Tag Archives: human trafficking

Commonplace Thoughts of a Residual Welshman: Until I Had a Balcony

Never until I had a balcony in Viterbo did I understand why there is an eye on a dollar bill. Now I know this connection is preposterous. I know that the reason there is an eye on a dollar bill is, conspiracy theorists attest, because the Masonic League or the Knights Templar held the image of the all-knowing eye of God to be among their most prominent symbols. I’m not so sure. However that may be, certainly the symbol intrigued Benson Lossing who crafted the seal on the dollar in the years leading up to 1856 when it was first published in Harper’s New Monthly Magazine.[1] But that’s not what I mean. Rather I mean this: when you have a balcony in an inexpensive but lovely hotel in Viterbo, like the Hotel Tuscia, you see things you would never otherwise see, as if you were the eye of God.

Or, in fact, maybe you just hear them. For as I am writing this I am obviously looking at a computer screen, but I am taking in sounds, sounds coming from the nearest piazza, Piazza San Faustino, where a far from flawless cantor, if perhaps he is not so bad—he is, after all, a young man—is singing popular (I assume) Italian songs. I know enough Italian to know that most of them are about love (predictably). And I felt like, for a moment, Superman hovering over the earth and taking it all in, listening to a lone singer of love amidst a world in need of such singers, a world in need of love songs; for it is a world, indeed, in need of love.

Piazza San Faustino

I say this because, just after getting off the train from Rome, where I passed a lovely and culturally rich day touring the Chamber of Deputies (Camera dei Deputati) and meeting a few powerful folks, a senator and a congressman—please don’t ask me how this happened; but if you want to know how things like this happen to me, read the final chapter of the Curious Autobiography, the bit on Vegas, for that should do it—I passed by the bus stop near Porta Fiorentina where a number of Africans were waiting for the bus. “Why were they waiting?” a friend of mine asked later. I tried to explain that they were likely “indentured,” a polite word for humans, in sinister wise, being trafficked. The sadness of these folks’ plight choked the culture, the richness, and the hope out of me in less than ten seconds. I wanted to stand at the bus stop with them. I wanted to play soccer in the park with them the next day. I wanted to participate in their sufferings as a little Christ, for the larger, more perfect version has more than participated in all of ours.

But that’s theology, and I don’t want to move in that direction. Rather I want to return to the singer in the piazza at the top of the block; for after a short break his song began to fill the square again. Ah, love again, and again, and again, for that is his solitary theme. Yet I couldn’t help think of the men gathering by Porta Fiorentina to ride the bus day upon day. How can I, or anyone, let them know that that same theme, if to a slightly different strain, is God’s very song, too? I don’t know. But I do know that, though I know not how, I want to participate in their sufferings that I might fill up what is lacking in the suffering of Christ.[2] Can there really be anything lacking in that? I doubt as much—but perhaps just the message, the message of the singer, not always in tune, but beautiful, as I listen to it now from a balcony of a hotel in Tuscia, fittingly named, Hotel Tuscia. In closing, let me send you some blessings from Italy, from Tuscia, a place that is not quite Tuscany, not quite Rome, but rich in lovers’ songs and offering hope, I hope, to those without any, all under the Tuscan sun, under the all seeing eye of the One who truly sees and suffers with all humankind, and all this, just under my balcony.

[1] Cf. http://greatseal.com/ for a description and history of the seal.

[2] Col. 1:24.

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Commonplace Thoughts of a Residual Welshman: Empowerment

IMG_0964This week I came across three items that spoke about empowerment and I would like to share my thoughts about them in this short blog:

First, I saw an article that purports to suggest that Calvin Klein advertisements neither empower women nor do not. But the author, Peggy Drexler, soon goes on to show her real thoughts on the matter, that sexually suggestive advertising can help women feel better about their bodies. She writes,

calvin klein grapefruit“And even if she were holding a grapefruit that resembles a vagina—what of it? Why is that so shocking, so deplorable? A vagina, after all, isn’t dirty. It’s not crass. It’s a body part, one that all women have. Instead, the protesters of these images seem to be suggesting that there is shame in acknowledging this body part—not even a real vagina, mind you, but a fruity likeness of one. This, of course, only serves to perpetuate the notion many women already feel: that their bodies are something to feel embarrassed about.”[1]

So, in spite of her disclaimer, it seems that Ms. Drexler does, in the end, seem to be suggesting, the crass advertising does empower women, and the tone here is that the raunchier the advertisement, the better women will feel about their bodies.

