Jezebel

if laci peterson hadn't had the peterson at the end and had her maiden name would she have been found?

I'd love to blame the media, but I think it's all dictated by how many people click on the story these days. Look at CNN/FOX/MSNBC top viewed stories every day-- it's pathetic. They print what sells, based on what we choose to look at. And the public's interest is pretty damn superficial.

I would never argue that this is incorrect.

But, I always thought the Peterson case got so much press because of the specific nature of the crime and soap opera elements.

But, I live near where it happened, so I'm not really tapped in to how much it was covered outside of Northern California.

"Black women ages 25-29 are about 11 times more likely as white women in that age group to be murdered while pregnant or in the year after childbirth."

I wonder why this is? I have some theories, but I wonder what the "experts" say...

As we know that most pregnant and not-pregnant women are abused/assaulted/killed by their partners, here is an interesting article on it: [www.theroot.com] >sigh<

@nodoubt9203 (It's not weird, it's different): What do you mean?

@ceejeemcbeegee: What are your theories, out of curiosity?

Joan Didion discussed a similar phenomenon with rape reporting in her essay on the Central Park jogger. As I recall, the preferred victim to report on was young, attractive, and white. This almost twenty years ago. Yay progress!

@ceejeemcbeegee: My inner sociologist blames the dissolution of the black family and the difficulty women have surviving outside of strong social structures (relatively). Ummm...slavery?

@Archetype: I think you have to factor in that it happened in CA too. Large media outlets -- easy access to coverage. Combine that with the particulars of the case and you get media overload.

Same thing goes for kidnapped black children. They also say that they see this same phenomenon when trying to appeal for aid in third world countries. People in the US are more inclined to care for the European children than the African ones. It's a matter of being able to empathize by putting yourself in their place, which may be hard for people to do, when the face of the person on the tv doesn't look like theirs.

@sabbaticalplease: There has to be a story to click on in the first place. Given that all the major media outlets are owned by whites running old guard companies, is it any wonder that black women are given short shrift?

"others have been saying for months"??? This disparity has been going on forever. And people have been trying to raise awareness about it forever. And so, thanks Jezebel.

@nodoubt9203 (It's not weird, it's different): Probably, additionally if she wasn't upper middle class.

I have to say the issue of selective press coverage crossed my mind when reading another Jezzie post regarding mini-breaks in two week-old relationships. "Maybe I'd go, but if he took me to the caribbean and killed me, no one would look for my brown ass."

I'd discussed this with a friend of mine, who countered "If [the news] covered all the missing women of color, there'd be no time for anything else."

That is disturbing.

There was discussions of class and status making certain cases "special" (blurg), but then what of Latasha Morgan, attractive middle-class college student? Granted that case was solved more quickly than the higher profile ones(and hey, Fox actually covered it), but for a while there you could have created a missing white woman network (MWN?), for all the news dominance.

Personally, the coverage disparity worries me less than the whole national fascination with bizarre murder cases. Not to be insensitive, but in terms of the larger picture, the sensationalized Laci Peterson/JonBenét Ramsey/nutjobs-who-claimed-to-kill Ramsey "news" stories take WAY too much airtime in general. If the case is closed, let it go. Let's talk war, the economy, anything else.

@ULookinAtMyJunk is the Hate Mitigator: Or how it is deemed more socially acceptable to adopt Asian rather than African.

Damn, I forgot to mention that black children are kidnapped at higher numbers then white children but they only get a fraction of the publicity. It makes me think that our kiddos aren't important to anybody but us. I feel like ANY parent, no matter the color would be able to empathize with losing a child, but obviously this is not true. It's sort of like the Louisiana Tech shooting received virtually no coverage because the shooter and the victims were all black females. At least it's almost 5:00pm...close to happy hour. I'll stay in the house with my liquor though, don't want to risk getting kidnapped; only one that'd be looking for me is my mama.

@sabbaticalplease: yup, this is what I'm afraid of . . . a market-driven phenomenon (which tells us alot about the market).

@dagnabbit: with you

@NefariousNewt: Well, yes, but, in the beginning the way links are generated, they go from localville to big news based on the number of clicks. In the beginning, it's a small regional headline that opens a new window to the local news station. When it becomes popular enough, CNN (or similar) makes it a byline on their own site.

I think this is super unfair, with murdered pregnant women and kidnapped kids. It's downright awful. I just don't think it's just the media's fault. They are a pretty easy target.

The thing is that I clearly remember that the same time authorities were looking for Laci, another expectant mother had gone missing. She was not mentioned in the English speaking news programs...at least not until the media began asking this question. I heard about her in the spanish channels.

