Slavery: Trust and Distrust

Last night MSNBC aired two hour-long documentaries on slavery/human trafficking here in the United States.  I watched the first one, "Slavery in the Suburbs," and wish that I didn't have a 10 p.m.ish bedtime so that I could have watched the second one, an in-depth look at modern-day slavery in Texas.  Among other things, the documentary reminded me of another aspect of my mission as a writer: to make us aware of the world around us and how the way we live our lives impacts others in that world, and simultaneously restore trust and love to our hearts and minds.

If I haven't said so before, one of the greatest triumphs in my life is that I biked across the country to fight human trafficking last summer.  That should be clear, since my major writing project right now is the book on the trip, 27 Million Revolutions for 27 Million Slaves.  You can check out my on-going blog with the same name.  My main focus during the trip and now in writing the book was and is raising awareness.  Too many millions of people here in the United States think that slavery is a thing of the past, something that we have conquered thoroughly, especially now after the Civil Rights Movement.  Slavery happens elsewhere, we think, without stopping to realize that slavery of all forms most likely is happening right down the street from us at any given moment.  Hundreds and thousands of young American girls, born and raised, are in danger of sex slavery every year--as it is, Polaris Project estimates that 100,000 Americans are forced into slavery each year (I direct you to the Polaris Project website, Polaris, for more information).  That is a huge effin number for a country filled with citizens who simply can't believe such a thing possible.  Indeed, the first presentation that I gave after my bike trip at a church brought forward a mother who argued with me, "There's no way there are 27 million slaves in the world.  Don't you think we'd hear about it?" 

Here is not the place where I will talk about slavery in our world today, I'm writing everyday in my book about it, but suffice it to say that human trafficking (an interchangeable phrase with slavery) is the fastest growing industry right now partly because of how secret it is.  People who own or use slaves aren't going to come out into the open about it.  But that doesn't mean that humans aren't the best drug, the best product, for one's personal pleasure imaginable: a pimp, or slave-owner of any kind, does not need to grow humans, does not need to buy humans, they just need to not get arrested.  And the United States has been terminally slow in passing better and more strict laws to fight against human trafficking (the laws and response of the police make fighting human trafficking nearly impossible at times).  Because of the nature of the crime, the laws in our country, and the attitudes that we wrongly hold about slavery which enable human trafficking, slavery will remain covert.  Thus, awareness is the key.

Awareness is key.  Believe me, some form of slavery is almost certainly occurring in your county, if not in your hometown, if not in your neighborhood.  First things first, then, we need to acknowledge that fact.  Essentially this means being extremely distrustful of all things and all people.  I think that is a great shame, but there is no helping the inevitable.  Once we know the realities of the world we live in--that our daughter could become a sex slave simply by going over to a friend's house or going out to watch a movie--we will feel the need to keep an eye out, preemptively for the sake of those we love and in order to perhaps catch human trafficking in process.

To me, though, awareness involves so much more than knowing facts and keeping an eye out for suspicious behavior.  As I'll post tomorrow in my essay response to the shootings in Wisconsin and Colorado, we need to reflect on the attitudes we harbor in our society that could lead to someone's wanting to own or use a slave; we need to reflect on the attitudes that we harbor within ourselves that might lead or contribute to slavery.  We cannot simply point blaming fingers every which way and refuse to acknowledge that in some way we might be part of the problem.  Pornography, for instance, is not innocent at all, nor is watching pornography.  The way we live our lives can also contribute to oppressive slavery without our knowing.  All of this, I hope, can lead to more inward reflection.  For me, awareness is essentially an act of confession.  A small act of confession but an act of confession nonetheless.  Becoming aware must help us grow as individuals and as a people if we ever hope to live in a better world.

Inward reflection might enable us to think less harshly and distrustfully of others, aware that the flaws and issues that other persons might exhibit can be found in our own character as well.  If it doesn't, or even if it does, I cannot stand raising awareness of certain corrupt and loathsome undersides of the world around us and our own thinking and attitudes that undergird those undersides without also restoring the trust lost in the process of becoming aware.  Too often I hear people use "naive" as a synonym for "trusting."  I can't tell you how much that bothers me.  I've told the story of the Jewish father protecting his daughter from me on a train and what that means to me, insert that story here.

