Staff editorial
Gabby Petito and Victim Race Complex
The Messenger Editorial Board
On Sept. 11, 22-year-old Gabby Petito went missing during a cross-country road trip. News outlets across the nation were flooded with stories of her disappearance, and nearly a week later, authorities found her remains in the remote forests of Wyoming. While Petito’s death is both shocking and tragic, it is important to acknowledge the narrative would have been very different if it were a woman of color who went missing––after all, thousands of women of color go missing every year, but their stories often go untold.
Approximately three months before the Petito case, on June 28, 30-year-old Lauren Cho disappeared in Yucca Valley. Like Petito, Cho was on a trip when she left her residence and never returned. Months after Cho went missing, the police conducted a search of her residence and an aerial search of the park, to no avail. Ultimately, Cho was left unfound. While some of the circumstances of Cho’s disappearance resemble Petito’s, the glaring differences between them explain why the narrative was completely different. Cho was a teacher, whereas Petito was an upper-middle-class social media influencer. But more importantly, Cho was Asian American, unlike her white counterpart. The disparity between the two cases embodies “Missing White Woman Syndrome,” a term first coined by American news anchor Gwen Ifill. “Missing White Woman Syndrome” posits that searches for missing white women receive far more attention than those of other missing individuals. Unlike Petito’s investigation, which involved multiple search units and garnered national attention, the search for Cho was hastily conducted and then abandoned. Although authorities now claim they never stopped looking for Cho, their statements do not offer a reason as to why they waited months after she went missing to begin searching.
Petito’s case, when compared to Cho’s, has been an eye-opener for many. Although authorities have resumed the search for Cho and other missing individuals of color amid public scrutiny, the fact that the police were able to find Petito and determine her manner of death in a week points to a larger issue at play: the lack of attention given to, and often sheer ignorance towards, missing individuals of color. While this could be a result of cultural biases that are entrenched within the American justice system, another plausible explanation is the inherent disadvantage that marginalized communities possess when it comes to having adequate resources to advocate for themselves. For example, Black, Hispanic, and Native communities statistically have much lower median incomes than their white counterparts; this gives those with privilege, such as Petito’s family, the upper hand when it comes to hiring personnel to work on investigations and reach favorable outcomes.
The egregious handling of missing people of color has sparked movements across the globe calling for increased efforts to find such missing people, regardless of their socioeconomic backgrounds or ethnicities. The Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women Movement is a notable example. So are recent women’s rights marches, including those in Georgia, in response to the deaths of Sarah Everard and other non-celebrities who went missing. Students at Northview have organized and participated in such marches, demonstrating that in a community as diverse as ours, it is important to sympathize with the lives of all who go missing—not just the privileged.
