Wednesday, December 10, 2008

White women are always missing...

The latest stats show an average of 22,000 women have been reported missing. To break that number down by race, almost 62% are white and 29% are black. Now while the numbers show that white women have the highest numbers, they're not the only ones missing.

A 24-year-old African-American woman named Tamika Huston of Spartanburg, S.C., was reported missing by her family. Now you probably haven't heard of Huston or even know her face, even though her family did everything to get her name out there. Huston's aunt, Rebkah Howard who's a public relations professional, distributed fliers, held a press conference and created a Web site to get mass media attention, but her story was overlooked. As the search for Natalee Holloway, a white woman continued.

A June 16th article in the USA Today posed this question to the media. "Why doesn't the media show as much concern for non-whites?" Howard believes it's a simply a trend. A formula if you will.

She told "The Early Show's" co-anchor Hannah Storm she doesn't believe executive producers and newsroom staff consciously exclude persons of color, but notes it is important for the media to take a critical look at which cases they cover.

"What I believe is happening," Howard says, "is that networks have found a formula that has worked for them. And they tend to be about young, white attractive, middle- to upper-class women. And they continue to follow those stories. As one is resolved, they'll move on to the next one. I was met with a lot of resistance when I tried to get national attention for this case. It has been unfortunate."

Huston's body was found. Her ex-boyfriend confessed to killing her.

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