Would my daughter be pretty enough?
Well, would she?
I mean, if our daughter was, god forbid, kidnapped, lost or vanished, would the local.. much less the national, news even care? I don’t believe so. You see, she is ‘pretty’ enough, she’s just not ‘white’ enough.
(cross-posted to dailykos, my first diary here… 🙂
You hear a lot about the ‘pretty white girl’ syndrome. Almost all the news of ‘damsels in distress’ in the national and even the local media deal with white damsels in distress, all the while there are thousands of similar, and even more poignant stories of women and girls in trouble.. but those of color. Money has something to do with it, but the overriding commonality of these cases is that they are white (I’ll find you a dozen stories of black women/girls missing who are middle class or higher and never in the news). A LOT has been written about it, but two things struck me the other day, not only is it always about white females.. but it is constant, incessant, all the time news.. and when I did this chart with timeframes when they were in the news.. it really struck home:
These pretty white things are in the national news near constantly in the last 5, 10…. years. I didn’t realize how constantly till I put it in this graph. There is nary a break. The the media coverage on each waxes and wanes, it is constant. The coverage of one pretty white thing is closed (Hacking/Peterson) and another one opens (Holloway/Wilbanks). In fact, its almost as if the national media (CNN/CBS/Fox, etc) have to have three juggling at any one time just in case the news on one wanes.
This crowds out other news like war, economy, politics not to mention the thousands of black, hispanic, asian and other females in trouble. Its as if our national conscience NEEDS news of pretty white damsels in trouble, constantly.
But, as I thought about it some… and then the Jackson trial verdict came over the news while I was sitting in the airport…
I realized there is an near exact correlary…
Evil black men who hurt innocent white things. From O.J. Simpson to Michael Jackson, whether guilty or innocent, we as a nation sit mesmerized on every gory detail. The Media emcamps at the trials and waits breathlessly for every tidbit. It’s interesting I came upon this thought this weekend, when the Senate just passed a resolution apologizing for not making lynching illegal a half century ago but there seems to be a good number of Senators who think it was all right then too (all Republicans)
Because even though we don’t lynch like we did then (you know, in the woods from trees), our society seems to have an appetite for it still… so we just do it vicariously through the media… protecting our pretty young white women and ‘lynching’ our evil black men.
I’m wondering how much we’ve really changed as a people in the last 50-100 years, sometimes I’m proud and hopeful, today I’m embarrassed and discouraged.
and somehow I doubt my daughter would be “pretty” (read “white”) enough.
PS (links to timelines, etc)
See Young African Americans Against Media Stereotypes for some enlightening tidbits (like the fact that almost all black NBA athletes shown with their wives/girlfriends have white wives… while 90% of black NBA athletes have black wives/girlfriends.. why is that?
Thank you for this diary. The tmeline is particularly interesting. I think there are two reasons for the phenomenon you’ve identified. The MSM is largely owned, managed and staffed by white men. And as you say, this set of prejudices appeals (/sells well)to a large part of the white population.
I think saying “white ownership” is an oversimplification. We need to look at the full process of media content production…how the stories get in print/on air…where are decisions being made? What constraints influence the choices available in making those decisions? Who is making what decisions? What other choices are available? Who are the reporters, editors, publishers, etc and from what perspective and background do they come? All of these factors are necessary for understanding the stories and images we see.
I don’t think we disagree, MAJeff: I said “owned, managed and staffed by white men”, thereby meaning to include the editorial decision-makers and reporters as well as the shareholders.
glossed over the last part…sorry
No worries: I liked your elaboration of the influences at play in the “process of media content production”!
I’m a sociologist, and media is one of my areas (for my diss, I’m tracing a particular story through this production process)…I think I glossed over those extra words in your original post because I’m so unused to seeing them–everyone talks ownership as if that’s determinate….that’s too simple and inaccurate; there’s a whole lot more going on…so, i apologize for the misreading but am happy you like what i ended up doing with it 🙂
Owned and managed, yes. Staffed, no. There are a lot of women in media, up through the middle management level. Past that point, it starts to dramatically shift. At least that was true when I was in the industry, and while that was a while ago, I doubt that there are fewer women today. Offhand, I’d say at least half of the producers in the electronic media that I dealt with were female. It is pretty damned white, though. Enough so that when I encountered a woman of color, it was noteworthy.