@pedantic_dandy: Precisely. People are willing to hop on plans and fly thousands of miles and go through myriad red tape and paperwork, to adopt a Chinese child. Yet, it never enters their minds to even consider adopting a African or African-American child. I guess they have an unnatural fear of having to comb their hair or something. That's why I love Angie, she's making it acceptable to do so, which will only serve to highlight the need and hopefully open people's hearts.

@dagnabbit: just to clear up, I'm not defending Fox, I'm just astonished.

@ULookinAtMyJunk is the Hate Mitigator: Oh shit, I feel like punk for not hearing about this. I know on some level it shouldn't be "faulted" (how can we hear something that's not spoken about?), but then again I think all of us should be more active in hunting for news, not just eating what we're fed. Especially net savvy Jezzies. Which is my overly-wordy way of saying thanks for mentioning this.

@snowpoppies: Which tells us a lot about the general public and contemporary education levels. The market is a reflection of society, not some separate evil force.

@pedantic_dandy: and I can't read that without thinking that I have seen Britney Spears bloody period underwear, and vagina. I clicked. I am society and I am not proud.

@dagnabbit: You just can't trust corporate news. I find the Spanish-language channels to be more informative, but there's so many sites committed to providing real news. Unfortunately, most people get their news from the Yahoo homepage--I'm not trying to find fault, 'cause I read it too. Still, I've tried to make a concerted effort to take the stuff in newspapers and on the tell-lie-vision with a grain of salt and look for other sources.

I see this one little (7 years old) kid walking a LONG way from my son's school all by himself and this should be completely normal, right? But I worry about him every day. It's not a great patch of the city. And he should have some guarantee, right? that he'll be safe and unmolested? And yet, it looks so wrong to me, when it should just be . . .well, a kid walking home.

@ULookinAtMyJunk is the Hate Mitigator: I read "The Independant" online. Its from the Brit point of you...I seem to trust them more for my news...especially the BBC. Unfortunately, local news is not included.

@pedantic_dandy: right.

@sabbaticalplease: !!! you're all right :)

@sabbaticalplease:Yeah, I clicked on that link too. In our defense, seeing a Hollywood starlet with a period stain really is a bit of a modern miracle, being that many of them are too skinny to actually have one. It's sort of like making your dinner, it's alright to eat some junk food so long as three-quarters of what's on your plate is nutritious.

@ULookinAtMyJunk is the Hate Mitigator:To be fair, some black organizations and adoption agencies do make it difficult for white people to adopt black children. If they were racist they wouldn't be willing to adopt an Asian child

@ULookinAtMyJunk is the Hate Mitigator,@Her_royal_Highness:: Yah, no kidding about foreign tv/news. If you are lucky enough to have one of those cable stations that shows news programs from around the world every hour, you'd be astonished. Like the footage they would run at the start of the War-- the carnage, the damage, actual blood-- didn't need to know the language to understand there's some serious shit happening that we NEVER see.

@ULookinAtMyJunk is the Hate Mitigator: Would that also make Madonna a national hero?

This article brings to mind a clip of standup I watched with Dave Chappelle. He was talking about the Elizabeth Smart kidnapping, which got an amazing amount of press. He then mentioned a seven year old African American girl who has kidnapped by crackheads...they then left her, I guess to get more crack, of course, and while they were gone, she chewed through the ropes they tied her with and found her way home.

Sometimes, it's very hard as an African American not to adopt the "they don't care about us" mentality but in cases like this, it's hard not to feel very disappointed by the lack of concern both in the media, and the public :/

I think this phenomenon is really sad. People think oh well, it happens all the time with black people and so it's not news and we don't care. Plus, if something happens to a white person, it *could* happen to other white people, but if it happens to a black person, then it is viewed as something isolated to black culture and so has no bearing on the white mainstream's lives.

Damn. I was just about to leave for the weekend and now I'm simultaneously really pissed off and full of white guilt. Crap like this really inspires cynicism/nihilism. Could I at least get one last baby lion cub pic or sumthin?

@Archetype: Off the top of my head, I'm assuming that these Black women are being killed by Black men. And aren't Black women more likely to be killed in general than White women?

And I'm also agreeing with umm_okay a little here.

@ToUnfoldThem: I repeat this story all the time! That girl kicked down the door and ran home because she "would have been in big trouble if she was out after dark".

@tranquilmademoiselle: This has got to be stupidest thing I've ever heard, and I have many friend in Social Work who tell me White people come looking to adopt Black children all the time, but they get the run around.

But to be fair, Black parents looking to adopt ANY child who is not Black usually has to fight harder than any other group. Why? For some reason, they don't think we make good parents...

