Misplaced Chivalry? OWH Editorial Erases Missing and Murdered Native American Men

PRESS RELEASE

Contact: Rebecca Stewart

Telephone: 513-479-3335

Misplaced Chivalry? OWH Editorial Erases Missing and Murdered Native American Men

WASHINGTON / August 16, 2021 – The problem of missing and murdered Native Americans is attracting growing concern in Nebraska and across the nation. According to the Department of Justice’s National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, 62% of missing Indians are male (1).

In Nebraska, the sex disparity is greater. A report by the Nebraska State Patrol revealed, “Nearly two thirds (73.3%) of the Native American missing persons are boys (age 17 years old or younger).” (2)

Inexplicably, a recent editorial in the Omaha World-Herald ignores this key finding. The essay only highlights the problem of missing or murdered Indian women. “Thousands of Indigenous women have gone missing, been slain or died under suspicious circumstances on and off reservations, including here in Nebraska,” the OMW Editorial Board comments (3).

The OWH editorial makes no mention of the problem of missing and murdered Indian men, or the 73.3% figure highlighted in the State Patrol report. This raises the question whether the Editorial Board bothered to read the report it was purporting to comment on.

The problem of reporting bias was the focus of a previous article titled, “Are Missing and Murdered Indigenous Men in US Being Ignored?” The article recounted this statement by Lissa Yellowbird-Chase of the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation in North Dakota: “I can tell you from what I’ve witnessed personally, that men are murdered and missing more than the women.” (4)

Commentator Wendy McElroy notes that the chivalrous but misguided focus only on female Indians represents a “parody of human rights in which only approved groups are recognized as victims….Only those who share the secondary characteristic of approved genitalia receive compassion.” (5)

The Coalition to End Domestic Violence calls on the Omaha World-Herald to retract its deeply flawed editorial and issue a new statement based on science.

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