Nothing will really ever change for those of us in any minority while the world is owned and operated by white men. It is still a white man’s world.
We’ve shaken them up once in awhile back like back in the 60’s but as you’ve stated and myself as a woman, we know that not much has really changed.
First, your daughter is beautiful.
The choice of which missing people to cover is so sad. If you watched CNN, you’d swear that every young white woman in the country was in imminent danger, while everyone else lives in apparent safety.
All of this coverage (missing girls, and the awful coverage of black men) reminds me of the part in “Bowling for Columbine” when Michael Moore talks about how the media and popular culture whips people up into a frenzy of fear. This type of coverage is just another example, and it’s pathetic.
When the media went nuts over the last missing girl (last weekend? The one before?), the fact that she was white, blonde, and pretty didn’t surprise me. I knew even before I saw a picture.
Amen. Your daughter is definitely beautiful.
The choice of which missing people to cover is so sad. If you watched CNN, you’d swear that every young white woman in the country was in imminent danger, while everyone else lives in apparent safety.
I think this relates, too, to the lack of coverage of womens’ rights issues overseas. If it involved Scandanavian women, maybe we’d see some coverage, but there’s no media time to devote to Arabic or African women.
Yes, what a lovely child!
I’ve seen this situation crop up time and again, when young black, Latino and Asian girls and women are disappeared. If every other instance of these girls in jeopardy was on the evening news or on cable, I think some would have been found, and just in time.
Let me also state that many of these women–Schiavo, Wilbanks, etc.–are upper/middle-class white women who lack for very little. You now don’t hear about lower-class or poor white girls in jeopardy either. Remember when some white child or woman fell into a well or was abducted? Many of these girls were in lower-middle-class, working-class families.
I could at least recognize myself in stories about these young girls. But now class plus race trumps all.
Everyone does not live in safety.
We just had a woman who was raped around 3 a.m. a few nights ago at a New York MTA stop. She was going home from work. The assailant has been identified as an older black male. But while the identity of this woman has not been disclosed, I would not be surprised if she was black or Latino. There have been cuts in the MTA, and in law enforcement. There were no security phones, cameras or attendants available at that stop if she needed to call for help.
The woman had been nervous on the train with the assailant; she did the right thing and got off the train to get help, but there was no help available. And he got off with her, the freak.
though we of course had little to do with it genetically (she’s adopted) or otherwise, I do step back sometimes and think to myself.. that is the most beautiful child in the world!
( and the smartest, and the sweetest, and the most determined/stubborn, and the best artist… 😀 )
Has there ever been a media event surrounding a missing child of color. I remember when all those african american boys were disappearing in Atlanta many years ago. It was not widely disseminated information and wasn’t until they discovered the murderer of those children that it became a national issue. I would guess for every white girl/woman making national headlines for being missing there are three or four children of color also missing at the same time. Where are their headlines, where is the whirling dervish of media coverage concerning their parents and family. This is one of the many reasons I do not have TV media coming into my home.
I highly recommend to those of you who spend 30 to 100 dollars a month for TV to take a break from it for a week and see if you really need it. Just an offer, I have not had TV media in my home for more than 5 yrs and I do not miss it. I was recently at my mothers home in Texas, she has more than 100 channels and in the 3 days we were there, I saw maybe 4 things on all those channels that I would let my son watch.
The Atlanta child murders was one of the last times in which the news media reported that the central subjects were not white or upper middle-class. The thing about these murders was that it captured the imagination of the children and the parents of the city and outside the city–white or black. The Atlanta Child Murderer was called The Man by frightened children. But then again, there was a lot that people did not know about the killings.
Some Atlanta residents also indicated time and again that not only black boys and men were being disappeared and murdered, but an almost equal amount of poor, working-class or lower middle-class black girls. Little or no spotlight ever focused on this phenomenon, and was dismissed out of hand by law enforcement, and so too did the news media. The killing of the girls went on for a while after a suspect, Wayne Williams, was found for the boy killings. Two girls have been thought to have been murdered by him.
