Something I've Noticed.., Not sure where to post this.. Options

[Casbah]

Over the last few years I've started to notice that the national (and in so many cases, local) news coverage of child abduction stories- have, for the most part centered entirely around white children... I have never seen coverage about a non-white child, or even a missing person case get as much attention and airplay as the story with Shasta Groene or that girl that went missing in Aruba..

So do only white children get kidnapped, or are they just more entitled to the news coverage than say black and latino children?

[zapatista]

Well… I’ve always heard about kidnappings of all kinds of kids…black, white, blue, green, yellow, purple. I’ll agree that the coverage of the girl who ended up missing in Aruba is excessive… but who’s to say what’s excessive when a kid is missing… and also, well, she isn’t a kid… but yeah, I’ve lived a bunch of places and never noticed a bias (at least on local news) to only cover white kids… it does seem that way on national news tho… think of all the big missing kids stories over the years. I guess they are all white.

and i assure you not only white kids get kidnapped... in mexico, sadly, kidnappings of young kids and women are common place almost... and i know it's like that all over the world.

[Moremi]

Over the last few years I've started to notice that the national (and in so many cases, local) news coverage of child abduction stories- have, for the most part centered entirely around white children... I have never seen coverage about a non-white child, or even a missing person case get as much attention and airplay as the story with Shasta Groene or that girl that went missing in Aruba..

So do only white children get kidnapped, or are they just more entitled to the news coverage than say black and latino children?
[right][snapback]182423[/snapback][/right]

I've noticed the same thing..for a long time now.

This was a big issue in DC a few years ago. The bodies of several African American women turned up around the same area in DC and they were all murdered in the same fashion. The community was concerned there was a serial killer because this was going on for over 10 years and the murders would stop then start back up again. I don't remember the exact number of women murdered but it was pretty high ... I'm sure it was more than 60 women and this didn’t receive a lot of news coverage.

Also, there have been incidents where police didn't file reports for missing children in a timely manner – they waited a few days. I believe some police officers and the media treat missing children (especially the older ones) from poor black communities as runaways and even go as far as blaming the victims. Some kids do get mixed up in the wrong crowds and put themselves in harms way, but they are still kids and should be treated that way.

[ozorage]

i agree that on a national level it seems like a bigger deal is made about white missing persons.... especially when a white U.S. citizen is missing in a forgein country....
but like Zap said... "who’s to say what’s excessive when a kid is missing"

also like she pointed out kids (and women) are being abducted daily not just in the U.S. but throughout Latin America and the Caribbean, Africa, Asia... everywhere... sadly "we" don't really give a fuck as a society about those people

on the local level though.. at least here... most of the missing children reports i see on the news are blacks and latinos.... and especially when i watch spanish language news obviously the children are mainly latinos...

...if you ever read the abduction dates to the side of the picture... it's just so sad to see how long most of these kids have been missing... it's a scary thought.... just knowing first of all that they've been kidnapped.. and then one can only imagine what they are being subjected to, if in fact they are still alive... it's sad.

I believe some police officers and the media treat missing children (especially the older ones) from poor black communities as runaways and even go as far as blaming the victims.

agreed... they'll be like... "Are you sure they were abuducted and didn't just run away? Are you experiencing any domestic problems..." so then shit takes longer to get processed...


it's so heart-wrenching to hear about that shit... sooo many kids missing... i dunno what the hell is wrong with people...
but then it's not only the kidnappers. of course they're all fucking bastards who need to be caught and stopped... but how many of us actually take the time to LOOK at the pictures and descriptions, just in case... you know...

[yabasta]

I don`t recall any purple children stories at all.


When i try and remember cases of abductions/missing children news stories here in South East England i don`t recall any non white examples. Of course it could be a statistical difference because south east england (excluding London) is very white. It could also be racism on some level.

This kind of topic is one of the most disturbing types of stories to me personally. I can`t believe how little gets mentioned on boys town and the apparent highly organised abuse which seemed to go up quite high(hence the relatve silence i imagine).