Why is true crime still #SoWhite?

well, you probably know, but we should talk about it

This week’s newsletter is inspired by journalist and true crime author Rod Stodghill’s question in an op-ed for the Los Angeles Times this week,¹ a question that manages to be both perpetual and urgent: Why is the true crime genre still so white?

The essay details Stodghill’s 2001 reporting on the murder of a Black “Gatsby-esque” millionaire in Atlanta, with “a slew of spurned mistresses and business rivals” as suspects. The eventual book, despite this irresistible premise, had a hard time finding a home, and I must admit I hadn’t heard of, much less seen, last year’s adaptation starring Taye Diggs. Stodghill identifies the likely reason why: “an all-Black cast: victim, suspects, witnesses and district attorney.”

The rest of Stodghill’s powerful opinion piece details the troubling rationale behind (white audiences “don’t identify enough” with Black characters, that is, Black people) and impact of (Black victims continue to be both over-stigmatized and underserved by police and the media) the dearth of Black representation in true crime.

The essay’s call to action is worth quoting in full:

It’s time for true crime to catch up to reality, end its whitewashing and hire more writers, directors and producers of color. They can broaden the industry’s view of American life and its criminal underbelly — and who that underbelly hurts and murders.

I couldn’t agree more. It’s not just about elevating stories where the victims are of color (throwing a quick glance at Killers of the Flower Moon here), but funding, promoting, and writing about true crime texts that are generated from creators of color. I’m tasking myself with being more mindful of this important distinction in my writing here and elsewhere, and to that end, here are a few properties that I hope conform to Stodghill’s criteria.

I bang the drum for James Baldwin’s The Evidence of Things Not Seen, Yance Ford’s Strong Island, and the podcasts of Connie Walker on the reg, but here are a few others that have stood out to me in the past few years:

• The Empty Grave of Comrade Bishop follows host Martine Powers’s investigation into the 40-year-old mystery of where the executed revolutionary leader Maurice Bishop’s body lies, and how the U.S. is, of course, imperialistically implicated.

• If you dove into Best Evidence’s Best of 2023 series (which you should! so many good recs to be found), you know that everyone loves You Didn’t See Nothin. Join the chorus, why don’t you?

• A couple of years ago, one of my favorite (though harrowing) listens was Through the Cracks, which traces Jonquilyn Hill’s look at the disappearance of Relisha Rudd. I found it through this feed, which is a great source for under-the-radar pods.

• The first two seasons of This Land are exceptional. I hope there are more!

• If you’re in more of a reading mood, Invisible: The Forgotten Story of the Black Woman Lawyer Who Took Down America’s Most Powerful Mobster was so good I gave it to my dad for Christmas! Also, The Other Wes Moore is usually shelved as a memoir (of the current Governor of Maryland), but it is also a sharp critique of how neighborhoods of color are simultaneously over- and underpoliced. And even though not all of the essays in Jesmyn Ward’s Men We Reaped detail the deaths of Black men from specific crimes, taken as a whole this powerful and beautifully written lament is an autopsy of the way weathering unjustly erodes lives unjustly marginalized by racist policies and practices.

I’d love to hear more recommendations in the comments!

1. Thanks to Friend of the Newsletter Nat for calling my attention to this piece!