You raise a good point, but I suspect that Ms. Harding is doing the best she can with what she has. At least she isn't writing about high heels or underwear or some wank site. I suppose that Salon's editors are just purveying to their readers' purient interests in giving prostitutes the front page and filling Broadsheet with titillating stories about...tits. Missing black kids just aren't as sexy as high heels.

Again, thank you, Ms. Harding. I'm been critical of you in the past, but you've made me proud. Now, if only these black kids had been tarted up like Jon Benet Ramsey...and been blond...and white...and rich.

There is also the oddity of reducing this essay, even though it has 437 words and Logan's essay has 418 words and is displayed fully on the Broadsheet page. Are you familiar with Amanda Marcotte's book, the ostensibly progressive one with the cartoon images of the white girl fighting the black "savages"? Ms. Marcotte argued that in her excitement, she missed how the cover might offend, while in the book, she argued against racism. Reducing Ms. Harding's essay might be replicating this dynamic and the greater cultural dynamic of reducing the importance of missing black children by not tendering them coverage. Not only won't Salon give this front page treatment, it doesn't even merit a full display of Ms. Harding's essay on the Broadsheet page. I'm not suggesting that this was done with malice. I am suggesting that the cultural evaluation that Ms. Harding addresses might be at play at Salon, just as surely as it infiltrated Ms. Marcotte's choices.

...it frustrates me to see readers waxing about pantyhose and high heels while this thread just sits.

I'm old enough to remember postcards that portrayed "pickanannies"* as darling and those postcards were purchased by white folks.

And I heard white elders effusing things like, "Aren't they darling," when they saw black children. So, in those situations, black children seem to elicit the same affection from white adults as white children. Therefore, why don't missing black children elicit the same reaction as missing white children?

I suspect it's because of the meme that black parents aren't good parents. Therefore, a missing black child is justice. I also suspect that the indifference is due to the realization among white folks that the day is coming when we will be a minority in America, so a missing black child delays that day. I suspect it's also due to class. It is rich white girls who garner the coverage. I suspect that there are poor white children who are missing that have received little to no coverage. The inequity of response might be due to richer folks having better skills at engaging the media.

* This was the word used on those postcards.

"Canonical topics" is well put.

I also noted that none of Broadsheet's angry men have posted in this thread.

I don't think it's the aesthetics that preclude particpatory compassion. I think the problem is projection. White people, having most of the money, buy most of the stuff. Therefore, advertisers pander to them and, in turn, newsrooms pander to them. It is easier for a white person to project into the tragedy of a white lost child than a black lost child.

And given the magnitude of tragedy that afflicts too many black families, in the forms of poverty, incarceration, and murder (I think I read once that a young black man is nine times more likely to be murdered than a young white man.), some white folks might reason, "Hey, that missing child is just another thing for those black folks. When, oh, when will they get their shit together?"

I'm just guessing here, Asehpe, but in the end, I also think that class matters most and that a po', white, missing, hillybilly child would also be largely ignored. Rich people matter more than the rest of us. Culturally, they do. They garner better care from birth to death. Why wouldn't they garner better care when they are missing?

As regards the Angry Men of Broadsheet who haven't posted in this thread, I just can't be quite as forgiving as you. And I'm equally unforgiving of the feminists who haven't posted in this thread. If your caring is constricted to you, there isn't just a constiptation of compassion: there's no compassion as caring for yourself doesn't count as compassion. The media doesn't manipulate us. We manipulate the media. If enough people were to react in this thread, Ms. Walsh would note the interest and this topic might be placed on the front page of Salon, instead of being given partial placement on the front page of Broadsheet. Ms. Harding did her homework here. She practiced true journalism, as opposed to Ms. Clark-Flory up-page, who told us that she'll never wear pantyhose (Whoo-hoo! As David Terry has noted, Ms. Clark-Flory is fond of talking about her crotch: who goes in it and what does and doesn't sheath it.). And Ms. Clark-Flory's confection gets the sexy shoe shot. We also get to see on Broadsheet's front page some underwear and a model. But Ms. Harding's serious journalism about a deadly serious topic gets nuthin'. We, the people, can change this. If we care, Salon will care. If Salon cares, other media outlets will care. If they care, politicians will care. We, the people, decide what matters. Unfortunately, we, the Salon people, have decided that Ms. Clark-Flory's refusal to wear pantyhose is what matters.

Thanks for the etymology of pickananny. I flinched to even use it because, when I was young, I saw it on postcards that might depict a string of young black children, all smiling and eating watermelon, with a caption that might say: Dem pickannies shur do loves dere watermelon!

In my ignorance of its etymology, I was afraid it might have a more noxious origin, although association with the slave trade does forever taint it.