We Keep Telling the Wrong Story When He Kills Her

Let’s start here, because not enough people didn’t:

DOCTOR Cerina Fairfax was a devoted mother, wife, friend, and professional.

She was alive. She was whole. She was building a life. And now she is dead.

Killed by her husband, Justin Fairfax—after, according to reports, he allegedly attempted to position her as the aggressor in the situation before that narrative fell apart. That is the story. Everything else is secondary.

But that’s not the story we’re telling.

Instead, what we keep getting—across Black media, commentary, and “analysis”—is a reframing on HIM. His stress. His “fall from grace.” His mental health and need for support.

None of that changes the fact that a Black man made a decision to take a Black woman’s life.

To be clear: mental health matters. Access to mental health resources matters. Community matters. But to be clearer: by all accounts, Justin Fairfax was aware of his mental health. He had more access to mental health resources than many people, let alone Black men.

And as evidenced by the onslaught of pictures online of this man with people so pressed to cement their alignment with a murderer, what’s clearest is that Justin Fairfax had no shortage of community. 

He decided to kill Dr. Cerina Fairfax anyway.

And the way there’s been a rush to contextualize that decision highlights exactly how deeply misogynoir is embedded in how violence is processed.

Because if Dr. Cerina Fairfax were the one who did this?

There would be no long, sympathetic discussions about her potential. No panels of Black psychologists curating extended empathy arcs. No careful language to preserve her humanity and legacy as a dentist.

We love to say: Black men need therapy. Or Black men need safe spaces. Or Black men need to talk. And that’s cool. All true statements. But oftentimes these statements aren’t actualized until it’s too late. 

Why is emotional regulation treated like a bucket list item until it becomes dangerous? Why is accountability framed as an attack? Why does “seeking help” feel like emasculation?

Here’s an uncomfortable truth: Black women experience the same pressures—often more—and are not responding with lethal violence at the same rate.

But when it’s a man—especially a Black man with proximity to power, education, or influence—people reach for understanding before reaching for accountability.

There cannot be a serious conversation about violence like this without saying the word: Patriarchy.

Patriarchy does three critical things:

1. Conditions men to equate control with identity
2. Frames emotional vulnerability as weakness
3. Normalizes dominance, especially over women

When that control is compromised and that identity is threatened—by divorce, loss, exposure, or instability—some men don’t just spiral. They retaliate. Violently. Permanently.

Dr. Cerina Fairfax. Coral Springs Vice Mayor Nancy Metayer Bowen. Chicago’s own Barbara Deer.

These most recent cases of Black femicide highlight what happens when control is tied to manhood. When a man’s vulnerability is understood as weakness. When a man equates losing proverbial power to physical castration.

And if there’s a refusal to name the system that produces that outcome, then what exactly gets solved?

The culture coddles men’s violence more than it condemns it. And Black women are paying the price of this blindspot with their lives.

Black women navigate professional pressure, too. Black women deal with relational stress and financial strain, too. Black women undergo public scrutiny, too.

All the time. Every single day. Usually with less support and more responsibility. Often while carrying entire families and communities.

But Black women are not the ones committing violence at this rate. They’re the ones succumbing to it.

Misogynoir is shaping the narrative—even when we don’t say it out loud.

When a Black woman’s life gets reduced to a footnote in her killer’s narrative, that’s misogynoir.

To instinctively humanize a murderer and require justification to humanize the victim is not accidental. It’s a tenet of patriarchy.

And it doesn’t just exist in white media spaces. It lives here, too.

Dr. Cerina Fairfax deserved to be the center of this story. 

Her life. Her work. Her relationships. Her humanity. Not as an aside. Not as a closing line. Not as “also survived by…” 

But as the starting point.

If Black women cannot be centered even in death—if Black men cannot be held accountable without cushioning the blow—then the Black community will continue to be failed by its own.