When Women’s Murders Are Hijacked: How Race, Politics, and Silence Derail the Fight Against Male Violence

Too often, when a woman is murdered, the conversation shifts quickly away from her life, her safety, and the systemic failures that left her vulnerable. Instead, certain men hijack the tragedy and redirect it into their own culture wars. They are loud, but they bring no solutions—only rage.

Take the awful and horrific murders of two immigrant women. 

Dr. Talat Jehan Khan and Iryna Zarutska

Similarities

• Both Dr. Talat Jehan Khan, a Pakistani-American pediatrician, and Iryna Zarutska, a Ukrainian woman, were brutally murdered in the United States.

• Both were attacked in or near what should have been safe spaces—their homes and communities. Dr Talat Jehan Khan lived in gated community and did not know the attacker. No connection. She left behind a teenage daughter and a young son in his early 20’s. She was very proud of both of her children. The family of Iryna Zarutska continues to call for justice. 

• Both were killed by men (stranger to them) who were later found to be suffering from serious mental health issues.

• Their deaths left not only grieving families but also communities searching for answers about safety, protection, and systemic failures.

  

  Our sincere and deep condolences. These women came here to live out their dreams and share their talents. Instead, they encountered violence. May they now find rest and peace. May their families be comforted. May the rest of us continue to reach solutions to the violence.

Circumstances

• Dr. Talat Jehan Khan was sitting outside her apartment complex in Texas when she was suddenly attacked and stabbed to death by Miles Joseph Fridrich, a stranger later found incompetent to stand trial due to mental illness.

• Iryna Zarutska was killed on public transportation by Decarlos Brown Jr. hovering behind her and above her, who suffered from schizophrenia and had a long history of hallucinations, paranoia, and delusional thinking. At the time she was engaged in reading something on her phone. Something most of us do-almost without thinking- everyday. I don’t even think that she knew that Decarlos was there….until it was too late. The image of her trying to make herself small, disappear into the seat is a haunting image. She was trapped. It seemed to happen within seconds. 

Exploitation of Iryna Zarutska’s Case

Unlike Dr. Khan’s murder, Zarutska’s death became heavily politicized online:

• Racial symbolism exploited: Photos circulated of an alleged “Black Lives Matter” poster in her living space. Instead of focusing on her humanity, this symbol was weaponized to inflame racial narratives.

• Disturbing video statement exploited: Reports that her killer said, “I got that white girl,” were magnified online to frame her death as solely a racial issue.

• Political and ideological manipulation: Conservative figures who used the tragedy to attack urban crime policies, immigration, and judicial decisions—diverting attention from male violence and systemic mental health failures.

• Targeting the judge: Judge Teresa Stokes, a Black woman, faced racialized scrutiny simply for doing her job—an exploitation tactic that further hijacked the discourse.

The Deeper Issue

When men redirect women’s tragedies into rage-driven culture wars, they offer no solutions. They are not working to stop the violence. They are simply fueling anger, division, and distraction. Meanwhile there is also no additional funding for women’s services, protection, healing, restoration, ……not a doggone thing. Not here nor abroad. 

And too many women in community with these men remain reluctant to name male violence in their own homes, churches, schools, and neighborhoods—yet are quick to join the buses of blame, pointing fingers at race, politics, or immigration. This is a continuation of old patterns, moving as if it is still 1859 in America, when women’s voices were minimized and their suffering used as fodder for other battles.

Why We Must Resist Hijacking

We will never get to the root causes of women’s deaths—mental health failures, lack of safety, lack of gun control, male violence—if we allow these tragedies to be hijacked. Every time the focus is shifted, solutions drift further away.

Women deserve more than to be remembered as symbols in someone else’s political war. They deserve truth, protection, and prevention.

Women can’t afford to be passengers on those buses to nowhere. To deserts with no food, water, or concern for our health and well-being. Violence against women requires answers that protect women and children in real time, not endless diversions that blame racism or politics while ignoring the men who commit the violence.

What’s even more heartbreaking is how some women, standing in community with these men, become shy about naming the dangers within their own homes, churches, schools, and neighborhoods. They are reluctant to call out racist stokers or male violence where it lives and breathes—right next to them. Yet they will climb aboard the bus of blame, riding past the truth while carrying signs that say nothing about prevention, safety, or change.

This is not new. This is America moving like it is still 1859, with women expected to stay quiet while men fight their battles on the backs of women’s blood. But the cost is unbearable. We lose daughters, sisters, mothers, and neighbors—while the solutions we need get drowned out in the noise of misplaced rage.

I am not saying anything that hasn’t already been said. This is an old school truth. 

Across generations, Black women have called out the pattern of silence:

• White women too often protect their proximity to white male power.

• They remain quiet about violence or harm when it comes from white men, while being vocal about injustices when it’s politically convenient or when men of color are the accused.

Historical Voices

• Sojourner Truth (1851, “Ain’t I a Woman?”)
  She pointed out that white women’s calls for rights often left Black women behind—and that white women rarely confronted white men’s role in both slavery and violence against Black women.

• Ida B. Wells (late 1800s – early 1900s)
  In her anti-lynching campaigns, she called out white women for staying silent—or worse, complicit—when white men used false accusations about Black men to justify lynchings, while ignoring the sexual violence white men inflicted on Black women.

Civil Rights & Feminist Era

• Audre Lorde (1979, “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House”)
  She directly critiqued white feminists for refusing to confront white male power, choosing instead to focus only on gender issues that affected white women.

• bell hooks (1981, Ain’t I a Woman?)
  She consistently challenged white women’s feminism for failing to confront white patriarchy, especially the violence perpetuated by white men, and for ignoring racism as part of women’s oppression.

• Angela Davis (1981, Women, Race, & Class)
  She documented how white suffragists often aligned themselves with white men rather than challenge their violence, and how white women’s silence around white male violence perpetuated harm against Black communities.

Contemporary Voices

• Brittney Cooper (2018, Eloquent Rage)
  She explicitly challenges white women for standing with white men politically (e.g., voting patterns) while claiming solidarity with women’s rights.

• Tarana Burke (founder of #MeToo)
  Has noted how white women in power were often silent about sexual violence when white men were perpetrators, until high-profile cases (like Harvey Weinstein) forced it into mainstream conversation.

• Mikki Kendall (2020, Hood Feminism)
  She critiques white women for ignoring violence—both systemic and interpersonal—that comes from white men, while expecting Black women to rally for feminist causes that don’t protect Black lives.

Until we deal with this and confront it will be here waiting for us.