Page 5 - Florida Sentinel 10-8-21

Editorial/Column
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The Other Side Of Missing White Girl Syndrome
abby Petito. This is a
name that, if a person has watched any news broadcast for more than 20 minutes over the last several weeks, should sound very familiar.
For those who may have been living under a rock during that time period, Petito was a 22-year-old woman who went missing after taking a cross- country road trip with her fi- ance', Brian Laundrie. Her decomposed body was eventu- ally discovered following several days of searching in a remote area in Wyoming.
The near constant coverage of the Petito case was a re- minder of how much differently news outlets deal with stories in- volving missing white females as opposed to how they handle those of non-white women. There is even a name for this type of systemic biasness..... Missing White Girl Syndrome.
The term is derived from the fact that the media always ap- pears to become totally fixated whenever a white girl can't be found. Regardless of what may be happening in the world, hur- ricanes, wars, political turmoil, etc... everything is placed on pause until said damsel-in-dis- tress is located.
This isn't to say that urgency and massive attention shouldn't be the course of action in these types of situations. But you would hope that, at least some- times, the energy would be ap- plied universally.
Along with this blatant dou- ble standard there was some- thing else I couldn't help but wonder about every time Pe- tito's name was plastered on the bottom of the T.V. screen..... And that is how differently events would have turned out if Laun- drie, her fiance’, was Black?
When I saw the police body
cam footage of Petito sitting in a squad car crying and describ- ing how Laundrie assaulted her, only days before her disap- pearance, the first thing that crossed my mind was what would have occurred if Laun- drie was ten shades darker?
Understanding the thought process of the average white cop there is no doubt in my mind that, if this was the scenario, Pe- tito would still be alive because the cops called to the scene would have made sure that Laundrie's day ended in a county jail. Unfortunately for Petito, though, the same white privilege that allowed neither of them to be arrested for domestic violence, also allowed Laun- drie to finish what he started.
In the end, the sad irony is that Gabby Petito, ultimately, became a victim of the entitle- ment that comes within the de- mographic in which she was born. And the only conclusion I can gather from it all is that there truly is a price to be paid when members of certain insti- tutions decide to look the other way because they believe that your life matters more than oth- ers.
Reality On Ice is © by the Florida Sentinel Bul- letin Publishing Company. You can email Mr. Barr at: cbscribe2@gmail.com.
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Black And Missing
magine you wake up in the morning and hear a news report that says everyone (570 thousand) living in the cities of North Miami, Miami, and Miami Beach
suddenly disappeared, you would probably be stunned. Now, imagine that those numbers are just 30 thou- sand more than the number of people who disappear
in America (542 million) each year.
Then again imagine that approximately 200,000 of
them (37%) are Black, 99,000 Black females and 101,000 Black males. That is enough to fill the city of Tallahassee – a whole lot of Black folks, an annual dent in America’s population.
Unfortunately, the number of missing women does- n’t include the women who were found dead under mysterious circumstances. In many cases, the women left home for short trips to nearby corner stores, or said “I’ll be right back,” only never to be seen or heard from again.
Sadly, only a few of the people, especially Black women are mentioned in national newscasts. If nearly 40% of the people missing in America are Black, then the Black community has a REAL problem because Blacks make up only 13% of the American population.
A Northwestern University School of Law study found that missing “Black people are less likely to gar- ner media attention at the outset than other groups, and when they do make the news, they receive a lower intensity of coverage.” Indeed, media attention should be focused everyday on an issue wherein so many peo- ple are missing that they could populate a medium sized city.
During the recent overwhelming inundation of news coverage of Gabby Petito, the topic on the disappear- ance disparity of Black women and Black men received some of the media coverage.
Just thinking about the numbers alone, we recog- nize that not enough attention is paid to the fact that 1,485 people go missing every day in America. Where are they? Why can’t we find them? Are there unde- tected serial killers stalking the streets of all our cities?
No matter the ethnicity or gender, media outlets should focus on the people who go missing in our com- munities. We will certainly do our part.
The Civil War Continues
on’t believe the hype that Afghanistan and the Vietnam wars were
America’s longest wars that lasted 19.9 years and 19.4 years, respectively. I contend that America’s longest war was and is the Civil War, one hun- dred sixty years since 1861.
Indeed, the insurrection at the Capitol last January was a sobering reminder that the hate, glorification and flags of the former Confederacy lives on in 2021.
In fact, Civil War Confeder- ate monuments, statues, flags, and names of treasonous Con- federate military leaders as- sault Black folks every day in practically every state in Amer- ica.
These things remind us daily that the institution of slavery is still celebrated on federal, state, county and city public properties. The most difficult part of living with these reminders is that our tax dollars are used to maintain these Confederate symbols.
As a Black woman, it makes
me feel like we must live with and look at the people who raped our grandmothers the rest of my life.
Thousands of confederate names, flags, and symbols are found in/on college campuses, schools, churches, hotels, lakes, cemeteries, libraries, muse- ums, dams, courthouses, amusement parks, military bases, National Guard posts, roadways located on federal, state, county and city proper- ties should be removed.
Currently, there are ten major military bases named in honor of Confederate military leaders in Louisiana, Georgia, Alabama, Virginia, and Texas. Even though some states have enacted laws with heavy fines to protect Confederate monu- ments and symbols from being restricted, renamed or altered, some cities have chosen to re- move the monuments and pay the fines.
Since the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, recent nationwide protests against the rash of
murders of Black people by law enforcement officers, and the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the nation’s Capitol, pressure has grown (beginning in the 1960s) to remove Confederate symbols from public property. Given that the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) conducted a Study of Confeder- ate monuments, there were more than 1,503 public monu- ments and memorials to the confederacy, nearly 20% (300) of the monuments and statutes were in the states of Georgia, Virginia, and North Carolina. Thus far, at least 317 of them in 34 states have been removed.
To proponents who say that “the statues and monuments do not cause racism and could be used to fight racism if put into historical context,” I say try telling Jews that statues of Hitler, Goring, Himmler, Bormann, Skorzeny and Nazi flags can be used to fight Anti-Semitism:, or try telling Lakota Sioux and Cheyenne de- scendants a statue of Custer will be used to fight hatred of Native Americans.
I believe the Civil War will end when every Confederate monument, statue, and symbol is removed from federal, state/county and city property nationwide.
Until then, the Civil War will continue to be the longest struggle in our nation’s history.
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