Black and White

Last summer, when Elizabeth Smart first disappeared, questions were raised about what made her case more "special" or more "newsworth" than a similar case in Milwaulkee, where a young black girl named Alexis Patterson had gone missing - but who was getting far less attention than Elizabeth's. The most obvious differences in the cases were race and economic status - Elizabeth was from a white, middle-class family, while Alexis was from a poorer, black family.

Questions are now being raised again about the effect of race on determining what makes a missing child case a nationwide story or not. Over a week ago, 12-year-old Ashleigh Moore disappeared from her home. Her mother's boyfriend was the last person to see her, and there is a possiblity that the police have found blood in the boyfriend's car, though police won't release any further information. As of the time of this posting, a search at Google News shows that the only stories mentioning Ashleigh's name are from Georgia newspapers and TV stations. No non-local sources have picked up on the story.

Even in the area where Ashleigh lived and disappeared, people are questioning how much of an impact her race is having on the public's perception of the case and the amount of interest (or lack thereof) it's getting.

"It really bothers that there isn't more community here," said Donna Torres. Torres and her 13-year-old son Daniel also have attended a weekend candlelight vigil and search for Ashleigh. "If this were a white kid, there would be a whole lot of people out here."

Obviously, not ever single missing-child case can have the level of coverage that Elizabeth Smart's got, nor can every potential crime have the kind of exposure that Laci Peterson's (a white, middle-class woman, by the way) received. The problem is when it seems that the only cases that do get such intensive attention from the national media are those involving white, middle-class women and girls. One would think that - at least occasionally - the disappearance of a black woman or girl would rate significant coverage.

One bit of good news in all of this is that now 41 states have adopted the Amber Alert program to help get word out as quickly as possible about missing children, and George Bush is signing a national Amber Alert bill into law today. In addition to establishing a nation-wide Amber Alert, the law will increase penalties for child kidnapping, require live in prison for some repeat child sex offenders and strengthens laws regarding child porongraphy.

Today, nearly a year after her disapperance, Alexis Patterson is still missing, and her case still receives little coverage outside it's local area. Ashleigh Moore has been missing for 9 days, and her story has yet to break on the national news scene. When the next missing-child story breaks, odds are it will once again be a white, middle- or upper-class child. It's happened too often for it to be a "coincidence" that the cases of black children don't get the same kind of coverage.

We like to pretend that the US has made significant strides in combating racism, and, admittedly, we have come quite a ways. But when we can't seem to work up as much interest in the case of missing black kids as we do for missing white kids, it's obvious we still have a very long ways to go.

Posted by thorswitch at April 30, 2003 02:17 PM | TrackBack