Finding Our Missing
Commentary by Black Kos Editor JoanMar
One Monday morning last month, I turned my television on to find that all three cable news channels (CNN, MSNBC, and Fox) were talking about Hannah Graham. Graham, a University of Virginia student, had gone missing and was last seen on video surveillance being trailed by a suspicious-looking character. That evening, Anderson Cooper's (CNN) lead story on his 9 pm show - accompanied with breaking news banner - was about Hannah. "Great!" I thought. "The more exposure, the better."
Sadly, young Hannah was later found dead. May she rest in peace, and may her family get the justice they seek.
I do not begrudge the attention paid to missing young white women. My goodness, I can only imagine the nightmare parents live through when their children go missing. What absolutely infuriates me, is how little attention the media pays to missing minorities, especially black men and women. Can they spare a minute to help us find ours?
Minority, Missing, and Ignored
As the website Black and Missing Foundation points out, figures taken from the FBI database shows that even though African Americans are only 13% of the population, they make up a whopping 33% of the missing. Further, in 2013 some 627,911 people went missing here at home; of that figure, 240,411 were classified as minorities.
“When we hear the term ‘missing persons,’ most people conjure up images of Chandra Levy, Caylee Anthony or Natalee Holloway,” Wilson said. “As a result, the public is misled in believing that victims of abductions and kidnappings are [all]blond, blue-eyed and female.”
Take the case of Ataui Deng.
22-year-old Deng, a Manhattan-based Sudanese model, who also happens to be the niece of the fabulous
Alek Wek, disappeared about a month before Hannah Green, and under roughly similar circumstances. Both young women were last seen leaving nightclubs after midnight. Deng, who is also signed to the very visible Trump Model Management agency (yes, that Trump), was thankfully
found alive in a New York City hospital.
Let me ask, do you really think that the disappearance of a white female model anywhere in the USA would not have made the national news? Especially one who is related to one of the most famous models in the world? Or one, however tangentially, associated with Donald Trump?
It is estimated that there are some 64,000 missing black women.
One case that has stuck with me - haunted me - since I heard of it is that of Nefertiri Trader.
Her family hasn't heard a word from her since she was last seen getting a pack of cigarettes at a 7-Eleven near her home. Then, she was seen by a witness, struggling with a man wearing a hoodie on her front porch around 4 a.m. Monday.
Nefertiri Trader, 33, of New Castle, Delaware was last seen on Monday, June 30th outside her home.
Have you seen her?
I could not end this piece without mentioning the mass disappearance of 43 young Mexicans.
On September 26, 43 student teachers — all men in their teens and 20s — who attended a school in Iguala, a city in southern Mexico, went missing after attending a protest against hiring discrimination and to fundraise for another demonstration.
There has been some attention paid to this mystifying, troubling event, but here, too, I have yet to see a breaking news banner on CNN about it.
It would be a gross dereliction of duty if we were to end without a mention of over 200 schoolgirls who are still missing in Nigeria. It is way past time for them to be reunited with their families. Please bring back our girls!
For more information about our missing, see:
Missing
Jet Magazine Covers “Missing”
Black and Missing Foundation
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News by dopper0189, Black Kos Managing Editor
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YouTube sensation Philochko delves into Russians’ psyche on race and Russia-U.S. relations. The Root: America’s ‘Black Borat’ Attempts to Explain Russia’s Love-Hate Relationship With Obama.
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You may never have heard of the Brooklyn, N.Y.-born actor and YouTube star, but he’s doing a better job of explaining Russia’s views toward the Obama era than any number of PBS specials.
Two years ago, Phil Jones was a small-time actor scraping together a living in bit parts of Sex and the City and We Own the Night. In other words, living the life of most black actors trying to make it big in New York. Then, fulfilling a lifelong curiosity, in 2013 he took a job teaching English in Russia, and videos of him teaching American slang to Russians and his Borat-like cultural adventures quickly turned him into an Internet star.
Philochko, as he’s known in Russian, has more than 95,000 YouTube subscribers, and his commentaries on race, culture and the sex life of a young black man living in Russia has transformed him from a teacher to a traveling celebrity in the former Eastern bloc. Philochko says he was inspired by YouTube celebrities like Tommy Sotomayor, although his commentary can easily fall into the same category as folks like Kain Carter and Raven Masterson.
But with strained relations between Russia and the United States, Philochko’s adventures bring an enlightened perspective to an American audience wondering what’s up with all the saber rattling coming from Moscow. His stories of race and racism from Chechnya to Ukraine to more than 30 cities in Russia detail a changing and increasingly hostile racial climate in Russia that spills over into international affairs.
Russia was not always known for blatant racism. In fact, for decades, communist propaganda attacked the United States for anti-black institutional racism, claiming that communism had eliminated such social ills. Many black radicals and revolutionaries from the ’60s through the ’80s were invited to the former Soviet Union as a safe haven from bigotry in America.
Philochko and friends
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The charity MSF says it is to host clinical trials of new Ebola treatments in West Africa, one of them using the blood of recovered patients. BBC: Ebola outbreak: MSF to start West Africa clinical trials.
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Clinical trials to try to find an effective treatment for Ebola patients are to start in West Africa next month.
The medical charity Medicins Sans Frontieres, which has been helping lead the fight against the virus, says three of its treatment centres will host three separate research projects.
One trial involves using the blood of recovered Ebola patients to treat sick people in the Guinean capital Conakry. Two antiviral drugs will be trialled in Guinea and an unconfirmed location.
"This is an unprecedented international partnership which represents hope for patients to finally get a real treatment," said MSF spokeswoman Dr Annick Antierens.
A World Health Organization (WHO) health worker gives a demonstration on how to put on a protective suit to health worker trainees in Freetown, Sierra Leone, September 30, 2014.
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A recent conference, whose goal is to increase the racial and cultural competency of educators, provides a basic framework for addressing racial insensitivity in the classroom. The Root: Can White Teachers Be Taught How to Teach Our Children?
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The overt racism of George Wallace standing in the schoolhouse door and the National Guard escorting black children through taunting and jeering crowds is from a bygone era.
Still, racial prejudice in public education is alive and well. A more subtle form, perhaps unintentional but still damaging, persists in large part because of white educators with unexamined racial biases. Factor in the large and growing racial and ethnic gap between students and teachers, and the sense of urgency is palpable.
With this backdrop, the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education recently convened a summit led by researchers and scholars from its Center for the Study of Race and Equity in Education. About 80 educators from across the country—teachers, administrators and instructors from teachers colleges and alternative certification programs—gathered to wrestle with questions concerning race and begin the process of building racial and cultural competency in their classrooms and schools. Over the course of the day, several basic tenets emerged:
Talking About Race Is Not Racist
Especially thorny is the belief that mentioning race equates to racism. Race and racism are not synonymous. Racial talk provides the space for greater understanding—fear of racial talk and silence provide the space within which myths, stereotypes and bias abound. This is destructive for students of color and fosters the miseducation of white students. Teachers’ skills can be grown and cultivated, but teachers must be willing to do the work.
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THINKSTOCK
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