Killings of black women in U.S. receive little attention: The Guardian

Black Lives Matter

LONDON, Jan. 29 (Xinhua) -- The number of black women killed in gun violence in the United States has been rising sharply, but no one seems to care, The Guardian said in a recent report.

While the killing of Brianna Kupfer, a white woman, in Los Angeles this month garnered national attention, the death of Tioni Theus, Breahna Stines and Marneysha Hamilton, all Black women, in two other separate killings in Los Angeles, received scant attention and were largely treated as local news, said the report released on Thursday.

"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 rights advocate, as saying.

Although discrepancies between the attention to white victims of violence and Black victims of violence are nothing new, community organizers and researchers worry about the message this phenomenon continues to send to young Black girls about their worth and potential, it said.

Black residents, despite comprising 6 percent of California's population, made up 31 percent of the state's homicide victims, the report said, noting that across the United States, homicides increased by 30 percent between 2019 and 2020, the largest single-year jump in the 60 years.

While most gun violence victims were Black men, at least four Black women and girls were murdered per day in the United States in 2020, a sharp increase compared with the year before, it said, citing FBI data.