I had the honour of delivering a speech on human trafficking, particularly sex trafficking at a prestigious event this weekend. Half way through my speech, I realised how people were listening without feeling.
I saw minimal emotions and I couldn’t help but be a little angry because how dare you not feel anything after hearing that a human being falls victim to trafficking every 30 seconds?! I was pulling up horrendous statistics on human trafficking from all over the world and some people in attendance were even stone faced. I got a sense that people were out of touch with this topic. It’s real though, it’s happening right under our noses.
I ended my speech with a poem about a victim whose only freedom was death. I wrote the poem from her perspective. That’s when people started to sit up straight. I noticed a lady that was sitting in the front row reach for her bag, to take out her cell phone and I thought “oh boy, she’d rather text”, but I was wrong, she wanted to take a video of me. That’s how I hooked them onto this conversation. By speaking as a victim, making it a reality for them. Then it hit me like Mjolnir (Thor’s hammer), we only react appropriately to gross injustice, abuse and/or tragedy when we feel attached to it.
I had to perform being a victim before people started sobbing and paying attention. I think that it applies to a lot of areas where we experience oppression and people seem indifferent. Maybe they just don’t understand. They can’t relate. It’s understandably tricky to be phased by something you can not relate to, something you don’t even see in the movies or series you like to watch. It is wrong however. To be so out of touch from something that is actively causing human suffering. If someone has to tell you to imagine your daughter, sister or mother being forced into sex work, or even your brother, father and uncle before you’re enraged by it then you need to check yourself. The statistics are quite low for men but it doesn’t make them any less of victims.
Look at the #BlackLivesMatter movement, it was quickly opposed by an #AllLivesMatter regressive stance. The mostly white people (that started this anti movement) simply didn’t understand, they couldn’t relate to the colonial consequences that still affect black people today all over the world. Again, they were out of touch with reality.
The lesson here is simple, educate yourself about all injustices and then join the race. The more time we waste demonstrating oppression/injustice, the less time we have to actually fight it.
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