Human trafficking/slavery is arguably the worst evil ever to exist, and it is unfortunately also one of the least known.  So obviously I view it as my mission to make it known.  But my mission of awareness extends beyond human trafficking into simply inviting deep reflection by all of us.  And then, once we develop distrust of ourselves and everyone, I hope to show that the world isn't such a bad place after all.  A hopeless mission, but part of my mission as a writer nonetheless.

Shootings

Strangely, I can understand what's going on in the heads of people who can kill kids in Norway or kill Sikhs at a temple service or kill late-night Batman viewers or Virginia Tech students or Columbine students or an Arizona Congresswoman.  I understand it quite well.  I can't always put words to it, and won't try to now because I don't want to risk anyone's thinking that I intend to defend people who take life, and it's not the point of this post.  If I didn't already have the skill of understanding and sometimes sharing the thoughts of even the most senselessly radical persons, though to different effect, then I certainly learned the skill on my bike ride last summer when I realized that I am much like people who own and use slaves.  The fact is: I can easily wrap my head around the Wisconsin affair, the latest of the shootings that seem to be happening more and more lately, and can almost empathize with the shooters.

I don't empathize at all with the shooters, though, except that they have traveled somewhat wayward.  The gap between understanding and empathizing only pains me more when I think on the life that has been lost, and lost senselessly.  We live in a world where such things are possible, but they need not be.  And I, for one, cannot stand much more of this.  Unfortunately I perceive it as my job to explore the mindset of the shooters and the misery of the victims, and the reactions of the rest of the world.  How can a writer write about what he himself cannot make real? 

Ultimately for me, specifically, the shootings, in Wisconsin in particular, reveal the most profound reason why I am a writer.  I hope to restore hope and trust in one another so that we do not fear the people around us.  That is why I must suffer the mental hells that the shooters create for themselves, which like it or not closely mirror our own heavenly ideals, if we have heavenly ideals, and the misery of the victims.  If I cannot do that then my hopeful rhetoric would fall on uncaring ears.  At the same time, it is why I so greatly value the response of the Sikhs to this tragedy: an invitation to the world to come and see, see that they are nothing to be afraid of in any way. 

We have built a culture of isolation that we think can live side by side with high ideals.  Essentially we disconnect ourselves from any chance of real discourse with one another, especially with those who disagree.  The end result is that we have lost any potential for teaching one another about ideologies and cultures, we simply rope ourselves off and say, "That is bad over there," and anyone who says, "No, I don't think so," is left in the dark to their own devices, often leading to misguided yet passionate idealism.  In some ways the "liberals" and "social justice" folk have worsened the situation because in widening their field of vision a little they have more staunchly cut off cultures and ideologies they do not approve of.  It's terribly sad, and for those outside the circle, terribly lonely and open to demons of all sorts.

As shy as I am, I love riding the train and talking to people around me.  So I'll never forget when a young teenage Jewish girl sat down next to me separated a little from her family.  I asked her she was doing and that I thought her hair was pretty friggin cool (I'm a sucker for crazy hair, especially when it's black or dyed black, and hers was black with a little bleached blonde... and she had been wearing a black fedora, which is one of my fashion trademarks but is somewhat rare nowadays, meaning that I approve all the more), and then noticed that her father was hissing at her.  Trying my best not to let the father know that I heard I let her talk to him, and heard him whisper to the girl that she shouldn't talk to me, or any strangers.  That was that.  About half an hour later some spots near her family opened up and her father demanded that she move to one of them.  If that wasn't already that, then it was then.  For another couple of hours I couldn't help overhearing some of the family's conversation because I wanted to know if the father were just some jerk.  But no, he and the rest of the family were quite loving, and the father often talked amiably to other passengers.  Apparently he was allowed to talk to strangers.  The irony of it all was that I was a seminarian student currently reading a book entitled Talmud and the Internet.  I understand protecting our children, but the girl and I could have had a lovely conversation, I could have learned a lot, and the girl and father could have learned that not every stranger is to be feared.

With every shooting my mission, characterized by the train experience, seems to grow more urgent.  I care about achieving a great many things with my writing, but I know that I will not be successful until we are no longer shooting Sikhs in a temple or other Muslim kids at camp, and no longer shooting students because we feel out of place or ignored or unloved.