Mollie Tibbetts’ Family Rebukes GOP Politicizing Her Death: ‘We Hereby Reclaim Our Mollie’
STATEMENT FROM MOLLIE TIBBETTS’S FAMILY:
“No.
No, no and no.
Especially for those of you who did not know her in life, you do not get to usurp Mollie and her legacy for your racist, false narrative now that she is no longer with us. We hereby reclaim our Mollie.” pic.twitter.com/axnhHKHIJI
— Kaivan Shroff (@KaivanShroff) August 27, 2018
A relative of murdered Iowa girl Mollie Tibbetts implored people to stop using her death as part of an argument against illegal immigration.
“Especially for those of you who did not know her in life, you do not get to usurp Mollie and her legacy for your racist, false narrative now that she is no longer with us,” Sandi Tibbetts Murphy, who The Washington Post identified as Mollie’s cousin, wrote Friday. “We hereby reclaim our Mollie.”
“Mollie was killed, and a man has been arrested and charged with her murder,” she continued. “Yes, that man is an immigrant to this country, with uncertainty as to his legal status. But it matters not… He is a man, whose path in life crossed that of Mollie’s life, with tragic results.”
“Mollie was murdered because a man denied her right to say no,” she added. “Our national discussion needs to be about the violence committed in our society, mostly by men.”
She went on to list a few statistics about violence committed by men and to again censure anyone, politician or otherwise, who would use Mollie’s death to “demonize an entire population for the acts of one man.”
“No. We reclaim our Mollie,” she concluded.
[image via screengrab]
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