WHEN SEEING BECOMES AN ACT OF DEFIANCE

There are moments when a single death feels heavier than death itself—when it becomes a symbol, a question mark burned into the public conscience. The murder of Rene Nicole Good is one of those moments. Not only because a life was taken, but because of what followed: the silence, the distortion, the insistence that we look away from what our own eyes and instincts tell us is wrong.

Authoritarianism does not always arrive in boots and banners. More often, it comes softly, wearing the language of order, safety, and expertise. It asks for trust while dismantling accountability. It does not demand belief outright—it conditions it. It repeats its version of events until exhaustion replaces scrutiny, until doubt feels impolite, even dangerous.

What we should fear is not merely violence, but the erasure that follows it. When a government insists that its narrative supersedes lived reality, it is not asking for agreement—it is rehearsing obedience. “Believe only what we say, not what you see” is not a slogan of democracy; it is the oldest reflex of power afraid of the truth.

The danger is not that lies are told. Lies have always existed. The danger is when lies are institutionalized—when they are delivered with the authority of law, amplified by compliant media, and insulated from challenge by accusations of disloyalty. At that point, truth becomes a subversive act, and memory itself is treated as a threat.

History teaches us that authoritarian systems do not begin by banning speech; they begin by ridiculing it. They do not begin by imprisoning dissenters; they begin by discrediting them. They do not begin by denying reality; they begin by reframing it—selectively, strategically—until reality feels negotiable.

What happened to Rene Nicole Good forces us to confront a harder truth: that citizenship is not a passive status. It is an obligation. A democracy cannot survive on compliance alone; it requires friction. It requires citizens who are willing to sit with discomfort, to ask questions that have no immediate answers, and to resist the seduction of easy narratives.

Resistance does not always look like protest. Sometimes it looks like remembering. Sometimes it looks like refusing to repeat a lie, even when it would be simpler. Sometimes it looks like saying, quietly but firmly, “That is not what I see.”

The strength to resist begins internally. It begins with intellectual humility—the willingness to admit uncertainty—paired with moral courage—the refusal to surrender judgment. Authoritarianism feeds on fear and fatigue. It withers in the presence of clarity and solidarity.

We should fear any government that treats skepticism as betrayal, grief as inconvenience, and truth as a managed resource. But fear alone is not enough. Fear must sharpen resolve, not paralyze it.

A free society is not defined by the absence of power, but by the presence of limits—limits enforced by citizens who understand that democracy is not something handed down, but something held up, daily, by vigilance.

If they want us to believe only what they say and not what we see, then seeing clearly becomes an act of defiance. And remembering—especially those they would rather we forget—becomes an act of justice.