We Count

The Pastor’s Page

I keep thinking about the double standard of the way news is reported.
In Cleveland, Ohio, at least 13 women have turned up dead. They were African American women …some with serious problems, but they were human beings, and they had been missing for a while. It turns out that they’d been murdered by one Mr. Anthony Sowell, a convicted sex offender.
Thirteen women gone. Missing for a while, and yet, I do not remember hearing any stories about the women being missing.
I think of Heather Ellis, the college student who was arrested for allegedly assaulting a police officer after she was accused of cutting into a line at Walmart …and who faces 15 years in prison for this minor offense…and yet, the coverage has been minimal.
I think of the young African American boy, Walter Currie, who lives in Poplar Bluffs, Missouri, who was set on fire by another teen. The coverage, again, has been minimal.
Yet, Sarah Palin is all over the place!
There are countless sad and discouraging stories about what is happening to people of color all over this country, and yet, we hear little about them. If a young white girl is missing, we hear about it; it is a sure thing that if 13 white women were missing, be they of ill repute or not, the entire nation would know about it.
And yet, our people have horrible things that happen to them, and scarcely a word is said.
There is a need for us to be vigilant and to tell the stories ourselves. I firmly believe that we should not whine about what is “not,” but work to make a difference ourselves. In this age of the internet, and the “I reporter” phenomenon, there is no reason why our stories should not be getting out.
If the police will not look for our missing, and if the media will not cover stories about our missing, or, as in the case of Walter Currie, our injured and misused, then we ought to make sure the news gets out.
Of course, when there is something untoward that someone in the African American community has done, it’s front page news. The horrible story about the young African American mother who apparently sold her 5 year old daughter out as a prostitute, and who consequently ended up murdered, deservedly made the news.
And so did the story about John Allen Muhammad, who was executed last week for the people he randomly killed as the “DC Sniper,” make the news. I have no problem with that.
But so should reports of our missing women and children make the news. We count. Our children count.
The fact that the officials in Cleveland ignored the stench of death in a primarily African American neighborhood should be big news; there ought to be a big time investigation going on, and the results ought to be made public.
Like I said, we count.
The tendency of the media to focus only on the misfortunes of our community, while ignoring the tragedies that occur in our communities, is a travesty and professionally unforgivable.
I write this, again, to say that we need to care about our community enough, care enough about our women and our children to make sure the world knows about what is going on. If we don’t tell the stories, they will not be told.
That is obvious.
Rather than waste valuable energy, though, complaining, I say we look at our problems and issues and work to make a difference.
That is what we, I believe, as empowered Christians, are called to do.