Black families also deserve to bring their loved ones home, no matter the outcome, requiring community engagement, equal law enforcement, and media coverage.
Gov. Gavin Newsom recently signed Senate Bill 673, the “Ebony Alert,” to address the lack of attention given to Black youth and Black women who go missing in California.
Like the Amber Alert, the bill authorizes the law enforcement agency to request the California Highway Patrol to activate an Ebony Alert when Black children and young Black women and girls between 12 and 25 turn up missing.
The Ebony Alert will utilize electronic highway signs and encourage radio, TV, social media, and other systems to spread information about the missing person.
While the Ebony Alert doesn’t address young Black men who go missing quite often, too, becoming victims of sexual exploitation, human trafficking, or, sometimes, organ harvesting, I hope, at some point, it does. We must address this valuable population with similar commitment and intensity as we do women and girls.
The California bill, spearheaded by state Sen. Steven Bradford, represents the first in the nation to create an alert system to address the crisis of missing Black children and young Black women.
The Ebony Alert goes into effect on Jan. 1 and was passed unanimously by both California legislature chambers.
The bill states that Black youth 18 or younger make up 38 percent of missing person cases. Black children comprise about 33 percent of all missing child cases and receive less media attention that they are missing.
Bradford said in a press release that Black children and young Black women are disproportionately represented on the lists of missing persons. He mentioned a Black and Missing Foundation report that noted a recent human trafficking finding, stating that 40 percent of sex trafficking victims were Black women. Rarely is the media and law enforcement engaged in finding these groups, Bradford added.
The senator hopes the bill ensures that “vital resources and information are given so we can bring home missing Black children and women in the same way we search for any missing child and missing person.”
Some social media reactions to the Ebony Alert are that there shouldn’t be separate alert systems for missing children based on race. Wouldn’t it open the door for authorities to determine how quickly they respond? Or would the Ebony Alert be ignored by other ethnic groups?
Others asked, what about an alert system for other racial groups?
The Black community shouldn’t require a separate alert system for Black children and women. However, as with other challenges Black people have faced, various laws were necessary and fought for.
Bradford stated oversight and accountability will be pursued when it comes to law enforcement.
None of us have any control over how others may react upon seeing the Ebony Alert.
And if other non-White groups believe their missing loved ones aren’t receiving enough resources and media coverage, do the work of advocating for an alert system as did the Indigenous community, prompting the “Feather Alert.”
I hope the age limit for issuing an Ebony Alert can be eliminated. Unless the person qualifies for the California Silver Alert for seniors, Black people older than 25 also go missing.
What would also be effective is that the Ebony Alert legislation expands to other states. I read an article about 30 missing children in Cleveland who were abducted during the first two weeks of May. Some children were found in Arizona, West Virginia, and California.
In some cases, missing people have been taken across the border to other countries, never to be seen again.
Which is why prompt community action remains vital along with any emergency alert systems. The Black and Missing Foundation provides on the website a toolkit of resources to families with a missing loved one and offers preventative measures for parents to keep their children safe. What’s key is to join them on their social media platforms and post, tweet, and share the profiles of the missing. One share may be all it takes.
— The Vacaville author is a social issues advocate. 2022 Women of the Year Congressional Award Recipient. E-mail: damitchell@earthlink.net
