A Matter of Love & Death: Black Women & Dating Violence

In 2021, 23-year-old Lauren Smith-Fields died in her Connecticut apartment in December after a date with a man she had met on Bumble. More than a month later, the police opened a criminal investigation. After one confusing story after another, what happened that night, as well as her cause of death is still unclear. The mother of Lauren Smith-Fields recently announced that she is suing the city of Bridgeport, Connecticut, alleging her daughter was denied a detailed investigation. As if being a Black woman isn’t already a difficult feat, new research shows that Black women, like Smith-Fields, are under attack – especially if she is in or seeking a relationship. Black women are four times more likely to be murdered by their lover than white women, according to a Bureau of Justice Statistics report. More research by the Violence Policy Center found similar unfortunate statistics – Black women were murdered at more than twice the rate of white women. RELATED: Beyond Skin Deep: What You Must Know About Intimate Partner Violence Fifty-seven percent of those killings were done by, again, their partners. “African Americans are disproportionately low income, and statistically, folks who live in low-income environments show higher rates for...