Black Lives
Matter...
By: Tahirah Wiley
What about the Missing?
#FindOurGirls
As of April 1 st 2017 34 Missing
Girls in the Washington
D.C. Area alone
#FindOurGirls- One of the current
and viral hashtags amongst social
media users. Recently, there have
been several stories in regards to
African American and Latina teen-
age girls that have gone missing this
year. These stories have been the
platform of information to keep up
with the stories of the missing chil-
dren in the Washington, DC area.
As America watched these disheart-
ening numbers seem to increase
within social media many questions
surfaced.
Many celebrities spoke out against
the injustices with issues in America
that associate with people of color,
case and point. Within days of the
nation wide attention, more of the
teenagers seemed to be found un-
harmed and immediately labeled
“runaways”. Bernice King took to
twitter and stated “Sex trafficking/
slavery is pervasive in the U.S. and
world. Don’t label our #MissingD-
4
Cgirls as runaways and not search.
#FindOurGirls”.
Despite the social media frenzy en-
forcing the finding of 14 teenagers
missing within a 24 hour period,
it has been found to be pieces of
what is referred to as “fake news”.
D.C. Police stated there actually is
not an increase of missing children
of color nor are there 14 teenagers
missing within a 24 hours. Howev-
er, there were still 22 open cases
involving missing teens in Wash-
ington, D.C. as of March 22, and 13
open cases as of March 27.
Members of Congress are calling
on the FBI to investigate the large
number of Black and Latino missing
children in our nation’s capital. 95
percent of the children who have
gone missing in 2017 have been lo-
cated. According to the Associated
Press, over 500 D.C. children went
missing in the first three months of
2017. Police spokeswoman Rachel
Reid stated there hasn’t necessarily
been an increase in missing persons
in the district. Instead, the public is
simply noticing more because the
police department is posting miss-
ing girls’ photos on social media.
These missing children aren’t all of
sudden missing but simply having
light shed upon it.
So this raises the question: Is the
media being used for the families
and children for children of col-
or fairly? When the proportions of
race and gender from the news
coverage of five national television
stations between 2005 and 2007
were compared to official missing
children statistics, it was found that
African American missing children
and female missing children were
significantly underrepresented in
television news coverage. It is ar-
gued that such things as newsroom
diversity, news operation routines,