Fake Hate Crimes' Real Victims

On December 30, 2018, at 7a.m., near Houston, Texas, Jazmine Barnes was riding in a car with her mother and her three sisters when she was shot to death by a stranger. LaPorsha Washington, Jazmine's mother, was on a morning coffee run. She too had been shot, but she survived.

Washington gave an interview from her hospital bed, describing the unique and precious life that was taken that day. Jazmine was "so much fun”, a seven-year-old who would "boss everyone around…..The teachers loved her…. She brought so much joy and happiness to everybody around her. When she walks into a room, Jazmine is gonna kiss and hug everybody, even if she didn't know you."

Chris Cevilla, Jazmine's father, mourned that the "precious moments a father is supposed to experience with his daughter have been stolen from me … I'm not going to be able to see her graduate. Prom. None of that."

Jazmine's sister, Alxis Dilbert, and their mother described the shooter to police as a blue-eyed white man, driving a red pick-up truck. The face in the police sketch could be the poster model for any nightmare vision of an Aryan Nations boogeyman. His skin is pale. His clear, blue eyes are cold and merciless. His long, straight nose is thin; his nostrils delicate. His pale cheeks are hollow. The red pickup truck is the very vehicle the stereotype would require for a Southern, white supremacist. The only missing accoutrements are a Confederate flag and a MAGA hat.

Nation of Islam activist Deric Muhammad had insisted that a "white supremacist" murdered Jazmine. At a "Justice for Jazmine" rally, Muhammad asked, "Whose child?" In reply, the crowd chanted "Our child," multiple times. Rapper and activist A. J. McQueen demanded, "Let's talk about race! Imagine a baby girl. What if her first words were 'Please don't shoot'? Let's talk about race!"

When Jazmine Barnes was the victim of a white man, she was front page news. After January 6, 2019, when a black man was charged with Jazmine's murder, her name disappeared from the national conversation.

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