Black Deaths Matter: #BlackLivesMatter and True Crime Storytelling

Content Warning: murder/extreme violence, anti-Black violence, anti-Black racism

Last summer, Nia Wilson was stabbed and murdered in front of her sister Letifah (also stabbed) at a BART station in San Francisco. At 18 years old, Nia bled out at the station with Letifah by her side. Nia’s is a story of gendered violence, but importantly racialized violence. Nia’s case reminds us that it’s not just the patriarchy that produces toxic masculinity but white supremacy & whiteness that condition that violence, as well.

from @ms.unfathomable

In November of 2017, I wrote a blog post about Feminism in True Crime communities. I explored, on a topical level, how popular true crime spaces have begun centering women and reclaiming narratives of violence. I ended my last blog post with the idea that true crime is ultimately stories about toxic and violent masculinity. Thus, there seems to be some inherent link between the act of sharing true crime stories and feminist resistance. However, as with nearly all corners of feminism in the United States, white women have centered our/their stories and voices above those of others. The salient and pressing question that faces feminists interested in true crime is: where is the potential for feminist community-building in these spaces? And what kind of work will it require to get there?

I posited some broad answers to these big questions at the end of my first blog post. But, I want to circle back specifically to the murders of women of color who often disappear without the attention or care of some supposedly-feminist true crime circles. There is a tendency in true crime spaces to categorize white deaths as tragic and undeserved, yet those of people of color (particularly those of black and indigenous women) as political. I want to explore how the pillars and work of the Black Lives Matter movement can also apply to the narratives perpetuated in true crime communities. Making sure that all stories are given attention, outrage, respect, time, and scrutiny is a necessary (and a very overdue) step towards more feminist true crime communities.

Black Lives Matter’s (BLM) name delivers a concise, unapologetic proclamation. The name--imagined and stated first by Alicia Garza, Opal Tometi, and Patrisse Cullors--was formed in response to the personal and political valorization of white bodies & lives above all others. In particular, the black community in the U.S. has been reminded time and time again that their lives are disposable the U.S. government. BLM’s crucial work sheds light on how black and brown bodies are targeted for death, while white supremacist logic facilitates both the erasure and fetishization of black trauma. BLM responds most often to cases of police brutality against black folks across the States. However, their core principle is affirming the value of black lives while recognizing the pain & injustice of the loss. Not only can this principle be translated to how murder and loss is discussed in dominant true crime circles, but needs to be integrated into frameworks for how feminists understand true crime and the importance of trauma storytelling.

From left to right: Patrisse Cullors, Alicia Garza, and Opal Tometi. Photo from Politico.

One tenet of BLM’s praxis is critically examining the discursive impossibility of white guilt. Broken down, BLM and many other activists of color articulate that, in the U.S., whiteness & innocence are so tied up (and accordingly blackness & guilt) that white perpetrators are always shown as more human than black victims. In cases of police brutality, news outlets, politicians, and citizens (particularly white people) make the move to view the murderer (police officer) as a victim of circumstance and public criticism while also situating the black victim as having somehow warranted the escalated violence. In the case of Michael Brown--a teenager murdered in 2014––white voices predominantly offered sympathetic reads of Darren Wilson (the shooter) while concurrently suggesting that Brown had a gun (read: a reason to be killed).

True crime stories are bound up in the white supremacist narratives of innocence and guilt that allow the murder and imprisonment of black and brown folks every day. These are the same narratives that allowed Ted Bundy to be seen as nonthreatening by one of his judges, giving him enough free reign during his trial to escape. White people in the U.S. are more concerned with making sure that white serial killers are treated fairly than they are with honoring the lives of black victims. White people mourn more for the loss of a perpetrator’s potential future than a black victim’s life. Even further, true crime circles traffic a fascination with white guilt that can exist precisely because of a disbelief in the possibility of it to begin with. Think: how could somebody like Ted Bundy (white, conventionally attractive, successful) be the murdering monster of the narrative? It’s not a coincidence that true crime enthusiasts hear/speak more about Ted Bundy than Nia Wilson.

Black Lives Matter and true crime storytelling seem to (or should) share two basic missions: honoring the lives of victims and seeking justice. Nia Wilson never got to build the future she imagined for herself -- just like JonBenét Ramsey and Tamir Rice. What true crime feminists insist on is the power of storytelling: reclaiming the narrative, centering victims & their lives, and holding perpetrators of violence accountable. While BLM is much more than simply speaking about the interpersonal and state violence black people experience in the U.S., it does promote the ethos of recognizing pain in communities dedicated to feminist justice. I believe that decentering whiteness in true crime storytelling necessitates a new framework -- one that acknowledges, but does not fetishize, black trauma; one that actively and unapologetically seeks justice; one that sees anger as a powerful tool of mobilizing; one that insists that we #SayHerName. True crime spaces must affirm that black deaths matter, too.

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LINKS:

Doreen St. Félix’s “The Very American Killing of Nia Wilson”

About, Black Lives Matter

“Uses of Anger” from Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde

The Fall Line Podcast