So a friend of mine, Shelton Green, has started an organization to help fight human trafficking – What’s Your Response. The purpose of the group is – “Bringing the issues of human trafficking and modern day slavery into the consciousness of our city and giving everyone avenues for action to end this tragedy.” It’s a great group, and Shelton is really committed to helping raise awareness about this issue. This weekend the group organized a Coaster Crawl – delivering coasters with stories of trafficked people to local pubs and coffee shops. The point was to get people aware that slaves exist in our very midst. Their endeavor was featured in the Austin-American Statesman on Saturday.
While I think its fantastic that the local paper is getting the word out about how people can work to help stop human trafficking, the responses to the article were a sobering wake-up call. Yes, maybe I am just naive, but I want to believe that ordinary people have the capacity to be good. That they are capable of compassion and of living out the call to love our neighbor. Instead the majority of responses to this article merely revealed that hatred and prejudice run deep. (and yes, I know that people who leave responses to newspaper articles are generally the freaks on the extremes – but they are still saying out loud what generally only gets said in the privacy of people’s homes – the sentiments are real). In this case the hated took the form of the attitude “screw the victims, it’s their own fault anyway. what’s in it for me?” Here’s a brief sampling of these sorts of responses –
“Very commendable effort in an attempt to stop human trafficing.However,the unlining cause of this slavery is illegal immigration.Stop the illegals from entering our land and this crime will almost disappear.I am addressing this to not only illegal mexicans,but also to other Hispanics countries,Asian,European and Africans. White,black,brown,yellow,red,race does not matter.As mentioned below and we have seen examples of this trafficing on tv,the main hold that slavers have on these poor souls is thier fear of arrest and deportation.However,we need to bear in mind that these immigrants make their own decision to enter our country illegally and to break our laws. They must also realize that there is a correct and legal available to them if the wish to enter. If not,then they create their own hell…”
“uh….let’s see….do i wanna quit selling people at 30k per person or do i wanna feel really good about myself and NOT do it because of this coaster…hmmmm…30k vs. nothing….hmmm…”
“How about a spay and neuter program for our illegal immigrant visitors?”
Ugh. So let’s pretend for just a moment that human trafficking can be reduced to only the cases where people willingly immigrate illegally and then get tricked into slavery. Do these responders honestly support SLAVERY as punishment for those who seek a better life? That we should do nothing to help them because they created this situation for themselves? Do people cease to be people when they make the decision to immigrate illegally? I can understand, if not always agree, with the arguments against illegal immigration. But this tendency to treat immigrants as less-than-human and as people undeserving of justice and compassion is disgusting. None of us messed-up, fallen, finite human being are deserving of God’s love and mercy and Jesus’ ultimate sacrifice, but because we are all God’s children created in his image, God loves us anyway. This self-righteous hubris that has people asserting that they know better than God who should and shouldn’t be loved is truly a depressing reminder that most people aren’t basically good.
But enough pretending. While traffickers do regularly take advantage of those vulnerable enough that they would even consider illegal immigration to begin with, many trafficking victims have no choice in the matter. They are told that they are being hired for a job in their country and after being drugged find themselves in a completely different country. With no papers, of course they fear being punished as illegal immigrants (especially after they are fed nothing but lies by their captures regarding the punishment of such immigrants). And why shouldn’t they fear when there are American citizens calling for a “spay and neuter” program for them? When people are seen as less than dogs to be used and abused for our personal gain, justice will never happen. Until even Joe Prejudice can get over his hatred and learn to love his neighbor, we will still see atrocities like this occur.
Fighting human trafficking is a huge and daunting task. But reading stuff like this makes me realize that the task is far larger than simply defeating the traffickers. It involves teaching the average guy on the street how to get over himself and his self-centered attitude and learn how to love others and in humility consider others better than themselves. You know, only the message that got Jesus killed and which the church has failed to do for 2000 years. Nothing difficult there.
So who’s with me?