Opinion writers for mainstream outlets are struggling with the recent kidnaping and murder of a woman jogger in Memphis. A good example is Margaret Renkl writing in the New York Times today. Ms. Renkl describes herself as a “writer who covers flora, fauna, politics and culture in the American South.”
The piece is titled The Killing of Eliza Fletcher Is a Tragedy, Not a Morality Play and she attempts to show that the right is attempting to take advantage of the tragedy.
She calls out people for tweeting “say her name” aware of the irony writing “as though Black women aren’t raped and killed every single day without making national news.” Its Twitter. Why so defensive? She also explains that Breonna Taylor was killed by the police and Fletcher was killed by a lone killer. I don’t understand her point but maybe my few but cherished readers will. Note that what people on the right Tweet is representative of the right in general.
She gave the facts associated with the victim and the alleged killer indicating that she was white, and he was black. A person from Barbados in the article comments pointed out the capitalizing black and not capitalizing white makes little sense.
She makes claims without evidence. Renkl writes that the online reaction to the mass killing in Memphis five days after Eliza Fletcher was killed, was “far more muted” than the single murder. She presents no evidence and clearly does not follow the same people I do. She does state a fact: violent crime in Memphis “for the first six months of this year was down 6.1 percent from the same period in 2021.” She has no problem invoking race but chastises the “right” for mentioning it. She does not mention that whites are far more likely to be killed by blacks than blacks being killed by whites.
She fails to show that anyone of note is making a morality play out of the murder. Her last sentence proves the pointlessness of her essay.
“Random things happen. Terrible, unbearable, irrevocable things happen, and sometimes we have no possible way to avoid them.”