He Posted a Video of a Woman Being Killed With a Hammer

I am going to set down this coffee pot and I am going to speak plainly, and I would ask that you hear me out before you say anything.

The President of the United States posted a video of a woman being beaten to death.

Unedited. Surveillance footage. A gas station in Fort Myers. A hammer. The whole thing.

Her name was Nilufa Easmin. She was fifty-one years old. She was a mother. She came from Bangladesh. She was killed at a gas station and the President put the video of it on the internet and used it to say we need to deport more people.

The platforms pulled it down. They said it was excessively gory. That is the standard we have arrived at — social media companies having to explain to the President of the United States that you cannot post a video of a woman being murdered.

I have been trying to think of the right words for this for about twenty minutes and I keep coming up short, so I will just say it straight: that woman deserved better than to have her death turned into a campaign prop. Her children deserved better. Whatever you think about immigration, whatever you think about anything — a mother died violently at a gas station and some man in Washington decided the best use of that was to put it on his feed and score points.

There is a word for people who do that. I was raised not to use it in public. I’ll keep to my raising.

She had a name. Nilufa Easmin. Say it once before you go.

I don’t have a sign-off today. Just say her name.