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June 28, 2005 For the second time in a matter of days, I have read rather offensive material posted on this website from one of your columnists, Mr. Robert Paul Reyes, regarding the disappearance of Natalee Holloway. The first piece dealt with how wrong we are as a nation for becoming fascinated with the disappearance of a white, upper-class teenage woman while so many storied involving minority and/or less-privileged missing teens get swept under the rug and out of the papers. The second article dealt with Natalee Holloway's parents poor decision-making in allowing their young, impressionable daughter venture off to Aruba with minimal supervision, and her subsequent poor decisions in behavior and activity choice that allowed her to become a victim of some crime. Where this type of thinking comes from, quite frankly, is beyond me. I haven't read two pieces of reporting that irresponsible or completely incorrect in a very, very long time. I responded to Mr. Reyes' first article regarding the media's fascination with Natalee Holloway and its alleged racial and social profiling, with no response. I found his examples of Chandra Levy and Jennifer Wilbanks equally ill-conceived and untrue. What's atypical about 1) a girl who's suspected kidnapper/killer is the son of a prominent Aruban judge 2) a woman whose suspected killer was a U.S. Senator 3) a woman who vanished without a trace, days before a 600-person dram wedding. Those sound exactly like the missing children I read every day in the "News and Notes" section of the local paper. Oh wait, no, they don't. They don't at all. None of these stories have an element of race at all, and if reporters like Mr. Reyes bothered to read the content of the reporting done on Ms. Holloway, rather than counting the Google hits and conjecturing away, they'd understand there's a lot more to this story than meets the eye. there is nothing worse than pulling the "race card" with nothing to back it up. Yesterday's article however "Natalee Holloway Disappearance: A Cautionary Tale", in my eyes, reached an all-time low as far a the reporting done on Ms. Holloway and her family by Mr. Reyes. This article asserts that Natalee Holloway's parents are responsible for what happened, as they allowed their daughter to "travel to an island paradise to 'get [her] freak on'". Outside of an obvious attempt to be plainly offensive and disrespectful, this too is based in pure nonsense. Natalee Holloway, is an 18 year old woman. She is not a child, and I believe her parents, along with most other parents, at some point made a conscious decision to let their son or daughter grow up. Parents are blamed by journalists like this for being too protective of their children, and then in turn blamed for being too cavalier and negligent. Exactly how long should they have coddled Natalee, Mr. Reyes? Right up until she left for college in the fall? Never mind the fact that these parents allowed their child to vacation to a country that was the home of a whopping 5 violent crimes last year, none of which were committed against tourists. Indeed, a dangerous place. What were they thinking??? The last assertion made in this article was that Natalee essentially brought what happened to her on herself by her actions: "If you leaved a casino after midnight with three strangers in a foreign country, dressed in a miniskirt and a halter top; that's a recipe for disaster". It's refreshing that in this day and age that this type of neanderthalic thinking still exists in America. I swear when I read this, I thought I was in 1957. What exactly was message to be conveyed here? Aruban authorities have not released any details about what may have happened, where, or with whom yet. How dare you, Mr. Reyes, even make such a offensive, rude, and disrespectful accusation. To infer that Natalee Holloway" got what she had coming to her" by how she dressed is singularly the most offensive thing I have ever read. It is journalism like the kind that Paul Reyes writes that undercuts the advancements made by honorable publications. Try getting your facts straight before you openly slander a young girl's name, whose only mistake was perhaps letting her guard down at the wrong time, allowing evil to creep in. And that, Mr. Reyes, will happen even if you're wearing a suit of armor. ------------ Email Peter Larson: petetdx@gmail.com Tell a friend about this site! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com. Please link to this article rather than copying and pasting it onto your site (which would be unauthorized and illegal). |
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