abortion laws, you know, abortion laws that take pregnant women's lives because our lives do not matter when we are pregnant.
And so I think for women, I hope that there will be some more awareness.
I hope.
You know, we all thought we were going to see a big gender gap with women going for Kamala Harris, and we did not in 2024.
But I think this is just another blow in the lie.
And I think keep following the trajectories of people like Erica Kirk and keep following the trajectories of Caroline Levitt and keep following the trajectories of Christina.
We've already watched Marjorie Taylor Green crash and burn.
And I've realized it in my own life, you know, as I've had a lot of great men who've helped me in my career.
And I've also had to recognize that I was paying a price when I was aligning myself with narcissistic men who did not care about me professionally.
So it's a lie.
It's yet another lie.
And my hope for mothers, especially mothers of white boys, is that we raise them particularly with our husbands, especially if our husbands are white too, or with their dads or with our co-parent with a sense for the humanity of everyone's lives with particular attention to lives that don't look like them.
And it's a challenge because the messages that they get culturally are still very much that white men, wealthy white men's lives matter a whole lot more than anyone else's.
Yeah.
I appreciate that.
And obviously in your ongoing work, your last book, Disciples of White Jesus, and the way you look that phenomenon straight in the face.
I was thinking about you recently when I was finishing my own book and I was thinking about how writing about this stuff really does.
It's really challenging because I was finishing my book over Christmas and all I wanted to do was like go do Christmas with like my tiny children for whom Christmas is still magic.
And here I am like writing about the worst people in the world.
And you did that in that book.
I mean, you went to Charleston and you, I mean, you went into the places that are the most uncomfortable and the least alluring and just sat there with all of it.
And I do appreciate that very much about you and your work.
And I appreciate your honesty about how, you know, for you, there's been a process of learning and a process of understanding the lie.
And this is one of those moments where you hope that that happens for for others for whom this is a big wake-up call.
So I know I need to let you go.
I know you have other things to get to today.
And I just want to say how grateful I am that you would even take the time to have this conversation on what I know is a really, really, really painful day and a difficult time.
So yeah, anything you want to leave us with or tell us where we might find some of your ongoing work and so on.
Yeah, I should have a piece coming out addressing some of the things we talked about tonight soon.
So look for that.
You can always find me on Substack.
Otherwise, over on Instagram, just under Angela Dinker.
But I really appreciate my Substack community and it's been a way to kind of keep going over these years.
And also, yeah, Brad, this is like, it's a tough topic to be an interviewer for.
And I appreciate you and the sensitivity that you handle it with and the respect that you've always shown.
So thank you.
No, well, thank you.
And all right, y'all.
Thanks for listening to this special episode of Straight White American Jesus.
As always, thankful for you and for tuning in here.
We'll be back with our regular programming, the weekly roundup, the interview on Monday, and our It's in the Code on Wednesday.
There's more to say, but tonight we'll just say thanks for being here and sitting with us in what is an incredibly painful set of events and just not an easy thing to talk about.