The According to an article written by the Wall Street Journal, Blacks as a demographic, are over-represented when it comes to statistics of the missing.

In 2013, black people were 13% of the general American population, while being 35% of all missing people.

The reasons for this disparity are unclear, but it seems that black people largely go

missing for the same reasons and circumstances as everyone else, from abductions to domestic violence.

It seems to be common knowledge that while black people go missing more often than

their counterparts of differing races, their disappearances are covered less in the media. Headlines of

articles on this topic reveal how it's felt in our country. With headlines of popular articles

like The Shocking and forgotten Toll of missing black women across the United States or

when African Americans go missing, no one notices.

This lack of reporting on missing minorities even has a name, missing white woman syndrome, a phrase reflecting

the media's tendency to over-report cases of white, attractive, middle-to-class women who either

go missing or are victims of violent crimes.

Research on this issue shows it's not just our imaginations.

According to a 2010 paper on this topic titled

Missing Children in National News Coverage, Racial and Gender Representations of

Missing Children cases.

Missing Black Children are markedly underreported in the media, citing cases of missing

white children causing a media frenzy like Elizabeth Smart,

while similar cases of missing black children, like seven-year-old Alexis Patterson,

who went missing at the same time, quote, received little local media coverage, let alone national attention.

And when the media does cover stories of missing black women, according to the 2008 paper,

the Invisible Damsel, media outlets are more likely to mention a black woman's

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