Thursday, September 04, 2008

Am I wrong?

For the last three months, the national news has been inundated with reports about Caylee Marie Anthony, a missing 3-year-old from Central Florida.
According to a timeline from a Central Florida television news station, Caylee went missing in June. Apparently, her mother, Casey, allegedly left her with a babysitter, repeatedly, while she went to work. After her mother's parents hadn't seen the child in a while, they made her go to the authorities.
After being caught in several lies about who she'd left the child with and where she worked, Casey Anthony was arrested. They did one of those Horatio-CSI mock ups on her car and evidence of human decomposition was found. She was charged with child neglect and held under a half million-dollar bond.
Long story short, she got out of jail and ended up having to go back on unrelated charges. She's still there and the child is still missing. Authorities now believe that she is dead and have even called in the help of a search and recovery team, not search and rescue.
With all that said, I have to say that I am tired of hearing about this case. Don't get me wrong, I wish they would find her alive and I don't wish harm on anybody's kids, but I sort of believe if this were a black child or any other child of color or a kid that people deem as "not cute," this case would not have gotten this much coverage.
Think I'm lying, take a few minutes to surf the site for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and tell me that all these kids are getting the same treatment as Caylee.According to that site, more than 2,000 are reported missing every day. Granted a lot of kids, mostly pre-teens and teens, run away, but the majority of the younger kids are snatched - usually by somebody they know.
Regardless of how they get missing, they all need an advocate and dare I say, some air time. Call me cruel, call me crazy, but I know for a fact that kids and women of color who go missing do not get the same coverage or air time or whatever and that is sad.
So, while they've formed a massive search team and are looking for this possibly deceased child, why not dedicate just some of that man power to looking for some of those kids whose pictures aren't being flashed on the 6 o'clock news and the 11 o'clock news and Nancy Grace.
Here are only four of the kids who went missing in North Carolina over the last year. I encourage you to look at their pictures and be on the look out. They were all abducted by a family member who is believed to have taken them out of state.

I also encourage you to check the site and look up kids who have gone missing in your state. Do your part, I know I'm doing mine.

2 comments:

TravelDiva said...

Awww. I've been semi-following the Caylee story. It's so sad to see missing children. I think it got much more publicity back in the 80s when I was younger though. I remember being scared of being "snatched" when I was a kid.

Tyhitia Green said...

It's sad that this child is missing, but I feel you Smarty, in that, women and children of color DO NOT get as much or any air time. When Susan Smith cried about a Black man car-jacking her and taking her kids, the racism level increased in this state, and Black men were treated terribly in Union.

Then it was found out that the heifer killed her own kids, and then the White folks here were astonished that Black men were offended by that racist sketch and treatment. What a bunch of racist jackasses. :-/ Sorry for the rant.