@pedantic_dandy: Unfortunately, in order to honor my own criteria, I'll have to say yes, Madonna is a bit of a hero. *shudder*@

href="#c5157243">tranquilmademoiselle: I don't want to give the impression that they're racist. Still, I believe that many are closed to the idea.

Is it a good thing or a bad thing that I've never heard of Maria Lauterbach?

Am I woefully ignorant or not feeding the machine?

@ToUnfoldThem: I actually remember that story or one like it being covered on our local news, the kid getting accolades, etc. It was an amazing story. It seems like kidnapped children and women of color get coverage around here at that level, but I never see it on the bigger cable channels.

@ULookinatmyJunk: I also wouldn't ignore the connections in place in the Asian countries (and some South American countries) facilitating international adoptions. Adoption from Africa can wind up looking shady by comparison, since we don't hear as many positive stories. Note the claims of Madonna's son's father that he didn't really give his kid up for adoption, or the Zoe's Ark controversy where French people were planning to essentially kidnap a bunch of refugee children in Chad and take them back to France for adoption. There have been numerous controversies in my state concerning transracial adoption - as recently as 2006 there was a white family suing the state because they weren't permitted to adopt their black foster child. And at least around here, it's the black community that objects most strongly to such adoptions, for various historical and sociological reasons, and in many respects, their concerns are probably legitimate.

Personally, I wouldn't be the least bit terrified of a kid's hair (can't be any tougher than my hellish Irish frizz), but I'd be worried that I couldn't raise them in a way that prepares them for the fact that a lot of people won't accept them, black or white.

@ULookinAtMyJunk is the Hate Mitigator: My sister talked about how much she would want to adopt an African-American or African orphan when the time is right. My family is waaaaay liberal and I was really surprised to see them taken aback by this statement.

I was also talking to my friend the other day about famous serial killers. I knew a fair amount about a few but she mentioned how there didn't seem to be any black serial killers, at least not as well known as Jeffrey Dahmer and BTK etc. Perhaps I just don't know about them, or maybe it's just the serial killer personality profile is the charming middle class white guy. Not that I'm preaching for equal opportunity serial killers or anything.

I will say that in L.A. whenever there is an Amber Alert there is a ton of attention regardless of the child's race.

@ceejeemcbeegee: Take it out with my professors who did studies about it. Don't agree with something I say fine but you don't have to attack me about it

@TrixieBelden: I hope to adopt a kid when the time is right and I'm sure that it'll be easier for me, you know, being black and all. If it truly is the case that white people have a harder time adopting black children, then I think it's up to the state to knock down some of the roadblocks that act as a deterrent to doing so. Personally, I feel that ANY child that is adopted, is a fortunate child, no matter the color. However, I'm more inclined to care, because the vast majority of the kiddos are black...and I know that kids that remain in the system are moreorless guaranteed to have a more difficult life. I don't know what can be done. It's very overwhelming and it doesn't help with the system actively undermines the children it purports to help...jeez, pass the liquor. I wish your family good luck in their efforts.

@tranquilmademoiselle: I think she was agreeing with you...like, it's the stupidest thing she's ever heard that white people have a hard time adopting black kids. I could be wrong though.

"maternal homicide"?!?...um, what about domestic violence or intimate partner violence or violence against women? Please, let call it what it is.

@ULookinAtMyJunk is the Hate Mitigator:Ohh okay.That makes sense. My bad. My sociology professors take adoption issues seriously. I think a few have adopted themselves

Yea, I read it wrong the first time too and I was all like, "CeeGeeMcBeeGee, what's up with that?"

@TrixieBelden:

The only AA serial killer you really hear about is Wayne Williams. As a true crime "fan" and criminal justice student, I read the Crime Library a bit and have found stories about a few AA serial killers besides Williams. I think the reasons for so little press on these guys is the same: the crimes are often intraracial and so the victims don't "rate" the same type of press.

On the missing child front, I remember that a little Milwaukee girl named Alexis Patterson went missing around the same time as Elizabeth Smart. Her disappearance got barely any press until her parents complained about how neglected they felt while Elizabeth's face was plastered all over the news. "Without a Trace" even did an episode which focused on the disparities in coverage for missing White victims versus missing Black victims. Alexis' case was the real-life case they featured during a commercial break.

Alexis, unfortunately, is still missing. And we still don't hear much about it.

@ULookinAtMyJunk is the Hate Mitigator:

A number of families in Minnesota have adopted interracially, but there was some backlash in the Black community some time ago. Many Blacks complained that Black children were being yanked from their roots and that these adoptions were attempts to undermine and destroy the Black race.

While I can sorta understand concerns about Black children being raised in communities were they ARE the only diversity, I think agencies should really consider how much better it is for these children to be in loving homes than worrying about being P.C.