‘Our cries are dismissed’: Community leaders call for justice for missing Black women
Michele Watley, founder of Shirley’s Kitchen Cabinet, stood in front of community members at Kansas City’s Lucile H. Bluford Library on Saturday to address an issue she sees far too often in her role as an advocate: violence against Black women.
Behind her sat a row of representatives from different groups aimed at amplifying the Black community.
“Black women experience violence in different forms, whether it’s domestic violence at the hands of those you love or violence from the police,” Watley said. “Time and time again, when Black women are hurt, or we’re in pain, our cries and the cries of our community are dismissed.”
More than a month after a 22-year-old Black woman escaped after being held captive in a man’s house in Excelsior Springs, many Kansas Citians are continuing to raise concerns about how seriously reports of missing Black women are taken.
Activists and community members say the Excelsior Springs case is just one instance of systemic racism harming Black women and their loved ones. Panelists at the event on Saturday discussed ways to address the issue and bring healing to family members.
Hosted by Shirley’s Kitchen Cabinet and Hot 103 Jamz!, the “Black & Missing in KC” forum covered a broad range of topics associated with missing persons — from how to file a report to ways to hold public officials accountable.
The day’s speakers included members of the Ad Hoc Group Against Crime, the Laura E Mason Foundation and the KC Defender.
The group expressed concerns over the media’s failure to properly cover violence and the disappearances of Black community members. Julee Jonez, an emcee at Hot 103 Jamz! and moderator of the event, said missing white women tend to get more attention from outlets.
“A (white) girl can be on spring break, she goes missing, I promise you, you won’t see anything else on,” she said. “But when Keisha next door goes missing, what are we hearing?”
Lisa Benson, a consultant with diversity education group Winning Truths International and former reporter for KSHB-TV Channel 41, said it’s important for the community to hold their local news outlets accountable to ensure the stories of Black women are told. She questioned whether that’s happening enough in Kansas City, and she charged journalists with the task of challenging their intrinsic prejudices.
“If people are not policing their individual biases, their biases show up in the rooms that they’re in,” Benson said. “Humanizing Blackness is still a work that we’re constantly doing every single day.”
While she expressed encouragement for seeing more Black reporters in the community, she thinks there’s still work to be done in newsrooms before stories about missing Black women are given equal treatment. Community members still, at times, feel like their problems aren’t addressed by the media.
‘They feel like they’re not seen’
In addition to media coverage, panelists expressed concern over the way police handles missing-persons cases in Kansas City. Some women are incorrectly labeled as runaways, and reports are sometimes not even filed because officers don’t take the claims seriously, according to the speakers.
Watley said she once tried to report a family member missing but felt she was dismissed.
“They told us we had to wait 24 hours before filing a report,” she said. “Had I not been insistent … that report would have never been filed.”
RaeShaun Williams, a social services professional of nearly 20 years, pointed out that some families don’t feel like filing a police report will help because they don’t think law enforcement will believe them.
“They feel like they’re not seen; they’re not heard,” Williams said. “They oftentimes will give up.”
After a brief intermission, community members heard from Kansas City Police Department Major Kari Thompson, who agreed that KCPD needs community members to hold officers accountable.
“As a Black woman, I am not going to sit by and idly allow an organization that I work for ... and serve with to marginalize and minimize any sect of our population,” she said. “I am going to be and continue to be the leader for the charge to make sure that Black women — all women — are protected in our city.”
Thompson said concerns the community expressed at the meeting are valid, and she wants to make the department better so it can serve Black women properly.
“Every day, I am looking at myself and how I can do better,” she said. “How I can be a better police officer, mother, sister, Black woman.”
Thompson said the department is working on improving the way it handles missing-persons cases, and she asked everyone in the room to continue to hold KCPD responsible for its mistakes.
Before the discussion ended, Jonez said that, ultimately, each leader attended because of their care for Black women and their community. She encouraged the panelists to always place that mission — one of empowerment and self-acceptance — at the center of these types of conversations.
“Loving yourself, and then loving other people, that’s why we’re here today,” she said. “We have to keep that as the core tenant of our work going forward.”
The event concluded with Watley reading a note given to her by an attendee.
“Black is beautiful,” she read. “Never forget that.”