But perhaps this sounds rather serious, even dire. On a lighter note, I turn to the second item. In my inbox mysteriously there appeared an advertisement from Apple computer telling me that I should “empower” my children, if they happen to be graduating from high school or college, by buying them a sleek new Apple computer. The implication is, of course, if you don’t buy one for your child, you’re in fact holding them back from reaching their full potential. “Jump-start their future and give your grad the full notebook experience in the fastest, lightest MacBook yet.”

Now I am not going to complain about the false agreement of the plural possessive adjective “their” and the fact that you only have one graduate mentioned in the sentence, for that would be peevish. But I will say that a phrase like “full notebook experience” is to my mind off-putting. How can one have a “notebook experience”? I mean really, is that what one has when one uses a laptop computer, an “experience”? Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against computers or Apple per se, but maybe I am just missing something. Yet I doubt it, as I am sitting here writing this blog on my (admittedly ordinary non-Apple) laptop and I am not having an experience at all, let alone “the full notebook eturtlexperience” (my italics). But I leave my petulance aside to consider the third item of empowerment. I wish I could say it was an article about turtles being to blame for salmonella and that all we need do is teach and thus empower the turtles with education about proper hygiene to make the problem go away. But it is a topic much more important and serious, even dangerous.

Economist.SexThe third appeal for empowerment comes from a piece that has had remarkable staying power (since August of 2014) in a number of Internet news sources. It is an article from The Economist on the sex trade entitled, “Prostitution: A Personal Choice.” To anyone at all aware of the diabolical, even demonic power of the sex trade business and human trafficking, the articles mere title jumps straight off the page as wrong-headed. Yet the article’s lead author even in the first paragraph seeks to reveal that to “many” prostitutes sex is just a job:

NIMBYs make common cause with puritans, who think that women selling sex are sinners, and do-gooders, who think they are victims. The reality is more nuanced. Some prostitutes do indeed suffer from trafficking, exploitation or violence; their abusers ought to end up in jail for their crimes. But for many, both male and female, sex work is just that: work.”

Now I hate to be peevish twice in one article, but I am about to do so. First of all, would love to know how many that “many” really is. But more importantly, secondly I would question the premise. Can sex ever in fact just be “work”? Just because some people might mistake from a distance skunk for a cat, it can be made clear amply quickly that a skunk is not a cat.skunk and cat

Let me be clear: I am not suggesting that a prostitute is a skunk. I am suggesting that prostitution is. It is something that stinks, and it stinks because despite what The Economist’s cover may suggest, it is anything but empowering. It is degrading. For the woman involved, it tells her that she is merely an object. For the man involved, it tells him that he is a buyer of an object. For the rare reversal of the situation (male prostitution or homosexual prostitution) the same formula may be applied with gender changes as appropriate. In every case, the seller is objectified and the buyer who has the money and therefore the power, is the objectifier. No pragmatic argument can change that, nor can any prevail against it. One need not be a NIMBY (which means, by the way, “Not in my backyard”; I had to look it up), a puritan or a do-gooder to understand this, though a modicum of education and common sense might help. But apparently The Economist’s team of writers have neither of those, but rather come equipped only with a social agenda and mega-dose of pragmatism gone wild.

It is not only The Economist who seems to condone sexual exploitation. The CNN webpage has a 2013 article on female students who seek out sugar daddies so they can pay their college expenses.[2] It is, to say the least, sympathetic to them. The notion of moral backbone, of hard work and, dare I say it, even of having to pay back college loans, is so easily sacrificed on the altar of Asherah.

calvin klein logoMs. Drexler buttons up her Calvin Klein article by stating, “Although it’s tempting to stare only at the poor, exploited, hyper-sexualized models in these images … don’t disregard the campaign’s words. The language, one might argue, is very clearly designed to put the power in the model’s, and the wearer’s, hands. “I [kick it] in my Calvins, ” “I [react] in my Calvins. ” “I [Bieber] in my Calvins. ” “They alone decide what to do in their Calvins.”

