According to NBC News, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 673 on Sunday, putting the “Ebony Alert” law into effect. With the passage of this bill, the California Highway Patrol will be empowered to issue a missing person warning exclusively for black people. The implication is that society is racist, and no one cares when black people go missing.
According to NBC, the Ebony Alert will be specifically for missing black people aged between 12 and 25. The Amber Alert system is for all people, regardless of sex, color, or religion, under 17.
The bill’s primary author, Democratic state senator Steven Braford, announced on X that the police now have a new resource to use in their search for missing Black women and children, thanks to this statute. Because of this, he said, “the disproportionate number of people of African origin who have gone missing will be brought to more people’s attention.”
He thanked Governor Newsom for signing the bill.
On October 9th, 2023, Bradford said that data reveals that when Black and brown, our indigenous brothers and sisters go missing, there is very seldom the degree of media attention, much less AMBER alerts and police resources that we see with our white counterparts. Statistics reveal that the media and society rarely pay notice when people of color and indigenous people go missing.
According to one user, there is a pervasive racist culture in California. Supporters of the measure hailed the segregated alert system as a win.
However, an X user named Oilfield Rando asked for a “Curb Your Enthusiasm” script to be generated by AI where the protagonists Larry and Leon receive an Ebony Alert, and he said it didn’t disappoint.
Another user asked what could be next, a “Ginger Alert”?
That would be exclusively for red-headed missing children.
