Please understand that I have deep sympathy for Savannah Guthrie and her family as they agonize over the disappearance of the television host’s mother. In a case yet to be solved at this writing, Nancy Guthrie, 84 years old, was apparently abducted from her home in Tucson on February 1.
The media are transfixed by this drama, with regular updates in newspapers and on cable television. Journalists have camped outside the victim’s home, and law enforcement officials hold news conferences to apprise the press of their progress.
The New York Times reports that “several hundred” law enforcement agents have been assigned to the case.
The tincture of celebrity amplifies this attention, of course, but I wonder if race also plays a role. The victim is a white woman, the mother of a television personality who apparently is very popular.
The Guthrie abduction reminds me of the kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby in 1932 or the abduction of Patricia Hearst in 1974. Both incidents received incessant, even obsessive, media attention.
But other Americans are also the victims of violence. Why don’t they receive anywhere near the media coverage or that level of attention from law enforcement?
This epidemic of violence is especially acute among people of color. Although they comprise less than 15 percent of the population, Blacks, according to the FBI, account for more than 25 percent of abductions or kidnappings. Thousands of girls and women from Hispanic communities are victims of sex and labor trafficking every year.
According to the Brady organization, Black people account for 60 percent of those killed by firearms each year, and African Americans ages one to 17 are 13.6 percent more likely to die by firearms and 19 percent more likely among ages 18 to 24.
Violence is especially acute among Native Americans. In 2023, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, homicide was the fourth leading cause of death among American Indian and Alaska Native men between one and 44 years old and the sixth leading cause of death for women in that cohort.
According to an earlier CDC study, more than two in five non-Hispanic American Indian or Alaska Native women (43.7 percent) had been raped in their lifetimes.
Without question, Nancy Guthrie’s disappearance is a tragedy—senseless and almost certainly unprovoked. But in 2016, according to the National Crime Information Center, 5,712 reports of missing American Indian or Alaska Native women were logged, a number that likely falls short of the actual total.
Where are the media stories tracking progress in finding these women? How many law enforcement agents are investigating these cases?
Although the George Floyd case was certainly an exception, violence against people of color too often falls off the radar.
Recall the Freedom Summer of 1964. When three civil rights workers—Andrew Goodman, James Chaney and Mickey Schwerner, an African American and two whites—went missing, a massive manhunt ensued. In the course of draining swamps and dredging rivers, officials discovered the bodies of nine Black men whom the authorities had never even acknowledged as missing.
According to the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, more than four in ten Black women suffer physical violence from an intimate partner, and more than 20 percent of Black women are raped during their lifetimes. How is this a tragedy any less appalling than the disappearance of a woman in Arizona?
The fault here lies not so much with the media or even law enforcement, but with what we Americans deem important.
Are white lives more valuable than Black or Hispanic or Native American lives? Is Nancy Guthrie’s abduction more consequential than the disappearance of thousands of Hispanic or Native American women?
Judging by coverage, the media seem to think so.
I suppose the ancillary question here is whether the media shape public sentiment or merely reflect it. More than likely, it’s some combination of the two, but in any case, the stark disparity calls for some reckoning.
The Black Lives Matter movement emerged in response to the killing of African Americans like Tamir Rice, Ahmaud Arbery, Michael Brown, Breonna Taylor and George Floyd. Many conservatives responded to the Black Lives Matter movement by asserting “All Lives Matter.”
True enough. But if so, then shouldn’t we be focused equally on the disappearance of thousands of Hispanic or Black or Native American women every year as we are with the abduction of Nancy Guthrie?
Randall Balmer, author of America’s Best Idea: The Separation of Church and State, teaches at Dartmouth College.