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29.10.09

'Our souls will at last sink to hell.'

I'm taking a class this semester that I, honestly, wasn't expecting to be very good. The course examines the rhetoric of women in 19th century America in the various social movements they participated in. Being a 20th century British young adult literature enthusiast (check all the modifiers, there's quite a few), I wasn't really looking forward to taking this course.

I have been surprised, however, by how much I'm finding out about the ways my predecessors in America not only fought for their own rights, but loved their neighbor by fighting alongside them. One particular group of women struck a chord: The New York Female Moral Reform Society. The NYFMRS was formed to battle the rising tide of prostitution in New York City in the early 1800s. These women (and some men) discovered, upon researching the problem of prostitution, which involved on the lowest level simply talking to the prostitutes, that the main reasons most of them became prostitutes was not, as was commonly thought, because they were somehow licentious and devilish women. Rather, most of them were forced to because of economic hardship. Because of the way that laws about the rights of women functioned in 19th century America, a woman found it very hard to make a living once her husband had passed, or if she was unmarried to begin with. Many of them found prostitution to be a good alternative to starvation.

Fast forward to 2009. This is the same situation many women across the world are facing, especially in these economically hard times. As we see numbers of the hungry and the homeless increasing, you can be assured that the numbers of those being forced to sell themselves for sex has increased as well.

Siddarth Kara, author of the 2009 book Sex Trafficking: Inside the Business of Modern Slavery writes that in traveling the globe to research slavery, "No discovery shocked me more than the extreme level of bias and socioeconomic disenfranchisement that millions of women face across the globe. These factors contribute directly to female vulnerability to slave traders when the surrounding political and economic infrastructures disintegrated." Kara goes on to tell us that in India, 15,000 women are murdered each year in dowry disputes, even though the dowry system is illegal. "Life for millions of women in South Asia is a process of terrible abuse," he writes.

Disenfranchised women, like those we find in various third world and developing countries, are those most at risk for becoming victims of sex trafficking. Similar to the situation of many 19th century women in America, the disenfranchised women across the globe believe that they have no other option, that this is what they must do in order not to starve on the street, or have their family starve alongside them. And like the NYFMRS, we must do what we can to remedy this situation.

What does this mean, then?

In the long run, it means changing the laws to give women more of a chance. It means cracking down on those who buy sex; it means targeted punishment of the men who operate to oppress women and create the demand for sex. It means a change in attitude across the globe.

Surely, these are high and lofty goals, but ones I hope I can see realized. But what little old you and little old me do, right here, right now? Kara offers us some possibilities:

1. Become Aware. Read, research, do what you can to learn about the sex industry and its connections with trafficking. Learn how the world economies fit together, even if it's just a cursory understanding. Begin to realize that the things you purchase, the actions you take, even if you're just one person in Waco, TX, USA, do make a difference.

2. Financial Support. Donate to NGO's. Donate to this trip I'm going on so I can learn more about the issue and do something to help. Kara writes that "Even if sex trafficking ended today, there would be over one million women and children in need of shelter, health care, counseling and vocational training." Aftercare is just as important as, if not more than, rescue.

3. Community vigilance. Pay attention to what's going on around you! In Central Texas alone, there have been around 7 cases of caught and prosecuted traffickers, just because someone in the community noticed something wrong and spoke up.*

4. Write a letter. Contact your Congressperson, tell them to get the ball rolling on enforcing international laws against trafficking, to provide money toward aftercare, to do something to change the disenfranchisement of women in the world today.

These are small steps, but ones that will make a big difference.

__________________

*http://www.slaverymap.com

**Title quote taken from The Advocate of Moral Reform, a periodical published by the NYFMRS in the late 1830s. It was said by a prostitute at a brothel interviewed for the first edition of The Advocate.

22.10.09

And you shall know them by their love.


As many of you know, I teach two sections of freshman composition at Baylor. Needless to say, this has put an interesting stress on my semester. Today, I took about half the class period and introduced the next unit - persuasion. I fortunately kept our discussion from turning into a political debate wherein the whole class disagreed with me, but I did manage to raise the question in some of my students' minds of "What does it mean to love your neighbor?"

I suppose I should rewind a bit.

I introduced the unit with an exercise in audience/authorship. My friend Chase posted an article a few weeks back that I just knew I had to use in class - Michael Moore's Open Letter to Christians in America. In this letter, Moore challenges Christians to think about what the relation between Capitalism and Loving Your Neighbor really is. Would Jesus be okay with some people getting a bigger piece of the pie than others?

Knowing that even just the name "Michael Moore" would raise some guards, I carefully edited it to remove any clues to who the author is, and presented it to my students.

The reaction in the first class was expected: "He's misusing Scripture! What is this? He takes those comments about the poor entirely out of context! He doesn't know his audience very well." Knowing that a debate on the veracity of his Scriptural references would simply take the class too far off track to do any good, I merely wrote their objections on the board, and questioned them. Again and again, I asked, "Did no one find anything positive in the article?" Not only were none of them persuaded, none of them seemed to even have questions raised in their minds about the issue. Christianity supports a capitalistic economic structure, no question.

I, quite reasonably, kept my mouth shut for most of the discussion, only prompting questions to guide them back to focusing on the writing because, after all, this is a comp class. I kept my mouth shut, that is, until the question of what it means to love your neighbor came up. Even then, all I did was ask the question: "Is it loving to take a large chunk of the pie to improve your bottom line? Is it possible to love both money and your neighbor?"