I still think that some of those murders were also copycat. And those of the girls? Possibly several men were involved in those, too. They may have even known each other. Some believe that they were all white, and thus the murders could be a white supremacist plot. It also could be that some blacks could be involved in this as well.
I was a child living in Atlanta when those were going on. Interesting times…
Absolutely re: freedom from TV.
I made the decision gradually over the past decade, and cemented it the week after 9/11. I felt more and more acutely how the media play our emotions, and felt very manipulated. I take all my news online now, and really don’t miss any of the TV shows.
Just found this parody:
CNN, NBC announce merger. New network to be called WWWA
-Where the White Women At?
http://thepoorman.net/?p=179
THAT is too good 🙂 thanks.
doesn’t Vanessa Williams count anymore? She was the first NBA wife (err, ex-wife?) that came to mind. Man, Rick Fox is an idiot.
and of course your daughter is pretty enough – she’s absolutely ADORABLE!
I’m a mother. Can’t help it. That’s my first thought when I look at your fine diary.
More to the point, you’re right. It’s ridiculous. I had an argument with a co-worker years ago, because we had gotten a promotional copy of a new magazine called “American Girl” or something. It was all these photos and features on little girls from around the country. I think I saw one black girl. It was page after page of blonds, redheads with freckles, white, white, white. I’m so white I’m practically an albino and I was offended. I pointed this out, and my coworker said, “Well, that is the classic American girl.” She saw nothing wrong with this. I just stood there with my mouth hanging open. How do you respond to that? And, I have no doubt it never entered her mind that she was being racist.
Thanks 😀
“classic American girl”
When I lived in Germany, it bothered me when our European friends said things like “oh she looks so ‘American'” or “He looks typically American” (always of some tall blond)
as if there was such a thing, even less so than other nationalities (the same people would get upset if I said “he looks so german’)
it REALLY pisses me off to hear that here in the states.. and like you said, almost everyone who says it doesn’t notice anything wrong with the statement.
The first thing I thought was “What a lovely little girl!”
She looks spunky, too, and like she’s going to grow up to be a strong woman.
I have to stand up for American Girl, though. The book series are good American history for girls. They address issues like slavery, racism, amd child labor. I think there are 8 series. One of them is about an African-American girl just before the Civil War. It was written by an African-American woman. Another is about a Hispanic girl in New Mexico in the late 19th century. Another is about a Nez Perce girl before contact with Europeans. They attempt to be historically accurate and to provide girls with a glimpse of life in earlier times.
I’m hoping they’ll come out with a series about a Japanese-American girl during World War II.
The magazine is not as good as the books. It was more like the books when it first started, but it’s become a glitzy girl mag. Yuck.
There’s plenty of racism and sexism in our culture, as well as media circus acts designed to draw our attention away from other issues.
Assuming we’re talking about the same magazine, all I can say is, wow, was it ever not faithful to the source material. I only saw a couple issues and a press release. I worked in publicity, so magazines would routinely send promo copies. I was pretty horrified by that one.
I can’t deny the racist overtones in the way this stuff is covered. I think there could be non-racist (but very cynical) reasons for it, too.
News is no longer about informing a populace. Its about: Higher ratings to attract more advertisers.
These abduction/crime stories are clearly about higher ratings. They aren’t news at all, they’re just another form of scripted “reality” shows. And just like the “reality” shows, the best part is the unknown outcome.
Abductions are easy. They’re less reported than murder, and unlike murder, the outcome is sure to be unknown for at least a few days. Tension, gotta love it — it’ll keep the audience coming back for more.
So, who do you pick for the victim? Someone that encourages empathy. Maybe a disabled person? But that’s too hard to personally identify with. An old person? Nah, not sufficient outrage. Someone in our demographic — 18-37 male? Nah, part of the terror of an abduction is what happens to the victim before they are found alive or dead.
So, someone who could be abducted, and abused. Rape is of the few horrifying crimes left. You can show murder all you like in TV and movies, but not rape. Torture works too, but with abu ghraib and gitmo, its not something people care to dwell on, and its pretty rare.
