The story of 19-year-old Sade Robinson is hard to hear. And Robinson will never get to tell it. She went missing after a date with 34-year-old Maxwell Anderson, who has since been found guilty of her murder and dismemberment. Robinson lived and lost her life in Wisconsin, where Black women are 20 times more likely to be murdered than white women. Her story isn’t an anomaly. Black femicide is a present-day crisis.
Robinson’s mother, Sheena Scarborough, had supported the mother of Joniah Walker, another missing teenager who worked at the same pizza place as her daughter. Little did she know, Robinson would disappear, too.
In 2022, 40% of all 550,000 missing women and girls in the U.S. were Black, despite being only 7% of the population. Smaller Black populations, “especially tense” Black Lives Matter protests, and highly concentrated socioeconomic struggle partially contextualize Black femicides in the Midwest.
The criminal legal system has not prevented or even appropriately interrupted this epidemic. When Robinson’s friends and co-workers first reported her missing, her mother wasn’t notified for days. Maxwell Anderson has prior convictions for domestic violence. The system incarcerates and abuses Black women, many of whom are survivors of misogynistic violence.
We can't rely on a system that kills us to end Black femicide. Envisioning alternatives isn't a thought experiment but a mandatory prerequisite for tangible action. What accountability, protection, education, and defense systems can we create to actually do that work?