Open Season on Black Women

A Black woman from West Virginia was raped and beaten during a week of captivity at the hands of some White folk. Two Black females, within a week of each other, were found dead after being reported missing. A young Black woman went on vacation last spring and has not yet returned.

Where is the coverage?

Instead we hear the exploits of spoiled brats Paris Hilton and Britany Spears. When Laci Peterson popped up missing and later found dead, non-stop reports were the norm.

If she's White, it is breaking news. If she's blond and blue eyed, she automatically given superstar treatment in the media.

However, if the woman is Black, has short cropped, natural black hair -- even if she don't, her disappearance is barely mentioned. If she's beaten or abuse, the media, with blinders in place, shrugs its shoulders.

Media fairness seemingly goes only to the fairest of skin.

Black women are disappearing these days at an alarming rate. Does anyone care? Is it open season on Black women?

A Black woman disappears from her home in Milwaukee and barely gets a milk carton notice. Her case still is unsolved.

Twenty-four-year old Tamika Huston's body was found August 12, over a year after she first was reported missing from her Spartanburg, S.C. home. A man Huston supposedly was dating was arrested and charged with her murder.

Almost immediately after local police began investigating, Huston's loved ones distributed filers, held news conferences and established a Web site. Other than Greta Van Susteran briefly mentioning her on Fox News Channel, a story last March on America's Most Wanted, and a report on National Public Radio, her case rarely saw national attention.

Not unlike Natalee Holloway, the 18-year-old from Alabama, who went to Aruba last spring and haven't been heard from since. But the entire island almost has been blamed for Holloway's disappearance.

Not unlike Jennifer Wilbanks, who we later learned just walked away from her impending marriage because of cold feet. How the nation was outraged over her brief disappearance, and the 24-hour coverage she got before she eventually resurfaced.

These women, along with Peterson, whose husband later was later convicted of murdering her, are White.

Did you hear about 24-year-old Latoyia Figueroa of Philadelphia? Figueroa was five months pregnant and a mother of a 7-year-old daughter. After being missing for over a month, Figueroa's dead body was found 10 miles west of her city. Her ex-boyfriend has been charged with two murders.

Not only were Figueroa and Huston didn't deserve to die, their disappearance didn't even earned the respect they deserve. Their cases never got the media's light of day. But if they had been White . . .

No woman, regardless of race, deserves to be abducted, senselessly beaten -- sometimes to death, or sexually violated. It doesn't matter whether she's Black or White, light or dark, model thin or queen size. But when reporting, either by law enforcement or media, is so obviously lopsided and unbalanced, mainly because of race, it should matter and must be called out as such.

In too many eyes, it must be hunting season for Black females in this country. Their safety and well being is seemingly of little concern.

In my eyes, however, this is dead wrong.