Great, so that narrows it down to women and children. Now its just a matter of trolling the local news feeds until you get a hit.
Ah, here’s one. Abduction. Family is ruled out, so that opens up the abuse possibilities. Is the family famous? That helps. No? Okay. Is it a family the viewer can relate to? Oh, its an immigrant family. Immigrants only make up 12% of our network’s demographic, and poll 30% negatives to top it off. Lets keep trolling.
Here we go. Stranger abduction. Third one this year in the area. Might be lucky, might be a serial. Latino? Hmmm. Not an immigrant tho, lets see the picture. Ah she’s light skinned. Our white audience is likely to identify with her. Okay, lets put her in the maybe pile.
Oh, here’s another. Younger victim. Definite stranger abduction, we’ve got a vehicle description. Lets see the victim. Ah, a bit dark skinned. How’s the family? Renters. Most of our viewers are home-owners. Its a nice apartment building, but single family homes make for better visuals. Lets keep looking
Say, how about this little white girl? Taken from a birthday party at a restaurant. Lots of sad kids to show in the background. Snatched from safety, nice ring to it. Upper income family. What can we do with that? Unsafe at any price? Nah, too crass. Shattered American dream? That works. Okay, lets run with this one, and hope it doesn’t resolve for a while. Keep an eye on that latino kid as a backup. Lets roll people! And Stevens, keep looking. These abductions happen every day, something better could show up at any time.
I’m sorry to say I think the selection of which victim to cover of the thousands of abductions each year has a lot more to do with “packaging” and “promoting” than anything else. This is what we get for making advertising the driving force in broadcast.
Same goes for the aggressors. “We” all want to see famous people fall, whether O.J. or Martha Stewart. When selecting your perp, its the opposite criteria of selecting your victim. The more unlike the viewer, the better. Rich? That’s a no brainer. Famous? It helps with promoting the “newscast”. Is there a lot of “dish” on the celeb? Great. O.J. was great — recognizable but not someone our demographic identifies with personally. Kobe? “Squeaky clean” reputation vs rape charge. Martha? Ms. Perfect and controlling is going to jail. Baretta? Eh, he’s an old celeb, but its a weak news cycle. Besides, it looks like pre-meditated with an alibi on top. Michael Jackson? King of Pop accused of sleeping with boys, again. Scott Peterson? Some nobody white guy, but killing your pregnant wife? That’s different.
That’ll sell.
And that my friend is why I do not, will not and can not allow myself to watch TV. Thank you for this fine expose of our nations Late Great Media, that has been synthesized down to the last nickel it can grub from the public.
I think you’ve got a point here. Sometimes I wonder about how the media picks these stories they then go on to compulsively cover.
The first time I noticed the race and class issues involved, it was a little different scenario. Do you remember the rich white woman in Houston who murdered her children as a result of post-pardum psychosis? A few months before that there was a similar case here in St. Paul where a Hmong (southeast asian) woman killed her six kids. It was a big story locally, but did not get picked up nationally. I was glad it didn’t, but wondered how these decisions are made. In this case the beautiful rich white woman was the villian, not the victim.
All I know is that I think these stories are used to manipulate people emotionally. And it pisses me off.
Oh yeah, one more thing…your daughter is a cutey patootey!!
Good points. I consider such decision making, even if not actively racist, to be something just as bad. The news producer may not be thinking “Here’s another chance to stick it to black people,” but anyone with the IQ of toast has to recognize that chronic innocent white women/bad black men coverage perpetuates the worst racial stereotypes.
Local news reporters just love to see their stories go national. These days, every reporter for the Nowhere News and KRAP-TV who happens across a MYWW (missing young white woman) story is going to call the wire services or the networks, because there’s a good chance the big boys will pick it up.
The local reporter pushes the story to get noticed, and the network pushes the story to get ratings. But by playing up MYWW stories at the expense of stories that have actual national importance, media decision makers stoke the fires of racism. They need to be held accountable for the damage that they’re doing–if they’re not racists themselves, they are whores to racism, which ain’t any better.
Markets solve all problems.
