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Wednesday, July 06, 2005
All-American Arrogance
By now the name Natalee Holloway has become immortalized in the pantheon of newsworthy lasses who have gone missing and their life story turned into a 24-hr. CNN/Fox News/MSNBC-sponsored miniseries. Joining the ranks of Laci Peterson, Lori Hacking and Chandra Levy before her, Holloway has tapped into that can't-miss ratings trifecta that the mainstream media finds irresistable: Attractive, underage and White. Being a blue-eyed Blonde is the cherry on the ratings sundae that ensures a guaranteed rotation spot on the 5, 6 & 11 o'clock news.The outpouring of sympathy to the missing girl's family took a sour turn on the Caribbean isle of Aruba when Holloway's mother, Beth Holloway Twitty publicly condemned the release of Deepak and Satish Kalpoe – the Surinamese brothers suspected in connection with Natalee's May 30th disappearance. According to Twitty, the Kalpoes are guilty and had no right to be freed.
I suppose we can now call off the investigation since not only is she a grieving mother, but she's been able to jump to conclusions the Dutch authorities are ill-equipped to handle.
Pardon the facetiousness of the open and shut nature of this case's current status, but who the hell made her judge, jury and executioner? What gives her the unmitigated audacity to use a captive, quote-hungry audience as the arena to slander two men who obviously didn't have enough probable cause to still be detained? Is it any surprise when Americans are branded the boorish eyesores of the Western world whenever we're guests in a foreign land? Instead of channeling unresolved anguish through frequent press conferences, Mrs. Twitty would be better served to allow the Aruban government do their job. It hasn't been established for sure whether the Kalpoe brothers were directly connected to her daughter's missing whereabouts, so continuing to point the finger their way is a reckless rush to a resolution.
Am I cold-hearted and unsympathetic to the delicate nature of the situation? Of course not, I can't imagine what it must feel like knowing your child has disappeared without a trace. She is understandably distraught, but a witchhunt can't be undertaken to appease national outcry.
I'm even more disturbed by the fact that her "honor student" status is repeatedly flashed across the newswires as if that wipes clean the facts, which are these: Natalee engaged in a night of alcohol-fueled celebration and agreed to leave a club with complete strangers to no objection from the "friends" she was supposedly in the company of. Let's not pretend as if she was abducted against her will by a 3-headed monster. Whatever the circumstances were, she did not deserve to have any harm inflicted, but let's call a spade a spade and stop trying to rewrite history with a E! True Hollywood Story subplot.
Two articles which explore the flipside of the love affair America has with their self appointed "damsels in distress" thoroughly in both the Washington Post and USA Today. The common link in the ignored bylines which slip through the cracks is the perpetual pink elephant in the room media pundits selectively choose to deflect attention from. Care to guess which shade the forgotten faces are? Must reads: Missing Minorities & (White) Women We Love.
link | Shot from the lip by TriniPrincess at 2:42 AM |
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