PHOTO COURTESY BY CBS NEWS

Security footage before attack.

Last month, a brutal stabbing took place on a light rail car in Charlotte, North Carolina and it has since become the newest national talking point in the Trump administration’s ongoing efforts to ‘clean up’ crime in cities all over the nation. 

Iryna Zarutska, a Ukrainian refugee, was allegedly stabbed to death by a man named Decarlos Brown with a pocket knife minutes after Zarutska boarded the light rail, where she was later pronounced dead at the scene when medical personnel arrived. 

Why has this particular case drawn so much attention and conversation? 

Especially considering the fact that according to data from the CDC, there were 22,830 confirmed homicides in the U.S. in 2023, the most recent year that a comprehensive study of homicide deaths in the country has been published. 

The answer to that is two fold, one being that it took place in a ‘blue’ city and the other being that a white woman was allegedly killed by a black assailant. 

This is a double whammy for the Trump administration in their ongoing efforts to ‘clean up’ liberal-run cities and decrease the rates of violent crime while also allowing online ‘news’ organizations and podcasters on platforms like X to spread the message that there is a ‘war on white people.’ 

Obviously, cases like this are nothing new to the realm of political spectacle. 

The use of real life tragedy to push narratives and stoke the flames of division in our country is a real problem that breeds further mistrust and fear in American communities and creates the type of national conversations that result in ‘strong-man’ candidates like Trump being elected on the promise of keeping American citizens safe from those who seek to harm them. 

While not purely a racial issue, it is a common theme to see the murder of white citizens, particularly white women, at the hands of black or brown men being especially heightened in their coverage by certain publications and further amplified by members of the administration that most closely align themselves with those publication’s ideologies. 

It is obvious to anyone that senseless violence is wrong and perpetrators should be punished accordingly, but the reality of cases like these is tragedies quickly becoming hyper-politicized anecdotes that are hammered home over and over as justification for the policies and legislation that must be enacted soon in order to prevent further tragedies in the future. 

Online personalities and politicians can occupy the ‘moral high-ground’ by denouncing acts of violence to further their own agendas and continue to stoke division and easily defend themselves from any potential pushback by accusing those outspoken critics for being ‘pro-crime’ or ‘woke’ which only furthers the aforementioned division. 

These conversations often center around the ‘care’ that pundits and politicians have for the victims, only for their names to stop being mentioned once the news cycle moves on to the next topic. 

The nature of the 24 hour news cycle serves to create a media frenzy that works itself up, further isolates Americans from their communities and ultimately does little to address the underlying issues that result in violent crimes like poverty, poor mental health services. 

It is much easier to make blanket statements of liberal cities being hellscapes where the residents walk around in war zones in constant fear for their lives than it is to accurately portray the reality of these often nuanced situations.  

We live in an algorithm driven world and the headlines that get the most clicks are the ones that will be published, no matter the context. 

Victims of violent crimes should not be solely used as talking points and later cast aside, because they are people, not pawns. 

For every anecdote, their are grieving families and loved ones who must field calls, messages and harassment online and in person. 

This is not to say that violent crimes should not be covered at all, but rather that more careful and responsible coverage must be applied if we ever wish to see a return to a time when things in this country did not feel so divided along political lines. 

But of course, that’s just one man’s opinion. 

Categories: Opinion