Missing and Missed
I hope I never go missing, because I seriously doubt that—with the exception of my husband, family, friends, and perhaps some of the readers of this blog—that many people are going to get seriously worked up about finding me. Why? Because I’m the wrong color and gender. People like me dont’ get much press when we disappear.
Two bright, ambitious students at the main state university disappear in the same town, under similar circumstances. One of them becomes âan inescapable name and face,â in the words of The Greenville News. The other is largely forgotten. No one can say why with absolute certainty.
But there is one unavoidable difference between the two cases:
Dail Dinwiddie is a white woman. Shelton Sanders is a black man.
Chandra Levy. Elizabeth Smart. Lacie Peterson. You know their names. You know their faces. You know, because when they disappeared, the world stopped, and the eyes of all media turned to the search for them.
I remember the furor here in D.C. over the disappearance of Chandra Levy. It was inescapable. It was a daily item on the local news and national news. I remember remarking at the time that if Ms. Levy had been a young black woman, her disappearance wouldn’t receive nearly as much attention as it did. After countless local news stories about Levy’s disappearance and the finding of her remains, the local news here in D.C. finally did a story on the countless number of people who had also disappeared from the D.C. area, but who didn’t make the evening news. It was no surprise that the majority of the families who attended an event to draw attention to the disappearance of their loved ones were of color. (Most also appeared to be of limited economic means, but gender and race still seem to be the trump cards when it comes to a disappearance getting lots of media attention.)
But “when was the last time you heard something about a 23-year-old black female who was missing on NBC or ‘World News Tonight’?” asked David Hazinski, a former NBC News correspondent who teaches broadcast journalism at the University of Georgia.
“I think in general we just really don’t hear about Latin or black or Asian people who are missing,”he said. I’m not sure why.”
…”It’s all about sex,” said Clark, vice president of the Poynter Institute for Media Studies in St. Petersburg, Fla. Young white women give editors and television producers what they want.
“There are several common threads,” Clark said. “The victims that get the most coverage are female rather than male. They are white, in general, rather than young people of color. They are at least middle class, if not upper middle class.”
…When it comes to police stories, Clark said, there is “this perverted, racist view of the world. White is good; black is bad. Blonde is good; dark is bad. Young is good; old is bad. And I think we can find versions of this story going back to the tabloid wars of more than a hundred years ago.”
It’s tempting to label this a failure of the media and leave it at that, but I think it goes somewhat deeper. On one hand, it may be said that the media shapes public concerns. But on the other, it can also be said that the media reflects the public concern. They report on particular stories because of the way the public responds, and when a young, attractive, white, middle class woman goes missis, for some reason the public response is many times greater than it is if just one of those qualifiers is different: and that qualifier is race—the darker you are, the less a chance your case has of getting the spotlight if you go missing. If you ask me, I think it’s because on some level we still value or de-value people based on their skin color, and the darker you are, the less you are valued.
July 21st, 2004 at 4:14 pm
This has always pissed me off. The Lacie Peterson is a great case in point. Within months of her disappearance, two other pregnant women disappeared. Both in Northern California. There was NO media, much less national media, about those other two cases. The difference?
One was a hispanic woman, the other a white woman who was on welfare. Lacie Peterson was more dire than these two?!
The thing is, its so damn true of children too. The Elizabeth Smart incident is a case in point. Hundreds of children of color and hundreds of poor children go missing every year and SHE gets national lamenting and gnashing of teeth media? A cute, white, blond, wealthy girl. Of course she does.
F^&*() up values.
July 21st, 2004 at 11:50 pm
You often post about the differences between the way people of color are treated and you often feel that people treat you the way they do because of your color. I often disagree with you, and don’t mind telling you so. But not this time. This time I think you are correct. The sad fact is the color of the skin does play a part, not the part you think but it’s there nonetheless. What the Media wants is “Pretty” and most of the time that’s white/blonde.
Martina Navratilova ( one of the greatest female tennis players ever) was once asked if her homosexuality held her back from big fat endorsement money, money her main rival Chris Everett was rolling in. She replied… Oh heavens no. It’s not because I’m gay it’s because I’m not pretty. (She’s correct.)
The media isn’t trying to “report” the news it’s trying to “sell” the news and as such it uses those stories, those people and those faces because they “sell” well. Princess Di sold very well and she was very, very pretty. Halle Berry would score well and would be front-page news not because she’s famous but because she’s pretty.
Is it shallow and vain for the “news” dept. to be this way? Hell yes it is. Is it fair? NO
One of the reasons I stopped watching news was because they started selling it rather than reporting it. It all broke loose when they started neilson ratings on the news programs and Journalists died out and “pretty” reporters took their place.
Let the selling begin!
“On one hand, it may be said that the media shapes public concerns. But on the other, it can also be said that the media reflects the public concern.”
It does both, but it can’t do both when all its worried about is whether it got a 3.5 or a 4.5 market share.
“They report on particular stories because of the way the public responds, and when a young, attractive, white, middle class woman goes missing, for some reason the public response is many times greater than it is if just one of those qualifiers is different: and that qualifier is race”
Say that again but this time change “race” to “sellability”
Does race play a part in that? Without a doubt. Is it wrong? Oh hell yes! But is race “the” issue? No not really. Sellability can even trump “pretty”.
Ray Charles passed away and was on the cover of every magazine you could think of and not only is he dark, very dark (Blonde is good; dark is bad remember) but almost ugly as well, I mean come on, talent out the ass, but not the most handsome man on the block. So why have him on the covers? If you say because he was a great and talented man you’ll be wrong. The world is full of great talented men that never get near a cover.
Sellability, plain and simple. His image helped “sell” more of that issue than anyone else they had available at that month. And while I would agree that’s good business sense for a magazine.
I think it’s a totally fucked up way to do the news.
Stories about pretty women sell. And the news outlets aren’t interested in news any more, only selling.
July 22nd, 2004 at 10:33 am
Indeed. Go to the office of the Chief Medical Examiner of the District of Columbia (a.k.a., the city morgue). You’ll see plenty of “missing” posters for black women and black men. Do they get coverage beyond the communications office of the city morgue and maybe police offices?
The day I saw Chandra Levy’s poster there, I knew it would hit the news–because she was white.
Sad. True.