Another Young African-American Woman is Missing

Latasha Norman, a twenty year old college student at Jackson State University student in Jackson, Mississippi has been missing for last two weeks. Blogger “The Field Negro” focused on the incident, stating that “she isn’t white so you won’t hear about her…” I tried Goggling her name to see if she had been found, but I did not even get an article reporting that she was missing. I ended up going to blackamericaweb.com only to learn that there is no new information.

My sadness is two-fold. I fear that since she has been missing for so long, there is the possibility that she will not be found alive, which is very troubling to me. It also saddens me that the media is once again disinterested in acknowledging that a woman of color is missing and providing the national attention needed to garner the resources and manpower to actually find this young woman.

I often inform students who take my intro sociology course, that it is a definite privilege to be white and that white life is much more valued than the lives of people of color, be they black, red, or brown. Journalist Gwen Hill describes this phenomenon as the “missing white woman syndrome”, in which all media attention is extended to missing white women (and white children), while people of color get virtually no media coverage.

I feel for this young woman, her family and friends and I pray that she is found unharmed.Anyone with information regarding Latasha Norman's whereabouts is asked to contact JSU's police department at (601) 979-2580 or the Jackson Police Department at (601) 960-1210.