And many did-both demanding that justice be served while expressing their disbelief that such a story hadn’t gained national attention in the same way that Laci Peterson's or JonBenét Ramsey's had. My community of black women were grieving yet again.Īs we grappled with the realities of Nia’s death, I began to use Instagram to facilitate a discussion and flesh out questions like: How many more black women and girls must die before mainstream media considers it a worthy story to cover? How could they possibly take away her white male murderer so gently in handcuffs, while black men are thrown to the ground during traffic stops? Why aren’t the recorded wails of her mother and the tears of her father enough for the whole world to be demanding justice right now? And where are the voices of all my white feminist friends when a black woman had been tragically murdered?Īlmost immediately, at my request, hundreds of commenters asked the white women who they saw as friends and leaders to use their platform to highlight the tragedy of Nia’s death with the same outrage of their black feminist allies.
When I heard about the tragic murder of 18-year-old Nia Wilson, who was stabbed to death in an unprovoked attack in Oakland last month, I could feel my heart begin to bleed.