R&B Singer Kelly Price's Missing Person Case Exposes the Colorline
In the wake of "missing White woman syndrome," society ignores missing Black women
As "Missing White Woman Syndrome" takes center stage in our national discourse, we've discovered a treasured member of the Black community went missing back in August. But we're just learning about her disappearance now.
When Kelly Price, a 48-year old R&B and gospel singer, went missing, her name should have made headlines. After all, songs like "Friend of Mine" topped the charts in the 90s. She's also known for singing backup and collaborating with artists like Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey, and Aretha Franklin. But, somehow, her story is just now making it to the front page.
As major networks appeared fixated by Gabby Petito's story throughout these past weeks, Kelly Price was missing too. But, society didn't stop and notice. Failure to cover her story with the same reverence as Gabby Petito's case exposes a long tradition of prioritizing White missing women's cases over Black and Indigenous women. It's startling that even her relative fame wasn't enough to push her story into the mainstream, to cross the hidden color line.
The all-too-White leadership in America's newsrooms, whether intentionally or not, has…
