668 - Missing and Murdered Black Women and Girls
Public Health On Call
The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
4.6 • 644 Ratings
🗓️ 29 September 2023
⏱️ 20 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
An estimated 97,000 Black women and girls have gone missing or been murdered in the US in the last year—which represents about 40% of all missing persons. These women and girls are often viewed as criminals or runaways and not victims or survivors, which can hamstring efforts to find and support them. Dr. Tiara Willie, gender-based violence researcher, and Dr. Kamila Alexander, a nurse and trauma researcher, talk with Dr. Josh Sharfstein about the first organized effort to focus long overdue attention on this problem, which was recently launched in Minnesota, and its implications for the nation.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Public Health On Call, a podcast from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, |
| 0:05.9 | where we bring evidence, experience, and perspective to make sense of today's leading health challenges. |
| 0:16.3 | If you have questions or ideas for us, please send an email to public health question at jhh.edu. |
| 0:23.8 | That's public health question at jhhu.edu for future podcast episodes. |
| 0:32.0 | This is Lindsay Smith Rogers. |
| 0:34.2 | Today, the hidden epidemic of missing and murdered black women and girls. |
| 0:38.3 | Two Johns Hopkins faculty members, Dr. Tierra Willie of the Bloomberg School of Public Health, |
| 0:44.3 | and Dr. Kamala Alexander of the School of Nursing, joined Dr. Josh Sharfstein. |
| 0:49.3 | They discuss how so many black women and girls have gone missing and why there's so little attention paid to the problem. |
| 0:56.7 | They also talk about a new office devoted to finding these women and girls in Minnesota and efforts to spread this work across the country. |
| 1:04.7 | Let's listen. |
| 1:06.4 | Dr. Tira Willie, Dr. Kamala Alexander, it is great to have you on public health on call. |
| 1:13.5 | Talk about this incredibly important and fast-moving issue now, the attention to missing and |
| 1:21.0 | murdered black women and girls. |
| 1:23.2 | And I want to start with you, Dr. Willie. |
| 1:25.7 | Where does this issue come from? |
| 1:27.8 | What are its origins? |
| 1:29.7 | Thanks, Josh. |
| 1:30.5 | So, black women and girls have gone missing, have been kidnapped, have been murdered |
| 1:34.5 | since the beginning of slavery. |
| 1:36.7 | And so now the political landscape has really changed over the course of several decades. |
| 1:41.4 | We now have more resources, more safe spaces to talk about |
... |
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