I have never embedded media in my blog before but this first time is worth it:
My gratitude to my brother Dave for working with artists Peter Buffet and Akon to inspire this work, and for sharing it with me. Be sure to check out the artists’ collaborative website Is there Something I Can Do?
The issue of human slavery is one that gets far too little play in our media and our discussions. What play it does get is too-often tied to either a conservative political agenda that only talks about trafficking in terms of prostitution, or a liberal agenda that talks about economic exploitation. Both are real, both are evil, and both must be confronted by everyone who has a conscience, regardless of what “wing” of politics he/she occupies.
I have E. Benjamin Skinner’s excellent and disturbing book A Crime So Monstrous linked already in my recommended books section, but I’ll plug it again here. Skinner takes a hard-boiled look at human slavery around the world, primarily in its economic, prostitution, and home-domestic sides (he doesn’t address child soldiers much, but this, too requires attention). He shows how slavery exists even here in the U.S. in the realms of prostitution, and domestic “servants” imported (often) from Haiti. Read it and weep/rage, and then find a way to speak out and get involved!
