I wonder what would happen if everyone went beyond the knee-jerk and almost performative anger at 14 Black girls being missing in DC and examined the causes. What makes Black girls disappear. Itâd be a truth too sharp to grasp, which we can only say that 14 Black girls is missing, not why they are missing.Â
And why are 14 Black girls missing? What makes Black girls disappear? Our Girls run away from homes in which they have been abused, maltreated, or even âjustâ neglected, which many forget is its own form of abuse. Girls run away from homes and into the influence of menâ and increasingly women working for men (which warrants its own treatment, women who hurt women for the approval of men or for money or both)â who they believe will provide them with some counterfeit of what their lives lack: love, support, attention (the craving of which is normal, not vain), affection. If they do not go willingly, it is easy enough to grab them and shove them into cars. And often the men who conduct this awful business are not men who look dissimilar from their victims: they, too, are Black. These are not strangers. And often no one says a word. Who are these men? Why donât we know that they are trafficking young girls? Donât they advertise them? How do we not know their names? How can they disappear without a trace: leaving only the name of a Black girl in their wake?
Whether they are taken âwillinglyâ or by force, the thing which links these two violences together is the way in which they operate internal to the communities they harm: Black girls are hurt from within their community and exploited, at least initially, from within their own communities.Â
And to be sure: internal is not to say âexists within a vacuumâ. Thereâs no point in engaging in moralism. Itâs difficult not to engage in what qualifies as neglect of your child if you have to work two jobs to make ends meet. Or if you are a single parent attempting to raise at least one child alone. How do you attempt to think of protecting a girl-childâ a naturally willful being, as all children are willfulâ when even public space itself, in your neighborhood, is not safe? How do we begin to value Black girls media, school policy, and so-called leaders within communities sexualizes them, prematurely ages them, says that they deserve to be assaulted by uniformed officers, says that they are violent and ought to be suspended, says that they ought not be protected. How do we keep girls away from men who promise them money when many, reacting to trauma, engage in sex at young ages, and then are found by pimps and told, âat least my girls get paid for what you do for free.â
Think of this: Black girls and women  are extraodinarily vulnerable to economic violence. Black women are evicted at rates which compare to the incarceration of Black men. If anything can untie a blood-bond and make it mean nothing, it is economic pressure. When I volunteered with homeless young women at a drop-in center around 3 years ago, so many girls were on the streets because their parent (not usually plural) kicked them out, said they were tired of paying for them and they were old enough to take care of themselves. Other girls simply left because their parentâs partner was (sexually) abusing them, they turned to âboyfriendsâ who later abused them too. Other girls were kicked out of their homes because they were violent to others. But an angry Black girl is never, ever without any justification. Often These girls were angry because theyâd been abused, or witnessed their mothers be abused.Â
Linking the internal forces which push Black girls away from their homes with the external forces (white supremacist capitalism) clarifiesâ and I suppose in this way everything is internal, but is simply asking for us all to make out community a better, more caring place for Black girls to live impossible? How can we say that we care about Black girls who disappear  when we live in communities which circulate videos of Black girls being gang-raped for entertainment and all we can say is âWow what a tragedy?â when somewhere there exists the means to do real work around rape culture in Black communties? When it is still acceptable, in public discourse and at family get-togethers, to call them âfastâ? When preachers and family members molest children for years before any of the witnesses (if they ever at all) speak up to corroborate a survivorâs story. When R. Kelly is still breathing. Keeping Black girls from disappearing from their homes means making real homes for them, in communities. It means cleansing your community of weird-ass, abusive men (in a time where the most popular female rapper is protecting her rapist brother), it means speaking always of the vulnerability of Black girls when others try to pretend that it is only Black boys who are hunted.Â
Everywhere, mainstream Black public discourse dissappears Black girls (and women, until it comes time to place the blame), and then acts outraged when Black girls literally vanish. Itâs ridiculous. And itâs easy to at least to intervene at the level of discourse, which, given the present state of things, would stand to do a lot: censor and boycott black male media personalities who regularly regurgitate anti-Black misogyny, give classes in churches and other community spaces around abuse, misogyny and other issues with disproportionately affect girls in our community, give girls safe places to go and people to talk to if they are being hurt, equip schools with programs for girls to go to, encourage girls to be in communion with one another instead telling them to be in constant competition, give a fuck about Black girls (and the women they may grow to be) before they âgo missing.â
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