Resources / Ripples & Wipeouts

For years now, it’s been quite clear to me that brown, beige, black or yellow people don’t warrant the same attention as white people do when it comes to abduction and certain types of violence committed against them.  Not too long ago a shooting occurred on the campus of Hampton University.  Bet you didn’t know that, did you?  Fortunately no one died, but would it have mattered? 

I mean no disrespect to the family of the little girl for whom the Amber Alert was named.  I have two children of my own and pray daily that no harm comes to them.  Since their inception, Amber Alerts have aided in the search and rescue of abducted children all over the country and around the world (although not necessarily as Amber Alerts).  I find it ironic that although dozens of children of all colors go missing the vast majority of children for whom an Amber Alert is issued are most assuredly not amber-skinned.

Bob Herbert, columnist for the New York Times, made a similar point in a recent column, What color is that baby? Herbert recalls a time when he was a young deputy editor sitting in on a planning meeting.  A story about a murdered baby was up for discussion when the editor asked, “What color is that baby?” As if to say, let’s go with the story so long as the baby is white.  In his column, Herbert used this story in reference to the over one hundred young people who lost their lives in violence in Chicago over the last couple of years.  Where’s the national outcry, the urgency? 

The same is true for the violence that overtook Compton and East L.A. in the 80’s.  Young people were gunned down daily, yet there was no nationwide call for the insanity to stop, no daily update on the totals or background stories on the victims or made-for-cable movies. 

And then there was Columbine – senseless, avoidable, and certainly newsworthy.  We’ve all heard about Natalie Holloway (soon to be a cable television movie), Chandra Levy, Elizabeth Smart, Lacie and Stacy Peterson, and Caylee Anthony.  But have you heard about Bonita Sanders, Elissa Martin, or Stepha Henry, the young black college student who went missing in Florida a couple of years ago?  These women and girls have been missing for quite some time without all the fanfare afforded to the roll call of white women listed before them.  They too left worried families behind – vanished without a trace.

What is behind this imbalance in reporting or in the use of Amber Alerts?  Is the media at fault?  Or is it law enforcement?  Certainly, the media bears some of the blame as Herbert described in his column.  His was the only black face at the editorial table.  The lack of diversity in the newsroom directly correlates to the kind of news we see or read.  Granted, Herbert’s story took place at least two decades ago but what about today?  By the looks of it, we have not moved the needle much in the way of diversity in the newsroom and with every big city paper that closes, the scope and breadth of reporting narrows

I’ve discovered that the issuance of an Amber Alert is at the discretion of the police department investigating the abduction. Enough said?  Not really.  Many police departments around the country are headed if not well represented in the ranks by people of color.  So, if that’s not the problem, what is? 

Is it because of some deep-seated notion that our kids are somehow ‘not worthy’ of an Amber Alert?  Because we fear embarrassment if it turns out to be false like the Tawana Brawley fiasco involving Al Sharpton in 1987?  (The Brawley family has maintained that Tawana’s story was true – a grand jury did not return indictments).  Or is it because on some deeper level, people of color are still regarded in the way the Constitution identified slaves – as three-fifths of a person?

As I write this, an Amber Alert was issued for a nine year-old girl whose mother called from her cell phone—frantic—saying she and her daughter had been abducted.  They were taken, the mother said, as she got out of her car to assess the damage from a fender-bender.  She described the assailants as black.  Turns out the whole thing was a hoax.  The mother and daughter were found safe and sound (kinda), at Disney World. 

Chew on that for awhile.

--Joan Grangenois-Thomas