The latest episode of “Red Table Talk” will focus on the glaring lack of attention and resources devoted to finding the tens of thousands of missing persons of color in America.
The issue resonated with host and executive producer Jada Pinkett Smith when Gabby Petito went missing in Wyoming. Her case became a national obsession, something that seems to never happen when Blacks and other minorities go missing.
- “One of the aspects of the stories that we did hear is they’re just constantly trying to prove that their children or their loved ones are worthy of attention because they contributed to society, or ‘Daniel was a good boy,’ ” Pinkett Smith told People magazine.
Pinkett Smith said she was profoundly touched when Petito’s father, Joseph Petito, admonished the media that every missing person deserves the same resources to help get them found, not just his daughter.
“I was really moved that during such an intense and very tragic time for his family that the family would put this foundation together,” she says. “If I’d lost Willow, Jaden or Trey, I just don’t know if I would have the wherewithal to be generous in that manner.”
Among the missing persons of color who will be featured on ‘Red Table Talk’ will include:
- Daniel Robinson, 24, who disappeared in Arizona in June 2021;
- Maya Millette, 40, who disappeared from her home in Chula Vista, California in January 2021;
- Mary Davis Johnson, 40, who went missing on the Tulalip Reservation in Washington State in November 2020;
- Brian Ward, 18, who went missing in Washington, D.C., in September 2020.
