I was thinking of writing something about Missing White Woman Syndrome, because there's an excellent current example. A 41 year old highly paid professional, attractive white woman living in the affluent seaside Boston suburb of Cohasset disappeared just before she was scheduled to fly to D.C. on business. This has gotten wall-to-wall coverage not just locally, but nationally. As you might imagine, there are actually a whole lot of missing people in the U.S. right now, about whom maybe a single news story has appeared on the local TV web site, if they're lucky.
Columbia Journalism Review has created a database of missing person stories and developed an algorithm to tell you how many stories are likely to be written about you if you go missing. It only asks your age, gender, ethnicity and the state where you live, so it doesn't include physical attractiveness or social class, which I would expect would make it more accurate. It calculates that I would rate 11 stories. I entered Anne Walsh's data and she rates 23, because she's a little too old. A woman in her 20s would get more than 120. I think Walsh overperforms because she's young looking and quite pretty. The affluent suburb also helps.
By the way the police have arrested her husband on charges of misleading them. There has been a lot of evidence reported publicly that leads one to think they'll charge him with murder soon. There hasn't really been more to add since then but the news outlets are still posting "updates" that say nothing. Anyway, try it and see how much attention you'd get.
1 comment:
Apparently, I'm a "12."
61 years old, legal residence is Michigan, male, classified as "white,"whatever the fuck that means ... because no one I know is white or black.
We insist on labeling in this country, and our labels are so fucked up. It's incredible. One opposite of the "missing white woman syndrome" is the syndrome in which, if you are a woman, or your skin is brown, you can't just get elected to office, because you have to be the "first black female" this or that, or "only the second black this or that," and mainstream media outlets like The New York Times think they're being magnanimous instead of racist. The great white big brother, or some sort of bullshit like that.
Most people in our country are simply incapable of seeing other people simply as people. Any claim that this country is not inherently founded on and steeped inracism is a ludicrous as claiming that the sky does not appear blue during the day and black at night.
Racism, sexism, ageism and other "-isms" permeate every aspect of this society. As Salman Rushdie wrote, "Repression is a seamless garment."
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