Until a few weeks ago Relisha Rudd, the little black girl who disappeared three years ago this month, was the lone black girl on a Washington D.C. Police website for the missing. Now the site has 38 people on the website, mostly black and latino girls.
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| Relisha Rudd |
The D.C. Police website was updated properly due to a black police commander named Chanel Dickerson deciding that all missing people should receive the same level of police service and media attention. She is the one that made sure that the D.C. police website for critical missings was updated.
This is also when a pattern emerged showing black and brown teens were prevalent among the missing, mostly girls. Shortly thereafter citizens in the D.C. area noticed a dozen black girls and latinas go missing all at once, within a few short weeks.
Black and brown residents were horrified as it became apparent that white dominated police and white dominated press were not responding to the disappearances of several black and brown girls the same way they do to missing white women. In fact, some football jersey got more coverage than the disappearance of these missing black and brown teens
Trust me. This is not how white women's disappearances are handled. In fact, the dearly missed Gwen Ifill coined the term Missing White Woman Syndrome to describe the response of white run police departments and white run news outlets to one missing white woman.
Since these missing black and brown girls have gotten media attention, the D.C. police said there has not been a spike in black and brown girls going missing. And they've gone further to say that most of the missing girls on the website have been determined to have "walked away."
I'm trying to figure out how you know somebody "walked away" if they're still missing on listed on the website. That is, how can you know somebody walked away for sure unless you've found them?
And I wonder if it matters when somebody 12 to 18 years of age walks away. The 12, 13, an 14 year old cannot take care of themselves no matter where they walked away to. Furthermore, white women who "walked away" with men at bars that weren't even in this country when they did so get a huge police presence and full court press from the media.
This probably means that the Washington Police still have a problem with how and when they list girls among the critical missing, especially if they are black or brown.
When white girls go missing, they are assumed to be critically missing or assumed that some foul play might be involved until they are found. I seriously doubt there's a missing persons board in any state in the nation with photos STILL UP ON missing person's boards that are assumed to have "walked away."
So, I'm wondering if skin color is the main thing used to determine that black and brown girls just "walked away" -- and therefore not worthy of an Amber Alert.
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Being female, while also black and brown, likely also has an effect on police not taking some of the missing seriously. White girls being considered innocent and fragile (race and gender stereotypes meet) leads to no stone being left un-turned. Black and brown girls being seen as anything but innocent and fragile while also stereotypically flighty and hot-tempered are more likely to be listed as "runaways."
The ever present twin supremacies, white supremacy and male supremacy, are probably behind the missing Amber Alerts.
The black and brown girls missing in Washington D.C. remind me of how missing black women were treated on the opposite coast.
At the front end of THE GRIM SLEEPER case dozens of black and brown women disappeared while the police did little or nothing. Behavior similar to that of the D.C. police department is, no doubt, what allowed relatively recently convicted serial killer, Lonnie Franklin to hunt down and kill dozens if not a couple hundred black women and black girls over a twenty year period -- all within a tiny section of Los Angeles.
Still, it could be police are right this time. It could be the girls on the D.C. Police Website "walked away" and are properly characterized as runaways. But we shouldn't take white run police departments word for it. Ever.
If a photo stays up on their missing websites for so long, the residents in any given area should be putting police feet to the fire.
If a photo stays up on their missing websites for so long, the residents in any given area should be putting police feet to the fire.
The citizens in the area need to find a way to make sure police do not characterize black and brown girls as runaways until the girl has either been
(1) contacted,
(2) returned,
(3) or the police have a witness willing to provide a written statement that the girl ran away.
If the police have any one of those three things, then the photo should come off the website, right? This seems obvious to me.
If not, then an Amber Alert should be issued just like it is for white people, just as fast as it is for white females.
Read, See, and Hear More:
BLACK WOMEN
MAKE SURE
BLACK WOMEN MATTER
Chanel Dickerson deserves our thanks.
BLACKCHICKROCKED.BLOGSPOT.COM
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