Wednesday, April 23, 2003

GOD BLESS WHITE AMERICA

2 missing, pregnant women: 1st ignored by media; 2nd invites frenzy

Evelyn Hernandez didn't drive a Land Rover.

In fact, she didn't drive at all. A struggling, 24-year-old single mom who'd immigrated to San Francisco from war-torn El Salvador when she was 14, she took the No. 48 bus to her jobs as a drugstore clerk or restaurant server.

And so when Hernandez, eight months pregnant, was reported missing last May, reporters from CNN or Fox News didn't camp in front of her small, rented home. And when her dead body washed ashore in San Francisco Bay last September, it took police four months to identify her.

The parallels between the disappearances and deaths of Hernandez and Laci Peterson - whose corpse was found in the same bay, just miles away - are striking. The difference in media coverage is even more striking.

On Google.com News yesterday, there were 3,080 stories about Peterson, who lived in an affluent suburban neighborhood and drove a Land Rover. There are four stories about Hernandez, the poverty-striken immigrant woman.

"A lot of people are frustrated with how they've handled the case," said Berta Hernandez, no relation, who was Evelyn Hernandez's drama teacher when she first came to San Francisco.

"They started looking immediately for Laci Peterson, because they said it wasn't her normal character to disappear," she said. "But they" - San Francisco police - "didn't start looking for Evelyn right away. They said, 'She might be running away, she might be hiding; it's not out of her character.' "

In fact, Evelyn Hernandez was known as a devoted mom to her 6-year-old son, Alex, who stopped showing up for kindergarten the same time that his pregnant mother vanished in May 2002. Unlike his mother, Alex has never been found.

Hernandez' 37-year-old married boyfriend, who reported her missing, has not been named as a suspect, although he has refused to cooperate with the police probe for months. And while Peterson's family seeks justice against her husband, Scott, in a Modesto courtroom, Hernandez's friends and family continue to wait for their turn.


While I'd love to bash the media for this, are they only a reflection of what America really cares about? Or is it the other way around, do we only care because the media MAKES us care by inundating us with certain stories? No, I think the media gives us what it knows sells papers. We wouldn't have cared about Evelyn Hernandez. It would have been a one day story.

So why this fascination with the Laci's? Same story, same circumstances. Personally, I probably wouldn't have paid much attention to either, as this happens everyday. Neither story is new. I can honestly say, the ONLY reason I even know who the Laci's are is because it's been shoved down my throat.

So it's the media's fault for ignoring the ethnic story over the white story. The lack of empathy and attention for Hernandez is America's fault. And the fact that I wouldn't have paid much attention to either is my fault.

Kansas @ 1:07 PM