I can only respond in this way. It is not tempting for me to stare at those poor, exploited women. Rather, it is forced upon me and all of us, and our children, and grandchildren by amoral bastards who put the almighty dollar over everything else. To Ms. Drexler and any of us who might be inclined to think, “C’mon, this is just advertising; lighten up!” I simply say this. Think. Think about the implications of what you see, what you read, what you say and what you do. If you do not think about those implications, you will be bound, yes bound and enslaved, by the values of a world that attributes value not to people (whether those exploited in the picture or those put upon who wind up beholding it), but rather only to something really quite valueless, money, commercializing people, debasing sexuality, and corrupting the hope of future generations in the process.

And now I am finished with my peevishness. I shall turn to something like turtles next week, turtles and dreams and good memories.

[1] http://www.cnn.com/2016/05/13/opinions/calvin-klein-underwear-controversy-drexler/

[2] http://www.cnn.com/2013/02/26/living/students-sugar-daddy-relationships/index.html

Commonplace Thoughts of a Residual Welshman: Human Trafficking vs. Human Homing Ping

Why do strange things happen to me when I am flying? I mean, of course, flying in an airplane, to which event I shall return momentarily, for otherwise, the only time I fly is when I am in my dreams and this blog is not to be about dreams, unless one were to regard the ping as a dream.

That ping is the internal homing device that I believe every one of us has. Not all can hear it, or rather, not all choose to hear it. But it is there. It is that place, whether merely idealized and dreamlike or (likely also idealized and) real, where we feel that “home” is. We long for home, and our literature, art and culture reflects this longing.

Not every literary work, of course, does so. Some are steamy romance novels that really don’t reveal the homing ping at all—or do they? Could, even in a salacious adulterous affair, there not be a desire for a kind of fulfillment that is, though a perversion of the real thing, found in perfect love? And that love, or at least the nurturing, accepting and forgiving aspects of it, are reflected in true romance, true love, and true family that results from true love. But I wax St. Valentinian too far in advance of February 14.

That ping, as I was saying, most often harks back to one’s childhood, and I was thinking of it because over the weekend I had been in Wilkes-Barre, where I was born, and New Hope, where I grew up and I heard that ping very distinctly, standing in front of the old homestead, visiting my mother’s and grandparents’ gravesites. If you are among the lucky, you have had something like a family and a home and you innately know that home and family are what you craved then and what you ultimately crave, more than the ephemeral delights that the world tells you are important. You know that living in the here and now, living for the moment, will not satisfy. You know that there is home, somewhere, possibly a physical place (a town, for example) or possibly an ideal setting (the notion of a fireplace and a family, or even the heavenly realm) that beckons you. That is the ping. And this is why, of course, Christmas is a popular holiday, even among those who do not believe that there was a baby born in Bethlehem or that that baby grew up to teach profoundly and heal defiantly.

But that aside, as now having established, I hope, in but a very few paragraphs, that there is such a thing as the ping, I must speak about flying, or more specifically the last flight I was on just a few days ago when an aggressive, middle-aged, physically fit man carrying an opened laptop computer climbed over me. Before I could extricate myself from my safety belt, he said, “That’s my seat. Do you mind?”

“Of course not,” I said, wiggling out of his way.

Not a word was exchanged until a young woman sat between us. I told her that I was a writer; she was mildly interested but, being a businesswoman, admitted that she doesn’t read much but prefers podcasts. I had nothing to offer her, as I have no podcasts. I’m not sure how to make one, though I, too, have listened to them (in my case, in non-English languages, as they are an excellent way to hone one’s language skills). I turned to my writing, she to a conversation with the man who had climbed over me, also a businessman, as I could not but fail to overhear.

Now I paid little attention to their conversation, as I was writing, something I much like to do when I am travelling. But it was hard not to overhear or to believe I must have heard wrong when my climbing fellow traveler said to the young woman, “Well, you know, kids make those things” (referring, I think to an article of clothing that he was responsible for importing for his company), “but I don’t have a big problem with that. I’m not sure what’s so wrong with an eight-year-old working in a factory in China.”

“Me neither,” she responded. “I had …”

“Kids that age should be playing or going to school,” I interrupted, barely able to restrain myself. “It is wrong for a little kid to have to work forty plus hours per week in a factory.”

