On Renee Nicole Good

Robert L Arnold
Jan 08, 2026
What gets lost when power rushes to justify itself is the ordinary truth of a life.

A mother of three does not live inside abstractions. She lives inside crumbs and corners.

The inside of Renee Nicole Good’s car does not look like a weapon. There’s evidence, evidence of love stretched thin across busy days. A stuffed animal shoved into the glove box because there was nowhere else to put it. Snack wrappers on the floor from backseat negotiations … of still being hungry, and “can we stop after school”. Crumbs pressed deep into seat crevasses from granola bars broken in half with one hand while steering with the other. A mismatched water bottle rolling under the seat. A forgotten library book. A receipt she meant to keep. A reminder note she meant to read.

That kind of chaos isn’t that of a menace.

It’s parenthood.

It’s the quiet archaeology of a life spent showing up … over and over … when no one is applauding. It’s the smell of sunscreen and stale coffee. The echo of arguments that ended in laughter. The residue of carpools and drop-offs and apologies for being late again.

That is not what violence looks like.

And yet the federal government chose a word that erases all of that.

They chose terrorist.

“Terrorist” is a word meant to flatten humanity. It strips away context, intention, interior life. It allows the listener to stop imagining the person as a person at all. Once the word is spoken, the crumbs disappear. The stuffed animals vanish. The children become inconvenient footnotes.

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https://open.substack.com/pub/defiance13/p/on-renee-nicole-good