I watch in horror as
the images splay across the big screen.
The kidnappers not caring about the man and family they were
destroying. The sadistic slaveholder
forcing Solomon to whip Patsy, a fellow slave, until her back is ravaged beyond
repair. The slaver with, seemingly, some semblance
of a heart admitting to Solomon that he doesn't want to know the truth because simply knowing would cost too much.
I could go on and
explain just how deeply the movie 12 Years a Slave affected me. It's one of
those movies that was so incredibly painful to watch that, although I will never regret
seeing it, I doubt I'll ever watch it again. It
makes me question humanity and God and everything I know and love about the
world, about humanity, about myself.
It's easy for me to
attempt to relieve myself, my culture, the only world that I have ever lived
in, of the guilt of these horrible historical wrongs. And as much as the scourge of slavery and
racism and hate have seeped into and stained this country for eternity, it is
easy to try and separate ourselves from it.
So very easy.
It's easy to say
that this doesn't happen now, not here.
That we're somehow better than them.
More evolved. More compassionate. More willing to see the image of God in every
person, no matter our demographic differences.
But there are more
slaves in the world today than ever existed throughout the history of the
"legal" slave trade.
And again, it's easy to imagine and believe that the modern slave trade is a "third
world" problem. I follow and love
and support organizations like IJM and the A21 campaign whose entire mission is
to rescue people from the international slave trade.
It's so easy to just
donate money to organizations such as
these, and still remain blissfully and willfully ignorant.
Here's the truth: the slave trade is alive and well in America.
Here's an even
harder truth: the slave trade exists in America because there is a demand for
it, here and now.
Every year in every city that hosts the Superbowl or any other major sporting event, the rates of sex trafficking skyrockets in the days before and after the event. There are always women and children being trafficked blocks from the White House and the Capital, especially during national events such as the a Presidential Inauguration. Florida has some of the highest rates of child sex slavery due, at least in part, to the perpetual interstate tourist demand. Demand is especially high during Spring Break season.
This is the stinging
indictment that a former child prostitute laid at the feet of Georgetown Law
School:
"With conviction and irreverence, Frundt tells the story her staff told her she shouldn’t — one she agreed not to tell — about the time she was walking the streets at night near D.C. She was approached by two johns who mistook her for a prostitute. Frundt told the men they had the wrong idea. She asked where they were from. 'They said Georgetown Law,' Frundt says. 'Yeah, they go to Georgetown Law.' She doesn’t let it sink in. She jams it in. 'That’s right. They’re right next to you.' In the crowd, there is a look these speakers know well. It’s not fear, nor compassion, nor grief. It is shame."
So, no, those who keep up the demand for the slave trade in America are not some faceless monsters. Sex slavery isn't perpetrated by clusters of evil people in far away places devoid of human connections and emotions. It's an economy trafficked in by our friends, our acquaintances, our classmates, our neighbours. It's us.
It's the good looking guy not much older than me in a downtown Naperville bar. The one with the flash of recognition and the gall to say "hello." A nonchalant greeting from a "client" she wished was long forgotten.
I have lived in Naperville, IL nearly my entire life. It's known as a great place to raise kids, as the home of a fantastic library, and as a bustling, friendly, and fun downtown.
It's also the home to that john who said "hello" like he was bumping into an old high school classmate. And it's the home to former and current slaves. I don't know how many. So often, it's easier for me to just not think about them at all. To pretend that Naperville is just this privileged, elite home to so many things about the capitalist society that I hate.
It's also easy for my feelings to flash towards revulsion when I see a prostitute crossing the street in the shitty part of Chicago that I drove through, not realizing that this more "direct" route to the airport would bring me face-to-face with my own privileged assumptions I thought I had long rejected.
As much as I know that I'm going to spend the rest of my life actively fighting the horrors of sex crimes, I have no clue how I will survive. I don't know how I'll muster the courage to not break down and lash out, not just against the men I will try to convict, but against the society that, with blissful, conceited, and too often willful ignorance, allows the demand for sex slaves to continue.
How am I supposed to live in a world where the horrors depicted so brutally in 12 Years a Slave have not ended? How do I keep my faith in the beauty of humanity when humanity is so damn good at justifying and perpetuating and, perhaps more heartwrenchingly, ignoring its own brutality.
How will I face this brutality day in and day out for the rest of my life and still keep my faith?
