Why We Know About the Missing White Children, but Not the Black Children
By: Nafisa Khan
Jayme Closs, a white girl from Wisconsin, was the subject of an Amber Alert. Jake Patterson randomly targeted and abducted her. “When he saw (Jayme) he knew that was the girl he was going to take.” In 2002, Alexis Patterson is a black girl who went missing after walking to school. According to The Denver Post, for the past decade, her mother, Ayanna Patterson had made several appearances on national television. Each of these cases is compelling, but they did not receive the same amount of media attention and national coverage. Each story behind each missing person is unique.
The cases of black children who are missing do not get the same treatment as white children. Their pictures do not become permanent fixtures on Twitter, nor do their names. Their names do not get hashtags, nor trending topics. Nationwide man hunts or search parties do not get involved. The news is four times more likely to report a white person missing than a black person. A lot of black parents hesitate to call the police; there is distrust between black families and law enforcement agencies. Black families fear unintended consequences of reporting their child missing. “Black females represent about 7% of Americans, but over 35% of all missing person’s cases.” The FBI's National Crime Information Center (NCIC) claims that in 2018, 424,066 children under 18 were missing. About 37% of those children are black, even though black children only make up about 14% of all children in the U.S.
The first thing that may come to your mind when you hear that a child is missing is that they have been kidnapped. However, this is not always the case. These kids may have gotten abducted by someone they know or they may have run away from home (voluntarily or after being lured).
Law enforcement does not take black missing children cases as seriously as white missing children. These blacks who are disappearing are classified as runaways. “Wilson said her organization has seen many such cases.” Since they have voluntarily left home, Amber Alerts do not get sent out about them. In most cases, they are not shown in the news.
"PLEASE SEND THIS TO YOUR CHILD. SEND THIS TO YOUR MOTHER. SEND THIS TO YOUR SISTER." ~ #EgyptSherrod
"Nearly 75,000 Black Girls & Women Are Missing Across the Country SEND THIS VIDEO TO EVERY WOMAN THAT YOU KNOW. WE HAVE GOT TO TAKE CARE OF OURSELVES. WE GOTTA LOOK OUT FOR OURSELVES. BECAUSE THE MEDIA DOESN’T SEEM TO CARE AS MUCH AS THEY SHOULD. WE ARE NOT THE LEADING STORY OF THE DAY. I THINK THAT’S WHAT THESE SEX TRAFFICKERS ARE COUNTING ON THAT PEOPLE ARE NOT VALUING THE LIVES OF BLACK WOMEN. WE HAVE GOT TO BE DILIGENT. WE'VE GOT TO BE COGNIZANT. PAY ATTENTION."Each story behind each missing person is unique. Blacks do not get as much media attention compared to whites. This is shameful! The missing people in this country, particularly black children, must be known. The police do not take cases involved with missing black children as seriously as missing white children. We need systems to approach this problem better.
