The first time I saw a news story about the disappearance of Gabby Petito, I knew she was dead. The story was just too implausible. She goes on a cross country vacation with her boyfriend — whose name I chose not to use — and he returns in her van, without her. Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder could see that there was something wrong.
But the media and her family sent out search parties and voiced hope that she was still alive. My heart went out to Gabby’s family as they held on to false hopes. But I knew that the final story would be reports that her body had been found. In my mind and the minds of just about everyone but the police and the FBI, all arrows pointed to the boyfriend.
If a man of color — black, Hispanic, Asian, Native American or Arab — had returned in his significant other’s van without the significant other, I suspect that the police and the FBI would have been a bit more aggressive in their investigation of his activities. But this guy comes home and walked around scott-free — giving no explanations. Now taxpayers are spending big money looking for him in a swamp.
Every day hundreds of women disappear — women of all ages and races. But the media only seems to pick up on the disappearances of the blond, blue-eyed women — the so-called all-American girl. The poor woman, the not-so-beautiful and overweight women, the drug-addicted woman and the homeless woman fall under the radar of the police and the media, like the victims of Cleveland’s mass murderer Anthony Sowell. Many of their family members reported them missing but no one paid much attention. The police didn’t seem to look very hard. They were too busy blaming the sausage factory next to Sowell’s house of emitting foul odors.
The late Gwen Ifill, who reported for PBS, coined the term “missing white woman syndrome.” It refers to America’s insatiable hunger for information about cases involving missing white women like Natalie Holloway and Lacey Peterson and the total disinterest in the fate of missing women of color.
In this case, the media tried to say that the hype over Gabby’s disappearance was based on the many YouTube followers who were following her cross-country trek on social media. That was kind of a lame, ex post facto, excuse for a pattern that they refuse to admit to. She was blond, blue-eyed and attractive and her story appealed to viewers.
But there is more to the story. Gabby’s case also highlights two other problems in our society: domestic violence and racism.
Passersby, who had no reason to lie, called the police in Utah and said that a woman was being slapped by a man. The police separated the two for a night and eventually they were back on the road together. If the boyfriend had been a man of color there is no doubt in mind that he would have been arrested so fast, he would not have known what hit him — that is if he had not been accused of having a shiny object in his hand, which the police mistook for a weapon and shot him on the scene — for their own safety.
Gabby’s case also highlights the problem of domestic violence in our society. If the boyfriend was slapping her as the witness said, it was not the first time. Reports now surface of an incident in a restaurant where the boyfriend was ranting and raving and storming in and out of the restaurant, while Gabby stood in the parking lot crying. Police would have been called if he were a person of color and Gabby would probably be alive.
Caught in the cycle of domestic abuse, Gabby stayed. It’s easy to say in hindsight that she could have driven off and left him, but that would be blaming the victim. Making decisions like that while in an abusive relationship is not easy. Breaking out of violent and abusive relationships is not easy. You cannot blame her — she was caught in a vicious cycle. But she could have gotten help.
Domestic violence does not spring up overnight. The signs are not that hard to see, and in this case, they had probably been around for a while. But it creeps up on victims. Jealousy, control issues, control of finances, verbal abuse, moments of bad temper, were likely all aspects of the boyfriend’s personality that both families overlooked or ignored. I’m willing to bet that when friends of Gabby are interviewed, they will say that the boyfriend separated her from friends, controlled the relationship and was anything but the smiling face that we saw in the videos.
Domestic violence is a plague in our society. The missing white woman syndrome is a plague on our media. Subtle racism plagues law enforcement agencies and causes some persons to be treated differently than others. And people end up dead. The story of Gabby Petito is a textbook example of a merger of all three ills of our society . We would hope that this case is atypical but sadly, it is not.
C. Ellen Connally is a retired judge of the Cleveland Municipal Court. From 2010 to 2014 she served as the President of the Cuyahoga County Council. An avid reader and student of American history, she serves on the Board of the Ohio History Connection, is currently vice president of the Cuyahoga County Soldiers and Sailors Monument Commission and president of the Cleveland Civil War Round Table. She holds degrees from BGSU, CSU and is all but dissertation for a PhD from the University of Akron.
One Response to “COMMENTARY: White Woman Syndrome, Racism and Domestic Violence by C. Ellen Connally”
Penny Jeffrey
Thank you, Judge Connally, for your succinct, moving essay on domestic abuse and racism. You are absolutely correct and we need to be saying this over and over until the media and law authorities recognize the need to treat the missing as all worthy of our support.