While it shut some of them up, the majority opinion chose to ignore the word "love" in the sentence. I was surprised at how quickly the concept was written off, especially by students whose lives have been surrounded by images of love, the idea that love is the highest possible good, and raised in families who told them, over and over, that God loves them.

What has happened to the concept of love in today's society? What does loving your neighbor look like?

These questions have become a consistent theme in my life, and not without reason. I live in the 16th poorest city in the nation, and I can't go to the post office without encountering a homeless person. While sitting at my kitchen window, I frequently see these two homeless people pushing shopping carts through my neighborhood - they're the same ones each time, and I see them about once every two weeks.

At one point this summer, I took the trash out at about 10:00 at night, and there was a man of about 40 years old rooting through our dumpster. I said hello, and he smiled widely at me, greeting me enthusiastically, seemingly unembarrassed to be found rooting through the garbage. I let him be.

That man, even if he doesn't live in my complex, is my neighbor.
The old lady, leaning on her shopping cart as she wanders through the neighborhood, is my neighbor.
The man sitting against the wall outside the post office telling me he only has $1.34 and just needs a little bit more so he can go buy some food...that man is my neighbor, my brother, my family.

What does it mean to love them? What does it mean to apply to the real world the somewhat trite, continually restated and reemphasized edict of "love your neighbor"? I think that may be the essence of the Christian life - learning how to work out that love for others as God loves us. Why else do we remain on earth when we are "saved"? It is so that we may love others.

Go and learn what it means to love.

(photo credit: Brandt Russo, of the group "Can't Ignore the Poor," taken in Skid Row, Los Angeles)

15.10.09

1 in 6 are Going Hungry.

In lieu of everything I have going on this weekend (despite it being fall break), it seemed that directing you to a CNN article on a report from the UN that 1 billion people worldwide are undernourished would be a better idea than writing right now.

1 billion people means one in six people are without food, and experiencing some sort of food crisis.

Read more about it here.

Thanks for visiting for the blog. Learn about what you can do to help, and do it.

8.10.09

I <3 Fair Trade

For those of you who don't know, October is Fair Trade Month, the month when Fair Trade Certified makes a big push to promoting Fair Trade goods around the world.

For my thoughts on the idea of Fair Trade vs. Free Trade, see this earlier post here.

There are a number of events going on all over the states to celebrate Fair Trade. For example, just yesterday, Boston Dunkin' Donuts had their 100% Fair Trade Coffee available at designated subway stops all along the T (their name for the subway). In investigating Dunkin' Donuts as a company, I discovered that ALL of their coffee is 100% Fair Trade Certified - it's part of the commitment that the company makes to society. It's in part a response to customers, and a commitment the company has decided to make to better the world.

That said, there are a number of companies that don't bother to use Fair Trade. At most Starbuck's, if you want your mocha made with Fair Trade coffee, you have to specially request it. And unfortunately, it's not always available.

This week, I challenge you to think about the products you are buying. If you're buying rice - where did it come from? What hands harvested it? What country produced it? If you're getting coffee, is it fair trade? Was it produced by a company that has a commitment to helping the world, not just making a profit?

Think about it. Where is your money going?

Also, here's an interesting video that has a great analogy from Monopoly. It's a sermon from a Unitarian church here in TX:

Pathways Church: sermon from 06/01/2008 - A Decent Cup of Coffee from Pathways Church on Vimeo.



_____________

Speaking of money...since the announcement last week about my photobook/fundraising push, I have received $310 in donations! Hallelujah! I still need around $500 more to make my out of pocket expenses reasonable, so the donation button is still wide open.

I am also linking to my friend Chase's Blog. If you have already donated to me, and still want to help out, Chase - one of my fellow travelers - is having trouble raising money, and only has 2 and 1/2 months to get almost the entire amount together. If you can help him out even just a little, I know he would very much appreciate it.

1.10.09

October the 1st: An Announcement!


As many of you know, I don't have a lot of time on my hands. Between teaching classes, taking class and doing class reading, I don't have a lot of time to concentrate on funding for India. So I had a light bulb this week.

One of my fellow travelers, Ashley, is learning to be a photographer, and is taking portraits of people for a donation to her trip, and that is her main source of fundraising for the trip.

Now, many of you know, I enjoy photography, so much so that I bought myself a DSLR this summer, and I have been learning how to use it. It is, of course, traveling to India with me, and I will probably have a couple thousand photos to sort through once I get back.

So, what am I to do with very little time, a nice camera, and a ton of photos that I'll have when I get back?

Photo books, of course!

I am announcing today, October the 1st, that for everyone who donates $35 or more (and this is retroactive too), I will make a photobook of my India photos. This means, of course, that you will have an awesome memento of my trip, cool looking unique photos that no one else will have , and the knowledge that you helped send me over there to take them!

You can donate in the sidebar on the paypal button, email me at dianna_anderson@baylor.edu to get my address if you prefer snail mail.

The payment dates have changed, so I now have $1500 due at the end of October instead of $1250 this week. I need to raise about $750 more to be comfortable. So if you want to donate, please do!

(Oh, and yes, that's a sample photo of my photography skill up there).