I recently came across a story about a missing woman named Maria Fernandez that really made me think about how we cover missing person stories in the United States. If you are a US citizen and you aren’t a teen, I’m sure you remember Susan Smith. Susan Smith was a South Carolina mother who told police that a black man jumped in her car and stole her car with her kids in it. She later admitted that she drowned the kids herself. I personally believe that  she deserved to die by lethal injection for that crime, but instead she went to prison. Anyway, there was a nationwide call for help to look for the boys.

When Natalie Holloway disappeared in Aruba, everyone in the US (and probably Holland too), knew about it. When the Dutch boy was initially bought in for questioning, everyone thought the case was solved, however, it wasn’t. The story stayed in the news for years. When Caylee went missing in Florida that story stayed in the news for a very long time and still is in the news. People were interested and it showed. So is there a double standard when a non-white person goes missing?

The story I came across is about a woman named Maria Fernandez. It is believed that her boyfriend might have something to do with her disappearance, but no one knows. What struck me as odd about this case is that Maria went missing in September 2008. That’s months ago! Why haven’t we heard anything about this case? The woman was a responsible mother of one young son and she was a nurse, yet her story has not been blasted all around the news. No Adam Walsh. No prime time information. Nothing! In the article, the reporter said something that made me cringe. Here is the quote.

While thousands of people go missing each year, cases involving white children or attractive white women typically are the ones that attract media attention. Experts say it takes a passionate advocate to bring attention to a case involving a black person, such as Fernandez.

I started thinking about all of the missing person stories I’ve seen this year and I realized that perhaps this statement was correct. I’m sure that there have been some missing black people and some missing latino people, however, I can’t recall information about one non-white person! Have we become so wrapped up in race as a society that we don’t give a damn when a person goes missing if they aren’t white? I guess we have. Thinking about that makes you question yourself because we all like to think that we are morally better than the next person. The question is, are we really? When we start devaluing a human life because the person is a person of color we ultimately end up desensitizing ourselves and becoming the very people that we condemn as racist - whether we like it or not. Maybe all of us are very stupid. Anyway, you can read the particulars of the Maria Fernandez case below. If you have any information, please do the right thing.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081223/ap_on_re_us/missing_nurse