Joy Behar told her co-hosts Thursday on ABC’s “The View” that the media’s coverage of Gabby Petito was in part “racist.”
Behar said, “People are also calling the obsession over Petito’s case another example of Missing White Woman Syndrome. When people of color go missing, it’s barely covered by the media and mostly ignored by the public.”
She continued, “When a black child is missing, no one pays attention to it, but a little blonde girl or boy, and everybody pays attention. It’s not right. It needs to be corrected. I don’t know who to blame beside the media, frankly.”
Behar added, “What I think happens is now this cute little 22-year-old blonde girl goes missing, and immediately people are interested in that. I don’t know why exactly. I think part of it is racist, part of it.”
Co-host Sunny Hostin said, “There is no question this comes down to race. There’s no question if it were white migrants, they wouldn’t be rounded up on horses.”
Behar said, “If they were coming from Norway it wouldn’t happen.”
Hostin continued, “The equality of perception will lead to equality of treatment. When you see yourself in some someone else then you have true empathy.”
Behar said, “There are forces of evil that demonize the other. The lack of empathy is a terrible thing for people to have.”
She added, “The evil powers that be, do this to the underdog and it’s sort of filtered down.”
Hostin said, “A lot of it is white supremacy.”
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
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