Wednesday, July 20, 2005

The Tragic Disappearance that You Will Never Hear About

Crystal Mary Rose Thomas, age 16, is missing. She was last seen in Indianapolis Sunday night. She went missing after having gotten into a car with strangers. Minus the ocean, this sounds a lot like the case of Natalee Holloway in Aruba. Right?

So where is Fox News? Where is MSNBC? Where is CNN? Where are the FBI agents? Where is the nationally broadcast plea from her father? Where is the national panic and outrage?

Well, it turns out that Crystal Thomas is black. USA Today reports that more minorities go missing than white people. But whose stories have we heard? Jennifer Wilbanks, Laci Peterson, Lori Hacking, Elizabeth Smart and Natalee Holloway. All white.

I personally think the national media places too much focus on these cases and exploits the families involved. But given that they convey the disappearance of a white woman as an International Tragedy, they should treat the disappearance of a black woman the same. The media's recent history tells me that news directors think the disappearance of a black or hispanic woman is common or not-newsworthy (read: boring).

I hope that the media proves me wrong this time, for Crystal's sake.

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

You are right.
The Black Informant Blog (http://blackinformant.com/) has made note of this before.

It isn't interesting that the media will almost completly ignore missing persons who are black or of another minority group, it is rather disgusting and disturbing.

I'm glad she was found.

1:56 AM  

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