Photo: Emrah Gurel/AP

Many of my greatest heroes were assassinated. I am thinking about Patrice Lumumba, the first prime minister of post-colonial Congo. Orchestrated by American and Belgian governments, his murder is sometimes called “the most important assassination of the 20th century.” He was just 35 years old. I am thinking about South African intellectual Steve Biko, who was the 46th political prisoner killed while in police custody during Apartheid — which allowed imprisonment without trial or any type of due process. He was just 30 years old and died of a traumatic brain injury. I am thinking of the fierce South African resistance leader, Chris Hani, who was shot and killed in 1993. Hani was the second most popular leader in the country and was murdered by a white supremacist with the support a longtime bigoted member of parliament.

I am thinking of Tom Mboya of Kenya. I am thinking of Amílcar Cabral of Guinea-Bissau. I am thinking of the brilliant scholar and activist Walter Rodney of Guyana. Of course, I am thinking of Martin, Malcolm, and Medgar. I am thinking of Goodman, Chaney, and Schwerner — the three young Freedom Riders who traveled to Mississippi to register Black folk to vote. This summer, I spoke for the Andrew Goodman Foundation and was so touched to meet his family. Fifty years later, they are still grieving the loss. And I am thinking of the brave Brazilian activist Marielle Franco, gunned down in a drive-by assassination this by March. In many of those cases, nobody was ever held responsible. Not legally or even in the court of public opinion. In fact, governments around the world have participated in targeted assassinations with little to no blowback for decades. I think social media, and the way it democratizes information — and confrontation — has a chance to change all that. On the afternoon of Tuesday, October 2, Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi walked into the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, to finalize some paperwork for his upcoming marriage. Exterior security camera footage clearly shows him entering the building. But not a single shred of evidence, from eyewitnesses or cameras, shows him leaving. The Saudi consulate now says they don’t have any footage from inside the building and give no explanation for why Khashoggi was never seen leaving. What we do know is that Khashoggi, while careful to not call himself a dissident, was an informed critic of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, known as MBS, and the manner in which he manages the country. Now, according to media reports, Turkish investigators believe that the Saudi government assassinated Khashoggi and literally cut his body into bits inside of the consulate. As heinous as this is, it doesn’t quite come as a surprise — for people who follow the exploits of Saudi Arabia — considering how the government arrested and imprisoned activists across the country. Not a surprise, but a new low nonetheless.