Latoyia Figueroa

Just picking up what a bunch of other bloggers have already done.

Her name is Latoyia Figueroa. She's missing. She's five months pregnant. She has a seven year old daughter at home, whom I'd imagine is very frightened and confused.

The All Spin Zone is collecting donations toward a reward. As of a little while ago, the reward was up to about $7,ooo. Please help, if you can.


In the meantime, you might browse around a bit. Turns out NOW claims murder is the leading cause of death for pregnant women. This is discussed a bit more, here.

Another study has murder as second only to car accidents, in terms of injury-related deaths. It also observes that pregnant black women are more than three times as likely to be murdered than pregnant white women. Either way, it makes getting pregnant look pretty fucking grim.

Things look pretty awful for Latoyia Figueroa. But her family hasn't given up hope, and neither should we. At the very least, we should track down the person or persons responsible for her disappearance.

Now. I'm admittedly a white, upper-middle-class, well-educated lesbian. It's highly unlikely that I'll ever be murdered by some lumbering, no-neck, neanderthal-wanna-be; certainly--god forbid--not because I'm carrying his child and he senses some sort of threat to his tiny reality.

And that is, of course, a gross caricature of the kind of man who does this sort of thing. Certainly, as a lesbian, I've encountered appalling misogyny from what seemed--on the surface--to be unlikely sources.

This is just wrong on so many levels, it leaves me speechless.

If you've seen Latoyia Figueroa- please call Philadelphia Police at 215-686-3183.



You can help. Over at Daily Kos, there's an open invitation for bloggers to get on board, and help get the word out: "if you have a blog, whether you have 1 visitor per day or 1 million, please consider blogging about Latoyia. Visibility does make a difference."