Black Girl Lost

I'm watching The Today Show this morning and they're talking about Natalee Holloway. The blonde Alabama beauty who went on her senior trip to Aruba six years ago and was never seen again. Her body has never been found, but at this point, we realize she is dead, probably drugged, raped and murdered by some rich, drunk locals. Since then , the nation cannot forget about Natalee. The last videos of her replay in slo-motion, her eyes blink, her smile develops slowly, and it's a little hard to watch knowing that her youth and life was taken. Her mother's pain is tattooed across her face during each interview she gives. I've seen the Lifetime TV movie, I've watched all the Nancy Grace specials. I've followed the news stories about the boy who allegedly did it. Natalee Holloway belongs to America now. But America doesn't always adopt every little girl who doesn't make it back home. Surely one can argue that the media cannot cover every missing persons case. The question is which ones catch the media's eye and become a staple in our culture while other's barely get a mention... and why? If I say JonBenet Ramsey, Laci Peterson, Elizabeth Smart or Caylee Anthony you most likely know of their stories and can picture their smiling faces in your mind. You can probably tell me personal things about them as if they were your neighbor or a close family friend. But if I ask of Phylicia Barnes or Diamond and Tionda Bradley would you know who they were? Could you picture their pretty black faces in your mind? I mean no disrespect to any of the aforementioned deceased or kidnapped young women. They are all victims. But that's just my point. I have no choice but to play the race card here because the media makes race an issue by not giving equal time to missing black girls. They don't force their cases on us, they don't make us remember them so that we feel like they were a neighbor or a girl we went to school with. There are no Lifetime movies or 24 hour coverage on the court channel. There is just a brief blip on the news screen and we can google their names for local coverage if we want. We can dig through the headlines for the latest updates if we choose to do so. But the work is ours to do because there is a clear cut contradiction of services when it comes to young girls going missing and their race.