This quote made me realize that inequality between the majority and minorities in America continues to be a problem today, just not as explicitly and not in the same way it used to be. The purpose of Black and Missing But Not Forgotten "is to raise awareness of the racial disparities in mainstream media's reporting of missing persons of color... to draw more attention to missing minorities and help bring them home." The founders of this blog believe that the media pays less attention to minorities than to the majority. But why? This doesn't make any sense to me. We're all American, so for the media what makes missing whites more important than missing blacks?
According to Ernis Suggs, vice president of print for the National Association of Black Journalists, "There is a certain level of interest, a certain fascination with White missing persons... Americans identify with who they want to be." After processing this quote, it occurred to me that there are people that still equate being white with being American, while they should equate being American with being American. Although inequality between races does not affect the public the way it used to, it's clearly still an issue. In class, we have talked a lot about how the media chooses what information to feed to the public. In this situation, what gives the media the right to write stories pertaining to some races more than others? Are they the root of this invisible racism?
2 comments:
I don't think that it is necessarily racism at work in our society. I think it is classism.
Wealthy children gone missing tend to get much more media coverage than poor kids, regardless of race. Americans have a fascination with rich kids going missing or being killed. If someone at a suburban school is killed, counselors and doctors are brought to talk to the other kids. If a poor kid goes missing there is no money for the doctors or counselors.
The media doesn't care about a story the people to whom it is related to live don't care about. Race is more a product of this because, unfortunately, a disproportionate majority of minorities live in poverty.
This is an interesting topic Sophie. I think it's a shame that missing minorities aren't given more attention from the media, but it isn't very surprising. The founders of Black and Missing But Not Forgotten are correct, the media pays less attention to the minority than the majority. I don't understand why that is so shocking. It would be alot more peculiar if the minority were given more attention than the majority. Not because it would be strange to give colored people more attention than white people, because there are less of them. The best evidence of "invisible racism" is the ration shown on the Black Press USA article you posted. Only 12% of Americans are black yet 25% of those abducted are African American. For this reason the media should pay more attention to the minority. However, and it may seem a bit heartless, privately owned businesses like People Magazine have every right to publish what they want. I'm going to go out a limb and guess that atleast 75% of their subscribers are white. From a business stand point, it probably makes more sense to write about missing white people. The average white person would probably rather read out a missing white person than a missing minority. <-- invisible racism
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