Alumni News
How America Fails Black Girls
Morgan Jerkins MFA ’16 wrote an opinion piece published in the New York Times, in response to a recent wave of disappearances of children of color in Washington DC.
In the piece, Jerkins critically examines the different ways that missing white and black women are treated by the media. She points to "the narrative around missing black girls" as part of the problem:
Claims that black girls leave home voluntarily, if not coupled with an examination of all the reasons they might feel they need to leave, encourage the public to see black girls not as children in need of protection but adults responsible for their own predicament. As a result, few in authority do anything for them.