You Are Having The Wrong Conversation

Reactive Expertise.

This is what I call the impulse to speak with certainty in the aftermath of breaking news, driven more by urgency and group identity than by understanding.

If you are arguing about what happened between Renée Good and ICE, you are having the wrong conversation. And we are very good at having the wrong conversation in this country.

The details do matter. But unfortunately, for the majority of watchers and readers, the details only serve to confirm what they have already decided.

I come from an immigrant family. In my upcoming book, Culturally Unoffendable, I write about this experience and how it shaped my worldview. In my adult years, I now live in a community home made up mostly of first- and second-generation immigrant women. Five of the six of us. As you can imagine, we are very much having the right conversation in our house.

America’s immigration dysfunction has been decades in the making. Yet many, though not all, who are now raising their voices online and in public spaces had little engagement with immigration policy prior to the last two years.

• When Bush signed the Immigration Act (if you were old enough) were you engaged?

• When deportations reached historic highs under Obama, were you engaged?

• When Trump enforced restrictive policies during his first term, were you engaged?

• When border crossings surged to an all-time high under Biden, were you engaged?

• As Trump enacts deportations across the country, are you now engaged?

I’m not here to tell you what your engagement should have looked like, or even to claim that engagement would have moved the needle in the direction you prefer.

But I can say with confidence that it would have steadied how you respond in moments of heightened urgency like the one we are in now. If you recognize yourself in reactive expertise, it may be time to reevaluate how you engage with real-world issues.

Reactivity is not a strategy.

Rather, it plays into a pattern that reinforces confirmation bias, promotes foolish thinking, and fuels lazy impulse.

In the midst of this tragedy, no one can definitively state whether Renée Good was attempting to strike the ICE officer or leave the scene. And no one can definitively state whether the ICE officer intended to murder Renée Good or whether he panicked in fear, having been dragged fifty yards by a car months earlier. Though it should not be so, your charitability will like be determined by your politics.

But now, we are here. Fighting over the details of a tragedy that is a symptom of a decades-old problem rather than evaluating how we got here. Oh America, you are very good at this game.

Now I watch as headlines and easy narratives lead many civilians to become so entrenched in reactivity that they are willing to put their bodies in harm’s way, literally.

Again, reactivity is not a strategy.

As a first-generation Nigerian American, I am grateful for what this country has afforded my parents and me. In my book, I speak about how my father arrived in this country without even enough money to buy a winter coat. He worked his way through school by taking overnight janitorial shifts, and ultimately he and my mother rebuilt a new life through sheer determination and the grace of God.

I wish for many to have the fresh start my parents found in this country. But I know this requires structure, clarity, stewardship, and durable solutions. It requires legal immigration that is just, well-governed, and accessible.

I don’t claim to have all the answers on this, and even with my limited knowledge of immigration history, I am no expert. What I can say with confidence is that our media has trained us well to be lightly informed and highly emotional, speaking without insight, wisdom, or a path forward. Living in extremes.

I urge you to reconsider how you respond to moments like this. These moments are not just informing us. They are forming us.

If we want fewer of these episodes, we need to unplug from the steady stream of narratives and root ourselves in discernment, humility, and the willingness to examine not only the broader historical context, but most importantly, our own hearts.

That work is slower, and it does not reward outrage. But it is worth it.

“Zeal without knowledge is not good, and whoever makes haste with his feet misses his way.”

Proverbs 19:2