Missing: Media Coverage of Missing Black & Indigenous Women

There are 700 missing indigenous girls and women in the state of Wyoming. You don’t know any of their names. There are thousands of missing Black girls and women and you don’t know any of their names, either. There are missing Black boys and men who are also persona non grata to local and national media.

You don’t know their names because the local and national media is owned, operated, managed, run, and hosted by predominantly white men and they decide what news you’ll see or in the case of missing Black or Indigenous women and girls, what you won’t see. Those white men have no interest in covering stories of non-white girls they don’t consider pretty enough, blond enough, innocent enough, or interesting enough.

But before all the blame is placed on the white media, an equal amount of blame must be directed at the police, sheriffs, and the FBI — all of whom refuse to treat missing non-white people with the energy they give when any white girl or women goes missing.

A country obsessed with policing Black bodies in public spaces finds no energy to “see” us when we need them to.

We are too visible when it doesn’t matter and too invisible when it does.

A missing white woman was found this week. Her body was dumped and found a week after she was…