NM: Nicholas McIntyre
TL: Trey Leroux
AL: Alec Levine
NM: Hello everybody, my name is Nicholas McIntyre, and I will be the host for this episode of “Yo, is this Racist?” I’m joined by Trey Leroux and Alec Levine. Trey, Alec, if you wouldn’t mind, can you introduce yourself.
TL: Hello, I’m Trey Leroux
NM: Thank you for that, and now Alec, can you introduce yourself?
AL: Hey, I’m Alec Levine
NM: Alright, with the introductions out of the way, let me start with the meat of the episode. So today, we will talk about Missing Indigenous Women and White Woman Syndrome. We’ll do a deep dive into how people perceive this as racist towards the Natives and the other minority communities such as LGBTQ and non-white people. We’ll also cover what we can do to help resolve this issue. I’ll start by giving a short description of what the whole Missing Indigenous Women thing is. So, in short, data and research have shown that the indigenous people (meaning native Americans) people and specifically the indigenous women tend to get murdered or go missing without a sound in the media. Their missing cases are exponentially higher than a white person in the same state, even though the Natives make up a small percent of the population. They’re less likely to be reported in part due to a stigma, and they very rarely tend to make country-wide news. So, Trey, if you wouldn’t mind, can you give us a short description of what is going on with the White women syndrome?
TL: Well, White Women Syndrome, which is a term that Gwen Ifill coined, is like the missing Indigenous people, but it covers a broader range of communities. It involves the LGBTQ community, any non-white people; it even dips into people’s wealth class. White women syndrome says more media coverage, specifically on the news or on TV in general, on missing person cases involving white women in the upper-middle class. Recently, there was a case involving a woman named Gabby Petito, but we can get into that later.
NM: Alright, thank you for explaining white women syndrome and how it ties into the Missing Indigenous Women.
AL: If you wouldn’t mind, can I ask a question real quick?
NM: Sure, go-ahead
AL: Okay, so we’re talking about the missing indigenous women and the White women syndrome, but how do we have a chance of changing anything here. I mean to me, it sounds like it’s something that few cities can’t influence. I think it has to be a complete country-wide change.
TL: Well, you aren’t wrong; it does have to be a country-wide change, but it has to start somewhere, which is a person in a town, and hopefully, the city will catch on, and reform will spread. The best place to begin bringing notice to this is a state with a high Native population like Oklahoma. People could start pushing to have the missing cases of native people for the news to cover. Then other states will begin to follow along, and eventually, missing persons from all ethnicities and backgrounds will be top news. Perhaps they’ll get unique hashtags, and recognition like Gabby Petito did.
NM: I have to bring something up; for the Natives, they have their justice system, the Tribal Court, they have jurisdiction over their land and all the crimes that happen on that land, so maybe they don’t want any outside help. I haven’t been able to find any articles where people ask Natives to help find their missing people, but it wouldn’t hurt to do a survey or something like that in the future. If it is an overwhelming “no, we don’t want or need help,” I guess we tried, and that’s the best we can do. But if they do want help, we should have a system in place that can assist in that. As for the LGBTQ, other minorities, and lower wealth classes, I think it’s clear that they want their voices heard and their people found just based on the news articles and the newly established online presence. So really, everything should be reformed to become more accepting of non-white people even if they don’t want it.
AL: that’s true from what I know; nobody has asked the natives if they need or even want our help. Hey, Trey, didn’t you say in the beginning that you wanted to share a story about Gabby and how it brought to light the lack of attention for the missing minorities?
TL: Yeah, thanks for reminding me about that. So recently, a case emphasized the systematic injustice for those reported missing who are non-white and in the LGBTQ community. Honestly, the recent issue was a slap in the face for those families who have had no attention brought to their loved one’s location by the authorities or media. An article from the Washington Post states this very well that “Her (Gaby’s) case deserves attention and justice. But all the missing deserve this. And so, the wall-to-wall coverage of the Petito case has been an added slap in the face to the loved ones of non-White and LGBTQ people who haven’t gotten it.” (Attiah). It was an attack or slander on the missing female, only to be found as murdered days later, but rather this seems to be a case of white woman syndrome.
AL: So, what does this mean on the coverage for non-white or LGBTQ females and males?
TL: Well, usually, people associate minorities who go missing to be involved with a crime, which takes the attention away from the real problem: they’re missing. Now I understand that this can come across as me saying that white people going missing doesn’t matter, but rather, my point is that the cases of minorities are just as important as the cases of white women.
NM: I want to touch on the fact that you said that people think of minorities as being involved in crimes as the reason they went missing. That is one of the reasons why Natives report their missing people at a lower rate. There is a stigma that they were involved in a crime. If autopsy reports or the details of the body are released, the news/ media tends to report about the bodies more graphically as opposed to white people, where they are the primary focus. Details are minimal; I suppose to show respect to the victim.
AL: So, as a bit of recap, we discovered that Minorities such as the LGBTQ community, non-whites, and people of a lower wealth class tend to go missing without any media coverage, and the only thing that can be done to change this is bringing to light the completely biased system and convincing people to change their ways. It is undoubtedly a tall order for anyone, but I believe it can be done with a lot of hard work by everyone around the country.
NM: Thank you for that little recap of this episode, so unless any more questions should be it. I’m glad that we had a fairly in-depth conversation, and there were some eye-opening facts and points.
AL: Yeah, for sure; I’m glad that we covered this topic.
TL: I agree
NM: Finally, I want to thank all of you, the listeners, that tuned in to this episode of “Yo, is this racist?” with Nicholas McIntyre, Alec Levine, and Trey Leroux. Have a good day, everyone.
Attiah, K. (2021). Gabby Petito deserves justice, but ‘missing white girl syndrome’ hurts us all. The Washington Post.
GREAT, GREAT, GREAT!
Thank you!!