“That’s your cultural expectation,” he responded curtly. “You believe that because in the culture you were raised in, kids playing or learning was the norm. But there, work is often a part of their schooling. Look, it’s a well-known fact that in other cultures there are other norms, other rights and other wrongs.”

boy with trash“No, I said. There are not. Those kids have no future in such an environment. They are often exposed to harsh chemicals that dramatically shorten their lives …”

He interrupted, “Many are helping to support their families. Suppose one of them had a sick parent or something.” It struck me odd that if he felt he had such an ironclad argument that he would, before he could make his case about the rule immediately divert to what would obviously be an exception to it.

“I started working when I was twelve,” piped in the young businesswoman, no doubt finishing her previous thought. “It didn’t do me any harm.”

“Working part-time after school and working full-time in a sweatshop (neither of them seemed familiar with that term or the history that is incumbent upon it) are two different things. I worked on a farm when I was a kid, but it’s not the same as an unsavory factory situation where children can get ill from the working conditions and don’t have a proper childhood.”

“There you go again,” quoth he, “imposing your cultural expectations. Besides, if they get sick and die, just ‘Get another thousand of them.’ That’s what a friend of mine says. There are plenty of people in China.”

Muckraker photo
Cover of 1901 magazine which published articles by muckrakers.

“Not to be a muckraker, but have you ever visited these factories?”

He paused only slightly, seemingly thinking that I had dubbed myself something other (perhaps a more than merely a four-letter word) than a muckraker, as he was clearly not familiar with that term, either. Then he said, “No, and I don’t need to,” though surely with no malice aforethought for that would require forethought, of which he had none. “My culture is not theirs, my values are not theirs. I can’t impose my values on their culture.”

I would point out here that his response sounds more sophisticated than it is. Though it masquerades as a radical form of enlightened cultural tolerance, it is actually nothing more than a rabid form of moral relativism that is in bed with big business and market-driven morality.

“Well, I have visited them,” I said. “There, children only worked; they didn’t laugh or smile or goof around. They were not able to play like normal children. They concentrated merely on the task at hand and nothing else. And I was told by my guide that they often get sick, even die, especially when exposed to chemicals or find themselves in bad working environments.”child in sweatshop“Then you just ‘Get another thousand’,” was the not-too-swift man’s swift reply.

Now at this point, had we not been in an airplane and had the year been 1985 or earlier, I think I just might have reached clear over the woman between us and smacked him full fist. But nowadays you get sued for that kind of thing, sadly, and probably arrested once the plane touches down. No, I did not take a poke at him. I was merely incredulous: this fellow was actually advocating a kind of human trafficking, or at least abuse of children, and he was proud of it. He was in favor of a type of slavery or serfdom. He would deny those children any sense of the ping one could possibly feel about home that develops (or at least should be given the chance to develop) during one’s childhood. In short, he would, in the name of business, take away children’s very childhood.

As I sat there the rest of the flight, it was impossible for me to write. Instead, I thought about those children, their lives, and said a prayer for them. I hoped things were better now, in China, than when I was there some twenty years ago; yet I feared they may not be better. Thus did I ponder, trying not to glance over at this ethical ne’er-do-well, reflecting on what I was feeling, emotions ranging from sadness to indignation to flat-out wrath.

My homing ping was stronger now than it had been when I got on the plane that morning. Though I was coming from home, I felt the call to go home, not only for myself but for my friends, the Chinese children whom I knew might never have time to feel it for themselves. It’s funny how having a forty hour or more work week in a factory might just take the sense of childhood out of someone, suppressing the ping, maybe even muffling it forever.

Just then another type of ping went off in the aircraft. It was time to fasten our seatbelts and prepare for landing. As we touched down, I hoped that those Chinese children could, at least, dream. Could they dream, perhaps, that they were flying?

And then, as we stood up to disembark, I punched the bastard.

Fight club passNo, I’m kidding. Rather, I thought that, were he ever somehow miraculously to stumble upon this blog, he might just need a recipe, one handed down, if only imperfectly, in the Jakes’ family. Nevertheless I would here offer it to him, and myself, and all of us.

Human Being Recipe child working hands