Good People

Most people are good, I tell myself as I drive to my customer service job. I work seasonally at a bookstore in the twelfth-biggest mall in the world, meaning I encounter my fair share of Karens. I decided when I woke up today that this would be my motto, for my own sanity and peace of mind.

Most people are good. I wish I’d had these words handy when a woman yelled at me the day before Christmas because I couldn’t let her return her puzzle without a receipt. I called my manager over to handle it, stepping aside and allowing my eyes to glaze over as he authorized the return. The customer thanked my manager, saccharine-sweet. I refused to look at her until she was gone.

The thing you should know about me is that I’m not a nice person. People are often shocked to hear me say this. They tend to rush to my defense, which I suppose is a good thing. But my temper runs hot, and without full-time work or health insurance, I’m Prozac-less. I was much closer to yelling back at that Karen than she probably realized. Most people are good, but not me.

Most people are good. I adopted this mantra on January 7th, 2026, an hour before thirty-seven-year-old Renee Good was murdered by ICE in South Minneapolis. Four ICE agents in two vehicles approached her red Honda Pilot that was blocking the road. As she attempted to steer away from the scene, three shots were fired into her car. Her vehicle continued to move and crashed into a light pole several feet down the street. ICE obstructed a bystander who tried to offer medical care.

A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson claimed that Good had “committed an act of domestic terrorism” that morning.

Renee Good was a poet, wife, and mother of three. She was murdered by ICE, whose stated mission is to “preserve national security and protect public safety.”

Renee Good was murdered, and Minneapolis is grieving.

At 3 p.m. on January 7th, an unkempt, middle-aged man in gray sweatpants enters the bookstore I work at in the twelfth biggest mall in the world. I’m at the cash wrap today, and though I tend to have tunnel vision up here, I notice him immediately. He makes a beeline for the café in the back of the store and disappears from my line of sight.

I remember a statistic I heard years ago about the mall I work at being one of the most likely places in the country to be bombed. I haven’t been able to confirm any stat of this nature, but it sounds plausible enough—around 32 million people visit there annually. That’s 32 million personalities, 32 million motives.

The man strides back the way he came, out of the bookstore and toward the Starbucks across the rotunda. Again, I recall the bomb statistic that may or may not be true, and it freezes my blood. My manager follows him up to the front, the store phone pressed firmly to his ear.

Mall security apprehends the man and walks him back to our store. There was no bomb after all, just half a dozen pastries shoved down his sweatpants. 

I let out an almost-audible exhale. Why was I so quick to assume the worst of this man?

Three hours later, while I’m still at the register, a thirtysomething man with dark stubble enters the store. He alerts my fellow cashier and me that ICE agents are stationed at the IKEA across the street, as well as the west entrance to the mall. He tells us to make sure we have our IDs ready as we leave today. I’m not sure whether to believe him, but either way, I’m parked near the east entrance. 

My stomach turns uneasy somersaults for the rest of the day. I keep seeing Renee Good’s murderer in my mind’s eye, or my imagined version of him. I don’t know what he looks like without a mask obscuring his face.

Most people are good, I tell myself, but perhaps most people are cowards is more accurate.

What most surprised me, after the 2024 election, was how quickly millions of people buckled over, deciding that Trump wasn’t so bad after all. When Michelle Obama appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live in December of 2025 to eulogize Rob Reiner, she lauded Reiner for his courage to stand up to Trump “in a time when there’s not a lot of courage going on.”

The average American, I suspect, believes they would have stood up against the Nazis or for the abolition of slavery. A past version of me might have believed them.

I imagine someone like Renee Good’s murderer entering the bookstore I work at in the twelfth-biggest mall in the world. I imagine them pulling a gun on me because I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. I imagine them shooting me in the face because I looked at them funny, or was slow ringing up their items, or couldn’t return their puzzle.

There was a meme floating around the other day that said: Me moving around at the stoplight so it’s harder for the guy I honked at to shoot me in the head. Someone had commented below that this was an “American-exclusive thought.” Ain’t that the fucking truth.

The world has become angrier in the last decade. HuffPost UK, Psychology Today, and The Guardian all have thinkpieces on the matter. We are isolated, broke, tired, and overwhelmed. How much of my anger is because I’m unmedicated and how much is justified given the world we live in? 

Up until I lost my full-time job last April, I had been on Prozac for over a decade. I wonder if the medication, while great for muffling my temper, also made me oblivious to the world as it is. But that can’t be true—I was pissed when Trump won the first time, too.

Our country has become so polarized. Media echo chambers, hyperindividualism, poor education, and fear of the “other” are just a few of the many reasons. “People literally live in different factiverses,” said Damien Smith Pfister, an associate professor at the University of Maryland, six years before the term “MAGA” was coined.

Most people are good. The friend I first heard utter those words is funny, humble, and wise. I admire her deeply. Most people are good … but a lot of them are ignorant, she had said. An important caveat.

I latched on to the “ignorant” part during Trump’s first presidency in order to make sense of what was happening in our country. The fearmongering, the lack of critical thinking, the biases in how many of us are taught American history. It clicked for me then—people weren’t evil or out to get me, they were just ignorant. I could be more understanding of that.

I meet my fair share of ignorant people at the bookstore. People who stare blankly when I tell them about our rewards program, their mouths flopping open like dead fish. People who are shocked we don’t sell microwaves, DVD players, or blacksmithing materials. People who lean over my counter at the cash wrap like it’s the bar and breathe chewing tobacco in my face. Ignorance.

I wonder how slippery the slope is between ignorance and evil. When does the Karen returning her puzzle go from being a bit entitled to morally reprehensible? And how long before the morally reprehensible person pulls a gun and shoots up the store?

How do these ICE agents justify their actions to themselves? Do they seriously believe shooting an unarmed, peacefully protesting woman is serving their country?

Ignorant vs. evil. Where do ICE agents fall on that spectrum? Is that even a question worth asking when the rhetoric they are spouting, the acts of violence they are committing, are so horrific?

Most people are good. But Renee Good was shot dead today, and our president has already tried to spin it like she was the villain.

Most people are good, I tell myself as I begin a group chat with friends to go protest on Saturday. 

Most people are good. I have to believe that. Because not believing it will break me.