Kidnapping fears haunt Black girls in Oakland
OAKLAND -- Timia Brown, Davina Stubblefield and Lon'ja Mustafa are teens at Skyline High School in Oakland and spend time together in the Black Girls Group, an afternoon club to encourage creativity and authenticity.
One topic they often discuss is how, as Black girls, they don't feel safe.
"I do not feel safe out here, I genuinely don't," Mustafa said.
27 nonprofits in Oakland echo their concern and refer to the many continuing kidnappings and cases of missing Black girls and children a state of emergency.
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"It's sad that police won't call a state of emergency but, I mean, a little goes a long way," Brown said. "So maybe, if people see the nonprofits see what they are doing, maybe it will uplift everyone else do something."
The three young women say they have little overall trust in police to help.
"Our parents already don't trust the police and they don't trust how they do things," Brown said. "We see how police brutality goes and they take it too far and, just because we care about Black girls, doesn't mean they care too much about them."
Stubblefield will be a senior next year and says that, when a girl who looks like her disappears, she has little hope.
"The Black girls don't get a lot of coverage," Stubblefield said. "So when a Black girl goes missing it's hard to ever hear that she even went missing in the first place."
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When people ask if missing Black girls in Oakland is a real problem, the girls just want their voices heard and to be taken seriously.
"Black girls just need justice served, period," Stubblefield said.
