Recommendations of the Editorial team
Dave Matthews has the Trump administration and ICE after the shooting of Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis sharply attacked: “I don’t like these monsters who are currently running the show.”
In a lengthy video message posted on the Dave Matthews Band’s official social media channels and recorded on Friday, the singer’s birthday, South African-born Matthews began by saying how “grateful” he was for his community and neighbors.
“I think about how lucky I’ve been in my life, here in this country. And then I think about how I pay that back, and I pay it back with taxes. They can raise my taxes as far as I’m concerned,” Matthews said.
Gratitude, taxes and public spending
“But – big but, big juicy but – that only applies if they spend my taxes on bridges and the national parks and maintaining the highways, the libraries, raising the minimum wage, paying nurses, free college for people who can’t afford it, free health care, things that are sensible. School lunches, for heaven’s sake.”
Matthews then made it clear what his tax dollars should not be used for. “I don’t want my taxes to be used to invade foreign countries based on false pretenses, kidnap presidents to steal their natural resources, and threaten to do the same to other countries by claiming that sovereign nations are somehow ours,” Matthews said, calling the current administration “overbearing and disgusting.”
Criticism of ICE and state violence
“I don’t want my taxes going to ICE, masked thugs roaming our streets, terrorizing our communities and tearing families apart. We should care for each other. We should look out for each other. And we should house the homeless. We shouldn’t throw people to the ground.”
The singer then spoke about Good, the 37-year-old woman who was shot by a masked ICE agent earlier this week, as well as the Trump administration’s response to the shooting.
The Renee Nicole Good case
“And that brings me to Renee Nicole Good. Murdered in front of her fellow citizens in Minneapolis, murdered on the street. And no matter what narrative this government tries to sell us, we can see the videos,” Matthews said.
Analysis of the video recordings
“Maybe if they showed you one and slowed it down and told you where to look, you might think, maybe there’s a chance, maybe there’s a chance that the shooter felt threatened. But from most angles, up close and from a distance, it looks like she tried to escape and he shot her three times in the head, murdered in cold blood.”
Sharp reckoning with the government
The singer continued: “This government, these people trying to tell us not to believe what we see. This is so cruel. I don’t understand how you can say [Good] rammed their cars or attacked them. Nothing indicates that. And it is astounding and deeply disturbing. For me and for so many people, and we can’t just let this pass.”
Matthews then named senior members of the Trump administration, calling them all “just deeply, deeply dishonest people. Cowardly, shameful. Fuck you. They’re disgusting.” He ended his video message with a sentiment shared by other artists following Good’s death: “These are dark times. Fuck ICE.”