The Star Malaysia

Petito case renews call to spotlight missing people of colour

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SALT LAKE CITY: In the three months since 62-year-old Navajo rug weaver Ella Mae Begay vanished, the haunting unanswered questions sometimes threaten to overwhelm her niece.

Seraphine Warren has organised searches of the vast Navajo Nation landscape near her aunt’s home in Arizona but is running out of money to pay for gas and food for the volunteers.

“Why is it taking so long? Why aren’t our prayers being answered?” she asks.

Begay is one of thousands of Indigenous women who have disappeare­d throughout the US.

Some receive no public attention at all, a disparity that extends to many other people of colour.

The disappeara­nce of Gabby Petito, a white 22-year-old woman who went missing in Wyoming last month during a cross-country trip with her boyfriend, has drawn a frenzy of coverage on traditiona­l and social media, bringing new attention to a phenomenon known as “missing white woman syndrome”.

Many families and advocates for missing people of colour are glad the attention paid to Petito’s disappeara­nce has helped unearth clues that likely led to the tragic discovery of her body and they mourn with her family.

But some also question why the public spotlight so important to finding missing people has left other cases shrouded in uncertaint­y.

“I would have liked that swift rush, push to find my aunt faster. That’s all I wish for,” said Warren, who lives in Utah, one of several states Petito and boyfriend Brian Laundrie passed through.

In Wyoming, where Petito was found, just 18% of cases of missing Indigenous women over the past decade had any media coverage, according to a state report released in January.

“Someone goes missing just about every day ... from a tribal community,” said Lynnette Grey Bull, who is Hunkpapa Lakota and Northern Arapaho director of the organisati­on, Not Our Native Daughters.

More than 700 Indigenous people disappeare­d in Wyoming between 2011 and 2020, and about 20% of those cases were still unsolved after a month.

That’s about double the rate in the white population, the report found.

One factor that helped people connect with Petito’s case was her Instagram profile, where she lived her dream of travelling the country.

Other social-media users contribute­d their own clues, including a travelling couple who said they spotted the couple’s white van in their own Youtube footage.

While authoritie­s haven’t confirmed the video led to the discovery, the vast open spaces of the American West can bedevil search parties for years and anything that narrows the search grid is welcome. Public pressure can also ensure authoritie­s prioritise a case.

The opportunit­y to create a well-curated social-media profile, though, isn’t available to everyone, said Leah Salgado, deputy director of Illuminati­ve, a Native women-led social justice organisati­on.

“So much of who we care about and what we care about is curated in ways that disadvanta­ge people of colour, and Black and Indigenous people in particular,” she said.

 ?? — AP ?? Help find her: Warren with a rug made by her aunt, Ella Mae, who vanished in June, one of thousands of missing Indigenous women in the US.
— AP Help find her: Warren with a rug made by her aunt, Ella Mae, who vanished in June, one of thousands of missing Indigenous women in the US.

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