“Government is the problem.” –Reagan
Therefore,
They are using markets to solve government.
The attitude toward missing black children is shameful.
Remember the little girl the Florida Dept. of Children and Families (or whatever it’s called) “lost” a couple of years ago? She’s still not been found. It was in the news for awhile and then vanished. I wonder how much attention it would get if she was white.
There was a young black girl missing from a Cleveland neighborhood for many weeks last year. I kept waiting to hear about it on the network news, but it never made it. There was a white college student who was “missing” at the time and all the reporters and satellite trucks were busy covering that. Oops. She lied and faked her own abduction? My bad. Several months went by before they found the girl’s body, and still no news coverage beyond the Cleveland area.
I think that there is this feeling out there that if a black child is missing it’s because she lives with a bunch of criminals or she ran away from her drug-addicted family. But little white girls are innocent and pure and so damn photogenic.
Look, it’s a tragedy when any child disappears, but the disparity in news coverage is appalling.
While it is beyond question true that the media cares more about white abductees than black ones, there is also a big disparity when it comes to economic class, too.
All those pretty white girls were upper middle class pretty white girls. Media and police attention to poor white girls is pretty scant. It’s not enough just to be white, or even white and photogenic. Rich, white, and photogenic is, however, a winning combination.
I wouldn’t necessarily lay the charge of racism at the feet of the news media. Those whores are just chasing after ratings. Its the majority of the viewing public that deserves the indictment. If more of them cared about terrible things happening to little black children or little poor children or, hell, even unattractive rich white girls, the media whores would cover it.
The terrible, sickening truth is that an awful lot of people don’t really care about much of what happens to their fellow man. The pretty rich white girls only appeal to them because the public sees them as idealizations of themselves.
Now, as far as the menacing black male sexual predator goes, I think that is pure racism. The amount of coverage given to OJ Simpson or Kobe Bryant was vastly greater than that lower-class white child rapist and murderer, John Couey, for example. I’ve certainly never seen any evidence to suggest that black men are more prone to rape, and in any event, by far most rapists and their victims are the same race.
It’s sad, and it’s disgusting, but I’m at a loss as to what to do about it. As long as the news media’s primary concern is ratings, they will forever be chasing the lowest common denominator, and definitely not seeking to raise the level of the discussion.
Well, I really beg to differ on just one point.
It is ratings whoring.
And IT IS RACISM, whether behind the camera or in front of the camera.
Here’s some great books to read on the issue eodell described so well:
How to Watch Television News by the late Neil Postman and Steve Powers.
Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television, by Jerry Mander.
And about racism in the news media?
Race, Myth and the News by Chris Campbell
Racialized Politics by David Sears, James Sidanius, and Lawrence Bobo.
Teach your children and your families.
Upon reflection, I take your point. Exploiting the public’s racism for profit is racism. It’s a passive sort of racism, but perhaps all the worse for that reason: the committers of evil would be out of work were it not for the permitters of evil.
Each are being exploited.
This is just like viewing the Circus Maximus in the Coliseum, but we paint it up as simply the evening news…or breaking news.
Thanks for seeing my point.
It IS racism.
And it’s sexism, too.
Female “attractiveness” from the traditional, patriarchal perspective always includes vulnerability.
The weaker, paler, more victimized, more powerless, the better. It’s best if she’s a “high class” woman, too, because it teaches all women that their status is very fragile, dependent on men’s protection. Who better to menace the frail, priviledged, helpless little Missy Anne than a big black man?
This kind of news coverage is veiled pornography which appeals to racist, misogynistic, sexual fantasies.
It’s one more circular way this culture reinforces second class citzenship: women and all people of colour aren’t quite human, so they can be used as fodder for fantasies; using them as fantasy figures dehumanizes. ‘Round and ’round it goes.
Ya know, it is.
sexist.
This is so true. I’ve thought about this a lot. Why does the idea of the pretty damsel in distress so capture the public imagination? This media fascination with missing and exploited white women doesn’t do white women any favors, either. I really think people get off on the idea of female victimization.
