Mitrice Richardson, L.A. County Sheriffs, and ‘Missing White Woman Syndrome’
I’m not sure which is more infuriating – the circumstances surrounding the disappearance of 24-year-old Mitrice Richardson, or the way the national media has refused to give the story the attention it deserves.
I’d bet that Mitrice’s family cares only that it has not seen her since Sept. 17, but as a member of the media, I care too about the collective shrug the story has received in comparison to white women in crisis such as Laci Peterson, Natalee Holloway, Madeleine McCann, Caylee Anthony and others.
Mitrice, from South Los Angeles, was arrested at an upscale Malibu restaurant after refusing to pay her bill and displaying erratic behavior like telling restaurant patrons that she was from Mars. She was taken to the Malibu sheriff’s station – far from an urban locale – and despite the fact that she was showing signs of mental instability, she was released in the middle of the night without a car, her purse, cell phone, and without any public transportation available for hours to take her more than 40 miles to her home. The sheriff’s department insists it did so because she was not a threat to herself or others. But she hasn’t been seen since.
The L.A. Times is right when it declares, “If that’s following procedures to the letter, something’s wrong with the procedures.” The family is trying to get the F.B.I. to intervene in the case, urging people to sign a petition online.
Though the sheriff’s department certainly seems at least partially responsible for Mitrice’s disappearance, the media has also played an unfortunate role in the story – by not making it a big enough one. Mitrice is featured on the cover of a recent People magazine, but she shares the page with five other people, while missing white girls like Elizabeth Smart and Jaycee Dugard commanded their own covers – sometimes more than once. Those women’s stories also were deemed worthy of round-the-clock discussion on cable news shows that coverage of Richardson’s case has not come close to equaling.
It’s become a favorite passtime of the press to take every critique of President Obama and dissect whether it constitutes racism (and let’s face it, most of them do). But why waste time doing that when disparate coverage of Mitrice Richardson’s case is like being handed proof of racist treatment on a silver platter?
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Racism within the law enforcement world is a long-running but still important story. Sometimes that racism is a contributing factor to wrongful convictions, the main topic of my T/S blog.
Journalists should have evolved past racism, conscious and unconscious, long ago. But as the Richardson story and so many other dramas demonstrate, journalists still give more coverage to Caucasians than to people of color when such distinctions should have disappeared eons ago. Since the 1970s, through my writing and my in-person newsroom sessions as an accomplished investigative reporter, I’ve tried to make a positive difference when it comes to coverage of the downtrodden and the discriminated-against.
Often, I wonder if I’ve made any difference at all.
[...] women with similar stories like Mitrice Richardson get far less coverage (Richardson made a People magazine [...]
I am thrilled you wrote this because it gives coverage for Mitrice. I battle this topic within myself. In general i agree with you. the white girl is usually going to get more press. however i think there is more to it than race. I can name 10 missing white girls off the top of my head- that have had little if any- press. So Mitrice is actually ahead of them. Lacey Anderson (cute white blonde girl) received zero national coverage. She didnt even get to share the cover of People mag with Mitrice. (Lacey’s body was recently found- unsolved case)
Morgan Harrington did share the cover, but i bet if you added up TV press time- Mitrice has gotten more coverage via Nancy Grace etc. than Morgan.
I think a lot of it has to do with the family making noise & some of it has to do with luck in finding someone to cover the story. Also the relatable factor, which grabs the public’s attention.
keep up the great work for the missing!!
ps: dont even get me started on missing men-
of any color!