Clinton Collins’ essay [Free the Jackson Five, January] on the Dru Sjodin case and the inequities of valuing lives due to skin color really hit home with me. Long ago, when I was a student at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, I was raped by two men who threatened to kill me and dump my body in the nearby Mississippi River. It was nighttime. I wasn’t sure I’d make it out alive. The year was 1968. I never reported the incident. Now, I watch more than closely any article on a woman who “disappears.” Some are found dead, some are never found. In the past several years, I’ve noticed the difference as to how much press the disappearance of a white women gets as opposed to women of color. Having come very close to being one of the disappeared, I feel very strongly for each of these women I hear about and the horrific circumstances I know they’ve endured. Thank you for being a voice for the women who are only mentioned on page two or three of the newspaper—whose disappearance or death only gets small mention, or perhaps no mention at all. As a community, we need to examine ourselves. Why do we allow this inequity to exist? We need to wake up.
Jeanne Cowan
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