I wouldn’t necessarily lay the charge of racism at the feet of the news media. Those whores are just chasing after ratings. Its the majority of the viewing public that deserves the indictment. If more of them cared about terrible things happening to little black children or little poor children or, hell, even unattractive rich white girls, the media whores would cover it.
I disagree with this. Not, that racism isn’t deeply entrenched. It is. But the news media is not responsive to viewer interest. We should all know that, given the outcry over their coverage of the Bush Administration. They largely shrug off the criticism of viewers, even when they receive torrents of complaint mail, unless it’s backed by someone politically powerful. The mass media is an echo chamber that thinks it reflects viewer choice, but nothing could be further from the truth. And for the unquestioning viewer, the media is literally manufacturing reality. I doubt it even occurs to a lot of people that the aluminum tubes weren’t suitable for centrifuges or that little black girls get abducted, too, because it wasn’t on CNN.
This is true… I think it was CNN that did a poll of their viewer’s interest level regarding whatever celeb court cases and WDiD’s they had going on at the time, and I think the one that rated highest in interest only rated 23%. The news reader was very puzzled that the public wasn’t enjoying the circus they were putting on.
That, of course, hasn’t prevented them from adding 3 more rings.
Compare what was reported about Jessica Lynch and Shoshana Johnson. The media are not ever going to change their favorite stories until we force them to look at what they are doing.
and Lori Piestwa never got the Pat Tillman treatment either, despite being, IIRC the first Native American woman to die in combat for the USA.
(I know plenty died in combat with the USA, but you know where I’m going here, right).
There was one little black girl that was kidnapped, gagged, had her hands duct taped together and was locked in the basement of an empty house, 7 years old or so, that got a tiny bit of media attention…
But that is because she bit thru the tape, kicked out a window (or door, though window sounds more plausible) and saved herself. The attention lasted about a minute though because, really… what fun is that? Big heroics from a tiny kid, but not much market for that.
Also, I was thinking about this the other day… while missing white women become media sensations, there are times when a missing black or latino woman will be mentioned (usually only if they are young girls) in the paper or something… but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a missing asian woman story. Except when the local news was pounding the stories of families or friends of the family kidnapping asian girls for marriage – but the focus wasn’t on the girls that had been kidnapped, it was on the practice brought over from wherever. But not once, in my memory, have I seen a stranger abduction story where the victim was asian. Odd, that.
There was more to the story. The girl screamed for help after getting free from the restraints and neighborhood kids (all black) playing near the house heard her cries and rescued her. Heroics all around. Black Entertainment News did a lot of follow up and designated it their news story of the year. But miniscule coverage in the so-called MSM.
Hey, Grand Poobah!
I guess they figured that if a little black girl could do this, then those blacks don’t need any cops or any silly investigations…<snark/sarcasm!>
I saw it on the NBC Nightly News…there was a happy ending. I was glad to see the story nationally. But that was an exception. That child was resourceful, she did not want anything bad to happen to her.
But other little black girls and boys?
A lot of little children still do what adults tell them to do, whether they are strangers or relatives. They trust easily or don’t know how to decide. In that space, mischief starts.
Some forget to scream. Or the screams are ignored.
Thanks Poobah and blksista for adding more to the story. I didn’t remember many details, having only caught a short newscast, but I was very impressed with her.
i’ve decided to do some more research into this, not sure exactly where to begin (rate of ‘mention’ in top news stories in top media), but I’d like to start collecting such reports
I never heard this (which just reaffirms my suspicions), and I’d love to read about it.
Here are some links about this little girl heroine.
Her name is Erica Pratt.
http://www.time.com/time/pow/article/0,8599,331695,00.html
http://archives.cnn.com/2002/US/07/24/philadelphia.girl/
http://www.blacknewsweekly.com/145.html
Let me say something else.
Summer is an incredibly slow time for news. They are usually starved for anything worth flogging coming in.
Sometimes you find articles and coverage over some issue that you’d thought they would NEVER get to when it was just occurring. Well, they saved it for the summer so you could stay glued to the TV. By that time, shyt is really kicking then.
This is probably another reason why Erica got so much coverage. Sad, but true. Samantha Runnion also got a lot of coverage during this time as well, a few weeks earlier, I think.
