Stop Child Rape says
Stop Child Rape says South African President
For the sake of all those children in South Africa, I hope they seriosuly crack down on what has become an epidemic there.
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While the people who claim to be trying to keep kids “safe” argue about all things that are supposed to be dangerous, LGBTQ people will continue to die needlessly.
This is what we shouldn’t accept.
Sharing Responsibly
Over on my other site this morning, I wrote something about a quote I heard on Seth Godin’s podcast. It had to do with how the internet has made us all distributors now, and how, with previous distribution, there has always been a responsibility to maintain some “standards.” Whether it was a TV network, a…
When it Comes to Abuse, Trafficking, and Violence, Do We Have a Race and Gender Problem?
What I want to address, however, is how our society defines victims and how it leaves far too many people behind. The article above is a great example. How many people, if asked about sex trafficking, picture little white girls or women abducted from Target? Probably a lot. For many, the only information they’ve ever gotten about trafficking are warnings about Target or shopping mall parking lots from their Facebook friends. They don’t know how many teenage boys from broken homes, living in poverty, are pulled into being trafficked. How many gay youths, rejected by their families, fall victim to it? How many immigrant children here, with no parental supervision, are sold off by the people who should be protecting them from sexual slavery?Â
Those stories, even if they’re told, are not going to grab national headlines. They are not going to evoke world-wide outrage and sympathy. Those are things that happen to “other people”. We might even be tempted to start looking for reason why it’s their own fault, or at least the parents fault, right?Â
From a media perspective, we also have to keep this in mind. An abduction of a young white girl from her home, is a rare event. It’s actually newsworthy because it happens so rarely. When it happens, it’s shocking. A trans, minority, teen being coerced into selling themselves, with no one to turn to for protection, isn’t any of those things. A gay male teen being kicked out of their parents house and trying to make it through homelessness, is also not something that happens so rarely that there would be major news coverage of it. These things happen all of the time. So often, that they aren’t really news.Â
So, which group should we have support and services for? I’d like to vote for ALL OF THEM. But that will take educating people about the reality of who gets abused, who gets trafficked, and for us all to accept that it happens everywhere. Until we get there, and are willing to see all different types of people as victims, we will continue to fail one group or another. That’s not acceptable.Â
