Grooming, Neglect, and the Story of Na’Ziyah Harris

It's time to address the systemic abandonment of Black Girls.

Trigger Warning: This content includes details of sexual abuse and grooming.

For many 13-year-old girls, that age should be the time to start experimenting with your style, dabbling in makeup, or beginning your coming-of-age transformation. Unfortunately, Na'Ziyah Harris didn’t get the chance to discover any of those things after being a victim of a failed system for Black girls.

Jarvis Butts, a 42-year-old Detroit man, has been charged in the murder of missing 13-year-old Harris. The charges include first-degree premeditated murder, second-degree criminal sexual conduct and child sexually abusive activity. Butts is accused of having an inappropriate relationship with Harris which led to an alleged murder after he impregnated her and she went missing on January 9, 2024.

Many searches have been conducted since then, but she has never been found. Her case almost ceased until later in the year when Butts was arrested in connection to Harris’ disappearance leading the police to begin investigating her case as a homicide.

According to reports, authorities believe Butts had been sexually abusing Harris since 2022 before killing her in January 2024. There’s also a history of him targeting and befriending women to get close to their daughters, leading to grooming and sexual abuse. Butts knew Harris because he was the father of her cousins. Thus, he has close access to her.

The hardest pill to swallow is how Harris has been missing for over a year and shows, yet again, the consistent failure regarding the protection of young Black girls at center stage.

In a recent Chronically Online entry in December, we broke down adultification and how studies have shown how Black girls are thought to need less protection in society. This case surrounding Harris only showcases the intersectionality between adultification and grooming.

Sexual grooming is a term used to describe what is shown to be a calculated and gradual process of how an offender sexually abuses a child, where the method includes establishing trust, building a relationship and breaking down physical boundaries.

If you’re online, then you’ve more than likely seen the discourse surrounding the case trying to label Harris as “fast” or saying Butts target women who were deemed less attractive and had low self-esteem. Still, the actual topic at hand is the actions of a predator who has a mission of grooming. Many abusers use tactics that desensitize victims to inappropriate behavior and normalize harmful interactions.

The intersection of sexual grooming and adultification is devastating. Predators exploit the perception that Black girls are more sexually aware than they are, aiming to justify their abuse. Throughout reports, text messages have been released between Butts and Harris showcasing their explicit conversations, including Butts trying to coerce Harris to send him naked photos.

The true power dynamic is evident more than ever throughout each message, and Butts continues to implement a distorted perspective that erases the natural vulnerability and naivety of Harris. She couldn’t see the manipulation placed on her by a man who preyed on and manipulated her to think they were in a relationship.

This creates a cycle of silence and invisibility, where their voices are ignored, and their suffering is dismissed. When I read stories and see photos of these girls and how these stories rarely have a better ending, my heart aches. Harris deserved better protection instead of being met with harm and neglect.

Addressing the intersection of sexual grooming and adultification requires dismantling the unspoken conversations surrounding abuse and children. This goes beyond calling women “pick me’s ” and is more about holding predators in the household accountable and fighting harder to protect young Black children and grant them the privilege of having a childhood.