Then again, some people were complaining about the news coverage of only little white girls, especially having to do with Elizabeth Smart.
Another site is Angels Resort, a website commemorating little girls and women who were kidnapped, molested, disappeared or killed. Many are black or Latino. Many of the cases are unsolved.
http://p097.ezboard.com/bangelsresort
Hey Sista ! Good to see you over here.
When I read this, I knew this story could only have happened in a neighborhood where lots of kids play on the street.
Police said Erica had only a can of water during her ordeal, and the officers who found her gave her part of a chicken sandwich.
She was bound with duct tape around her arms, legs and eyes and left in the dirty basement of a building 10 miles from home. She was able to chew through the tape, break through the basement door and go up to the first floor. Unable to escape, she smashed a window and called out for help to some children playing in front of the abandoned house.
The children pulled Erica out of the window, and one of them rode their bike to alert the police.
“She’s an amazing little girl,” Chief Inspector Robert Davis said.
It made me think about how in working class or poor urban neighborhoods you will normally find children on the street playing, seemingly unsupervised by adults. I say seemingly because there are often neighbors quietly keeping an eye out…and reporting back to kids’ parents any mischief, often before the kids get home. I used to find it odd when I was in more affluent neighborhoods and didn’t see any children around. I would think, “where are they ??” But with video games, catalogues of DVDs, ‘play dates,’ and parents afraid to let kids out of their sight because of abductions and what not, I guess the neighborhood gang (as in like ‘Our Gang’ or ‘Fat Albert Kids’) just doesn’t exist for most children. I wonder whether kids are more vulnerable to harm when they are given more freedom to move around and about, or when they live more isolated lives.
…and by the way, you do have a beautiful daughter! 🙂
Your timeline was what did it.
And yes, your daughter is stunningly beautiful.
Great diary. You forgot Dru Sjodin (2004) and Chandra Levy (2001). I’m sure there are many more missing white women that could be added to the timeline. I also don’t really recall an Amber alert in my state ever being issued for a black girl.
I also have to chime in and agree that your little girl is adorable.
It’s terrible that we still have this racial bias. Of course white children/women in peril sells newspapers, radio time, and television time. Our country has a horrible situation in the “border states” of missing and killed women. I guess that situation just doesn’t sell.
This theme has a long, long history, as we’re all aware. The cases above are some examples of the phenomenon, but it’s pervasive. One thing that consistently comes to mind is the thug/gangsta image in hip-hop. Interestingly, you can really see the dominance of this particular image come to the fore as rap was crossing over to white audiences (white males now make up the largest group of people consuming hip-hop). That’s also when you tend to see a more misogynist attitude come into it (all women becoming “bitches” and “hos”). That’s when the media corporations began selling it to larger (and whiter) audiences.
It’s pervasive.
Bell Hooks did a really interesting article looking at this exact phenomenon. The name of it was “Sexism and Misogyny: Who Takes the Rap?” Not posting it due to length but it’s not hard to find via Google.
Great article, Vanity. Thank you so much.
big fan of hooks’s work. I’m teaching race and ethnicity again in the spring, and I may have to bring this in (I’m looking to rework part of the course–one of the books I’ve been using is just too advanced for the level of class I’m teaching….I’m hesitant to give it up, but even with my tendency to teach up, I’ve been expecting too much–damn, I don’t want to give that book up, though).
..in … Georgia?
Big, black, criminal rapist shoots deputies, escapes and holds hostage… yep, the white, blond christian chick.
Ug.
Thanks for this diary.
about a missing young black woman in her 20’s…
I would probably drop dead of shock.
I heard this on the radio today. I also heard that 1 in 5 women who disapear are african american.
Some media are examining the issue and when askes stated there might be an unconcious bias (yeah right). But the guy from msnbc said that the case in aruba would have been reported anyway because it was “so unusual”.
Yeah cause we know that when men and black women disapear, the circumstances are so very ordinary.
Your daughter looks like my cousin’s daughter, Tiffany. Are we related?!
Well, I could be a bad, bad, girl and say you should call the PWWs PYTs, thus attaching the most freakish evil black man (or evil blank man) to the damsels in distress.
