July 30, 2005

• LaToyia Figueroa or Natalee Holloway?

  
  

  Which name are you more familiar with?

  
  

  Most likely the latter, right? Everyone knows the case about the missing Alabama teenager who disappeared off the coast of Aruba. It's the top story on every news program, with details being analyzed and reanalyzed by every news anchor in the country. I am pratically friends with all the individuals involved at this point.

  
  

  But not very many people know about the pregnant woman who has been missing for almost a week now. Latoyia Figueroa was last seen at a doctor's appointment with her exboyfriend before disappearing and leaving behind her 5 year-old daughter. Investigators just recently searched the exboyfriend's home for evidence, and he is now considered a top suspect.

  
  

  This woman was missing for a week before the story got out to CNN and all the other news programs, and it hardly gets as much coverage as Natalee Holloway's case. Even Laci Peterson's disappearance case was aired much sooner after she went missing than Figueroa's.

  
  

  The obvious difference between Holloway and Figueroa is their race: Holloway is white and Figureoa is not. It's already been noted by the very television anchors who continue to talk about Natalee Holloway that cases involving white missing persons gets more publicity than nonwhite cases. They say it's unfair and sad that there is racial bias when it comes to airing missing person's cases, but they continue to uphold the discrimination. For every time we hear the story about a missing white person, it's that much less publicity for a missing nonwhite person.

  
  

  Who has a right to tell you that finding your child is not as important as finding another child because of their ethnic background? Who decides which story will gain the most viewers? Remember that headless baby that was found many years ago, and whose case was finally closed this year? That story came and went, with very little coverage until it was discovered that her stepfather cut her head off with hedge clippers. This baby was black. Her story, although so gruesome and tragic, it wasn't the media monolith that it should have been. It should not have taken four years to find the murderers. It probably would have taken less time if the media helped keep the story alive.

  
  

  I obviously don't think it's fair that there are still signs of bias between the races in our everyday life. It's one thing to keep the discrimination private, but to publicly display such racial preferences is disgusting. Should I go missing, no one will ever hear about it. No one. I'm neither pregnant, a teenager, or white. If I were murdered, so what? No one will know. My Asian ethnicity does not entitle me to being a top story on Headline News.

  
  

   

  • 1:49 pm
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