Black Muslim Teen Found Lynched in A Tree in Washington State

In this age of anti-muslim and anti-Black rhetoric coming from the Trump administration, we are now seeing the deadly results of this propaganda. In Washington state, the body of an 18 year old Black teen, Ben Keita was found hanging from a tree in a wooded area of Lake Stevens in January after he went missing two months before.

Initially the medical examiner determined his death was a suicide, a ruling that Keita’s family disagreed with.

“Ben was very happy young man,” dad Ibrahimi Keita told KOMO News. “He was already in the running start program going to Everett Community College. No history of depression or anxiety.”

It is common for authorities to lie and cover up these types of anti-Black lynchings by claiming the victims “committed suicide.” But the medical examiner in Keita’s case would later change the cause of death to undetermined because the rope used to hang the teen was tied 50 feet high in the tree. Also a search in that same area where the lynching occurred did not turn up anything.

So the questions that the Melanoid community must ask, is will these Jim Crow style lynchings continue to increase under this re-energized, openly white supremacist system? And what should Melanoid people do about it?