OK, couldn’t help myself. I attended one funeral today and I have another tomorrow. :<( I need the cheap laugh.
Wclathe, she’s BEAUTIFUL!!!!
And speaking of beautiful little girls, I’m indeed in FULL Auntie mode tonight. I need to go upstairs and check on my nieces. The only bright spots in this otherwise dreary, sad, and tiring 2 days.
Sweet dreams.
My immediate reaction to the child’s photo was that I wished she were here so I could give her some auntie hugs and smooches, what a doll!
In pdx they’re STILL trying to pin a PWW (and a Mormon at that)disappearance on a Korean guy who was picked up for stealing undies. Out here they’ll go for any minority. You should have seen the uproar a few years ago when my coworker and her beloved, both women, were murdered by a man of Native-American heritage. It was a huge media festival of jive which occluded the real complicated story of three complex humans.
As for the MSM I’ll start watching, reading, etc., when they have people on/in it that look like me and mine and not before. Fortunately we have alternate sources here.
This really saddens me, but I’ve noticed it for many years now too. People like to think that they arn’t prejudiced but deep down many people still are.
BTW I think your daughter is gorgeous!
This thought hadn’t occured to me until I started reading some of the other comments posted. Then, it hit me that this theme you’ve described is a replay of all of the reasons given for lynching in the past. One of the primary fears of Southerners (especially women) was the insult that would be perpetrated when some negro man attached white Southern womanhood. Evil black man, pretty white woman in redux.
The appeal of these (always pretty) white women gets magnified when you look at the wives of some of the (evil black) men you’ve mentioned. None are married to an ‘average’ looking woman. They’re all beauty queen stand-ins who get multi-million dollar rewards from these marriages, especially when the (evil black) man does something wrong. Remember the ROCK that Mrs. Koby Bryant received after he slept with the other (pretty-because-she’s-white) woman in Colorado?
Is the media doing the same thing that the klan and the white citizen’s councils did in the not-to-distant past? Are they warning white women that they should be afraid, very afraid of (evil) black men?
Of course, this gets played out on a daily basis. As a black man, I’ve had more than my share of run-ins with the (not-as-pretty-nor-as-rich-as-she-thinks) white woman in familiar surroundings. This happens most frequently on elevators when there are only two of us. The first thing that I notice is that the purse gets clutched. The second thing I notice is the sideways stare. This happens when I’m wearing suite-n-tie. It also happens when I’m wearing jeans-n-sneakers. I don’t think that I look like a serial killer, but, hey, my mother loves me.
Just a thought…..
…This happens most frequently on elevators when there are only two of us. The first thing that I notice is that the purse gets clutched. The second thing I notice is the sideways stare. This happens when I’m wearing suite-n-tie. It also happens when I’m wearing jeans-n-sneakers. I don’t think that I look like a serial killer, but, hey, my mother loves me.
I can relate, brah, but it happens to black women, too. On elevators. At the supermarket. In the parking lot. At the shoe section of Macy’s, especially if the broad has left her purse unguarded in my vicinity. Talk about someone diving in your direction when you are trying to get your foot into something and are not even thinking about the damn purse!
At least I can get a Yellow Cab in New York, but I think it is because Harlem is getting gentrified and more whites are moving in.
Love your handle. Chloe Wofford is one of my favorite authors, too!
“For her who had learned the stern lesson of honor we should not grieve that she found sweeter the opal gates of death.”
-The Birth of a Nation
Of course the goofyness of the scene rather detracts from the theme “Noble White Woman jumps to her death preserving her Honor”.
I know that they do mass production of their portraits. They are run in a machine and exposed for the center value. Often children of color end up being under exposed. The result is that you lose highlites and definition.
I redid this one. I might have overdone the highlight and fill light.
Here you go:
Wow, thanks!
that looks great. we take her to an inexpensive mall photo place ….
though just last week a professional photographer wants to take our/her photos and hopefully will do a better job.
this touch up was great. Thank you very much.
I am sure the proffessional photographer will do a better job.
It’s isn’t that the cheapy places do a bad job. Some of the photographers are really good. But the development isn’t always so good.