Last week during her show, The ReidOut, Joy Reid condemned the heavy media coverage of Gabby Petito’s missing persons case and murder, saying media only provides adequate coverage of these cases when the victim is white.

She said, “the way this story captivated the nation has many wondering, why not the same media attention when people of color go missing? Well, the answer actually has a name: Missing White Woman Syndrome, the term coined by the late and great Gwen Ifill to describe the media and public fascination with missing white women like Laci Peterson or Natalee Holloway while ignoring cases involving people of color.”

So, do people only care about missing and murdered women if they are white? NO.

Here’s the truth: in 2020, President Donald J. Trump championed the passage of two separate pieces of legislation dedicated to missing and murdered Native American women–Savanna’s Act, named for Savanna LaFontaine-Greywind, a 22-year-old pregnant Native American woman murdered in North Dakota in 2017, and the Not Invisible Act, mandating the creation of a law enforcement commission of local, state, and tribal officers to “improve intergovernmental coordination and establish best practices to ensure that indigenous people don’t continue to go missing.”

Upon the signing of these two bills into law, President Trump tweeted, “I was proud to sign Savanna’s Act & the Not Invisible Act. We have also provided $295 million to support public safety & crime victims. Forgotten NO MORE!”

I don’t know about you, but I heard virtually nothing about these two pieces of legislation from the mainstream media, including from the condemner of “white woman syndrome” herself–Joy Reid. It seems that if the media does, in fact, only care about missing or murdered white women, Joy is part of the problem!

The truth is the disappearance and murder of Gabby Petito captivating the nation had nothing to do with her race. It had everything to do with her relatability–a beautiful 22-year-old girl trying to share her adventurous side on social media in a complicated relationship that perhaps she felt unsafe in that led to abuse. Joy Reid–stop making everything about race when it’s simply about our humanity.