This is one of those moments where we have to thank the higher beings for creating a platform such as Twitter. On Sunday night, Black Marvel Girl tweeted photos and information about eight black teenage girls who’ve gone missing in the Washington, D.C. area over the past week.

It takes 3.2 secs to retweet and help find these 8 BLACK GIRLS reported missing in Washington, D.C. during the past three days (1/2) pic.twitter.com/xpEwNcW44S

— Black Marvel Girl (@BlackMarvelGirl) March 13, 2017

Thankfully, 16-year-old Kennedi High from Baltimore has since been found according to Baltimore City police department. However, this doesn’t change the fact that unless you follow local police department's Twitter account, watch local news or are related to these missing teens, you know absolutely nothing about it. This is an epidemic that is happening nationwide.

Last week, reports came out that an Atlanta man turned his mansion into a prison, where he kidnapped eight women between the ages of 18 to 22 and made them sex slaves. In Philadelphia, the now 17-year-old girl is suing a motel that knew she was being held against her will to have sex with over a thousand men in a two-year stretch when she was just 14-years-old. And last July, it was reported that 14 young girls were missing in the Bronx, raising concern for local officials that began to fear that a sex trafficking ring was targeting the community’s young women.

Excuse my language but….this is some f**king b***s**t.

It’s not a coincidence that cases such as these aren’t given any spotlight in comparison to cases featuring young, attractive white women. PBS reporter Gwen Ifill actually dubbed it as the “missing white woman syndrome” when she called out the media’s fascination with reporting these stories that featured a certain type of demographic. Remember Natalee Holloway? She disappeared on a trip to Aruba in 2005 after her high school graduation. Or Laci Peterson? She was eight months pregnant when her husband reported her missing on Christmas Eve of 2002. And I’m sure we all remember around the clock coverage of Elizabeth Smart, she was kidnapped as a teenager in 2002 before she was rescued nine months later.

It’s sad regardless when anyone goes missing but it’s up to major media outlets to report every single case in order for this epidemic to be fully controlled.

You can check out Black & Missing Foundation, which gives more visibility for black people reported missing in the U.S. If you have any information that could make a difference, call your local police department and help bring our girls home.

Missing White Woman Syndrome

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