This practitioner research study examines one critical race media literacy (CRML) activity that invited students to digitally redact deficit framings of youth from minoritized and historically marginalized backgrounds. I illustrate how Latinx and Asian students used the project to re-articulate deficit narratives of themselves, their friends, and family members. I also convey how white students used the assignment to author incipient identities as racial allies. Based on these findings, I develop the notion of "legitimate digital participation" to distill how young people used CRML to craft more humanizing cultural narratives and self-determined political identities.