London, The Indonesia Post – The number of black women who have died in armed violence in the United States has risen sharply, but no one seems to care, The Guardian said in a recent report.
While the murder of white woman Brianna Kupfer in Los Angeles this month attracted national attention, the deaths of Tioni Theus, Breahna Stines, and Marneysha Hamilton — all black women — in two other separate murders in Los Angeles received little attention and most treated as local news, said the report released on Thursday (27/1).
“Black women and girls are being murdered and I don’t think anyone is paying attention,” the report quoted Lawanda Hawkins, a Los Angeles-based victim’s rights advocate, as saying.
While the distinction between caring for white victims of violence and black victims of violence is not new, community leaders and researchers are concerned about the message this phenomenon continues to convey to young black women about their worth and potential, she said.
Black residents, though only 6 percent of California’s population, account for 31 percent of homicide victims in the state, says The Guardian.
Across the US, The Guardian said, homicide rates increased 30 percent between 2019 and 2020, the biggest annual jump in 60 years.
While the vast majority of victims of gun violence are black men, at least four black women and girls were killed every day in the United States in 2020, a sharp increase from the previous year, the report cited FBI data as saying. (mhn/bbs)
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