The Daily BS • Bo Snerdley Cuts Through It!
The Daily BS • Bo Snerdley Cuts Through It!

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Kiddie star Ms. Rachel said Black people ‘don’t hang themselves from trees’ — then cops shared what cameras saw

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BS BULLETIN:

  • Children’s YouTube star Ms. Rachel told millions of followers: “Black people don’t hang themselves from trees.”
  • Her comments came after a Black man was found hanging from a tree in downtown Raleigh, fueling online speculation about a possible lynching.
  • Raleigh police say surveillance video shows the man walking to the tree alone carrying an electrical cord — and captures the incident with nobody else present.

Ms. Rachel made an extraordinary declaration to her millions of followers. “Please listen to the Black community,” the children’s YouTube superstar said in a social-media video.

“Black people don’t hang themselves from trees.”

She pointed to at least seven recent cases involving Black people found hanging from trees and urged her followers to “listen to the Black community.”

Then there were the cameras.

One of the cases fueling the online alarm involved a 32-year-old Black man found hanging from a tree in downtown Raleigh, North Carolina, on Aug. 15.

The image understandably carries horrifying historical baggage in America. But Raleigh Police Chief Rico Boyce says investigators didn’t have to guess what happened. They had video. At 1:32 p.m., according to Boyce, city traffic cameras captured the man walking alone on Dawson Street. At 1:59 p.m., video showed him carrying an electrical cord and walking toward the tree by himself.

Then, between 2:06 and 2:07 p.m., another camera captured the incident itself. “No one else was seen in the area when this occurred,” Boyce said. Police say a witness spotted the man hanging from the tree roughly 20 minutes later. First responders arrived and attempted to save him, but he was pronounced dead shortly after 3 p.m.

“Based upon the evidence collected and reviewed to date, investigators have found no evidence indicating that another person caused or contributed to the young man’s death, and no evidence of a criminal act has been identified,” Boyce said. “Our investigation confirms that this is a suicide.”

The man’s mother also authorized police to disclose that her 32-year-old son had struggled with mental health issues in the past.

Boyce went public with the unusually detailed timeline because speculation about the man’s death was exploding online. “Some of those posts contain information that is inaccurate, misleading, or unsupported by the evidence currently available to investigators,” he warned.

Ms. Rachel’s video came the following day.

She didn’t specifically name the Raleigh man in the clip, instead referring broadly to a series of recent cases. Not every one of those cases has been resolved, but Raleigh isn’t a mystery that police casually waved away.

MY QUICK TAKE

There is no denying the horrific history behind a Black American hanging from a tree. Of course people react emotionally to that image. Of course police should investigate these deaths thoroughly.

And if there is evidence of murder, follow that evidence wherever it goes.

But “Black people don’t hang themselves from trees” isn’t evidence. It’s an absolute claim. And in Raleigh, police say cameras recorded a Black man doing precisely what millions of people were just told Black people don’t do.

This is exactly why facts have to come before a viral narrative — especially when the history behind the fear is painfully real.

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