#DrivingWhileBlack Will "Road Rage" Be the New Lynching?

Image of Bianca Roberson, a beautiful female presenting African
-American teen with long wavy black hair, smiling. She is holding a
white rose bud Image Credit from GoFundMe
Yesterday, Chester County Police announced that 18-year-old Bianca Nikol Roberson was shot in the head by a white man driving a pickup truck. Her body was discovered by police on Wednesday. They are calling it a horrific act of road rage. The West Goshem Township Police Department has released a screenshot of the suspect's truck from traffic camera footage. The suspect is still at large.

A fundraising page has been opened to help the family with burial costs:


Nabra Hassanen, a vibrant beautiful teen of color
wearing a beige hijab laughing with a friend
a Snapchat crown of flowers around her head.
On Sunday June 17th, Nabra Hassanen was walking home from an IHOP  sahur ( or suhoor if you aren't Turkish) meal after prayers at her local mosque when she was stalked, attacked, abducted and brutally murdered by Darwin Martinez Torres, who was arrested within the hour.  The police have called this crime a horrific act of road rage. The heartbreakingly moving opinion piece Nabra Hassanen and the Lost Innocence of Ramadan IHOP nights, by Sahar Habib Ghazi states things better than I can:

"Police say their investigation “in no way indicates the victim was targeted because of her race or religion.” But whether her killer’s actions are officially characterized as “road rage” or ever described as a “hate crime” won’t change the fact that Muslim spaces — the religious ones and the ones we’ve created — are increasingly under attack. And visibly Muslim women, especially Muslim women of color, are the most vulnerable."
Is this the new response to violence against young womyn of color? Will each attack be labeled "road rage" in the hope that it will always involve a car? Would these young women be alive if they were white?

What would have happened if no one had intervened in the verbal assault of another Black teen young womyn and her Muslim friend in hijab on an express train in Portland? Would the man have attacked them with the knife he used to kill and severely injure the good Samaritans who stepped in to protect them? Would that have been called an act of road rage because it happened on a train?

No one is asking these questions. The reason may be that perhaps a country that is being overwhelmed with the destruction of civil liberties cannot stand to look in the national mirror of overt racism staring back at them.

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