opinion
Children of Color Count as Much as Caylee
R
ecently, a criminal jury
acquitted Casey Anthony of
murdering her 2-year old
daughter Caylee while convicting
her of the lesser charge of lying to
police investigators. Anthony has
been released from jail amidst an
avalanche of animosity by
observers of the case. Whether
Casey Anthony was guilty of mur-
dering her little girl has been the
subject of a national discussion.
Over the past year, the case of
Casey and little Caylee has domi-
nated news coverage on many tel-
evision networks, most notably
CNN.
Caylee’s case begs broader
questions: Why do little white
girls garner so much more media
coverage after going missing than
little Black girls? Why does the
nation know the names of Jon
Benet Ramsey and not, let’s say,
Diamond Bradley or Yasmine
Acree?
B LACk L EADErShIP
Gary L. Flowers
In a report by Kathy Chaney,
writer for the Chicago Defender,
the circumstances of four Black
girls in Chicago received little, if
any media coverage—local or
national.
More disturbing was
a Scripps Howard
report that examined
missing child statistics
from 2000 to 2004
reported by Thomas
Hargrove and Ansley
Haman, in The Capitol
Hill Blue. According
to the authors, “For a
missing child to attract widespread
publicity and improve the child’s
odds of being found, it helps if a
child is White, wealthy, and under
12 years old.” Statistics within the
study found:
• White children are only 50
percent of United States missing
children, but 2/3 of Associated
Press dispatches
• Missing Children under 12
years old are only 1/6 of all cases
in America by 2/3 of national
news stories
• White children account for 67
percent of Associated Press
Defenders of the disproportion-
ate reporting statistics cite state
laws that differ around how evi-
dence in children’s welfare issues
can be released to the
public. Such arguments are refut-
ed by the fact that once children
are known to be missing White
children are disproportionately
featured by national media cam-
paigns. If there were more equity
in national media
reporting missing chil-
dren of any color per-
haps the “Amber Law”
may have had a name
such as Aisha or Asha.
In the case of Caylee
Anthony, CNN “Nancy
Grace” has nearly
focused solely on the
case of Casey Anthony since the
2008 murder of the 2-year old. At
one point, a one-hour feature was
solely devoted to the case.
As a result of the Casey Anthony
Why do little white girls garner
so much more media
coverage after going missing
than little Black girls?
reports, and 76 percent of CNN
reports, but only 53 percent of the
37,000 cases reported to the
National Center for Missing and
Exploited Children
case in Florida, “Caylee’s Law”
has been proposed to: 1) make it a
felony for parents/caregivers to
not report the death of a child to
authorities within an hour,
whether or not the death was acci-
dental; and 2) make it a felony for
guardians to not notify police of
the disappearance of a child with-
in 24 hours.
While “Caylee’s Law” will help
law enforcement in Florida—and
potentially around the nation—the
disproportionate level of care to
the disappearances and deaths of
children of color as opposed to
White children cannot be legislat-
ed.
We as a nation must value life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happi-
ness for ALL people, regardless of
pigment.
gary l. Flowers is the executive
Director & Ceo of the Black
leadership Forum, inc.
Child watch: The State of America’s Children Report
T
he Children’s Defense Fund
has just released a new
report, The State of
America’s Children 2011, which
paints a disturbing portrait of child
needs across our country. With
rampant unemployment, housing
foreclosures,
homelessness,
hunger, and massive looming fed-
eral and state budget cuts, chil-
dren’s well-being is in great jeop-
ardy. One in five children is poor
and children are our nation’s poor-
est age group. Child poverty
increased almost 10 percent
between 2008 and 2009, the
largest single year increase since
data were first collected. Fifteen
and a half million children are
adrift in a sea of poverty, and
every 32 seconds another child is
born poor. As our country strug-
gles to climb out of the recession
millions of our children are falling
further behind.
Although there are more poor
White than poor Black or Latino
children, worsening income
inequality and continuing racial
disparities have an extra harsh
combined impact on poor children
of color. Many are pushed off the
C hILD W AtCh
Marian Wright
Edelman
ing that children, who have no
belts to tighten, sacrifice their
food and Head Start and other sur-
vival needs while asking nothing
in sacrifice from powerful billion-
aires and corporations. Policies,
programs, and essential services
that we know help children sur-
vive and thrive—Medicaid and
CHIP (the Children’s Health
Insurance Program), the Maternal
and Child Health Block Grant,
WIC (the Special Supplemental
Nutrition Program for Women,
Infants and Children), SNAP (the
Supplemental
Nutrition
Assistance Program or Food
Stamps), Early Head Start and
Head Start, the Child Care and
Development Block Grant, the
Title I Education Program
designed to help disad-
vantaged children, the
Individuals
with
Disabilities Education
Act programs, Pell
Grants,
the
Social
Services Block Grant,
and others—are all
threatened with federal
cuts and/or program changes that
will further unravel the already
porous safety net provided for
poor children.
These looming federal cuts will
compound cascading cuts in state
and local funding for urgently
needed early childhood develop-
ment, K-12 education, higher edu-
cation, mental health and other
specialized treatment, and servic-
es for children in foster care and
the juvenile justice system.
Family stress has increased while
family stability has deteriorated,
with lost jobs, reduced unemploy-
ment compensation, restricted
assistance and public health pro-
grams, and more scarce affordable
One in five children is
poor and children are
our nation’s poorest
age group
path of healthy development and
into the Cradle to Prison
Pipeline. Poor children are more
likely to live in fragile families,
lag in early childhood develop-
ment, suffer abuse and neglect, be
uninsured and in poor health, be
denied a quality education, and
experience other gaps that put
them far behind non-poor
peers. Millions of Black children
are facing one of the worst crises
since slavery, and in many areas,
Hispanic and American Indian
children are not far behind.
In the face of these deeply dis-
turbing and growing child needs,
some of our political leaders are
heedlessly and heartlessly propos-
housing.
We know that poverty impairs
children’s emotional, intellectual,
and physical development and
ends up costing our nation billions
of dollars in lost productivity and
increased health care costs. We
know how to give children a
healthy start, rescue them from the
wolf of hunger, and keep them
well-nourished. We know how to
give children a head start to help
them get ready for and be better
able to achieve in school. We
know how to provide children a
quality education. Yet how pound
foolish to cut early childhood pro-
grams, school days, recess, and
teachers they need to succeed. We
know how to prevent child abuse
and neglect, find permanent fami-
lies for children in foster care, and
keep children out of our costly and
ineffective juvenile justice sys-
tem. How foolish to cut the
investments that could keep chil-
dren out of trouble and of jail. To
paraphrase what our mothers and
grandmothers taught us, if you
know better, you should do
better. What is it going to take to
get our leaders to get it?
Our vulnerable children must
not be sacrificial lambs on the
altar of adult politics.
Marian Wright Edelman is a
lifelong advocate for disadvan-
taged Americans and is the
President of the Children’s
Defense Fund (CDF).
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July 20, 2011 The Portland Skanner Page 5