Sunday, September 30, 2012

We Are In Denial About Sexually Exploited Youth

A commerically sexually exploited youth, CSEC

MISSSEY is one of a number of non-profit organizations working to educate the public about the tragedy of Commercially sexually exploited youth also known as CSEC, on the streets of Oakland California and beyond.  This child sexual enslavement is happening night and day, 24/7, NON-STOP, right here in our American communities.  The work of educating people about the issue of childhood sexual enslavement is difficult because many of us have naive notions of what we're looking at when we see young girls "on the track".  Generally speaking, we have concluded these exploited and abused children are simply "bad girls" who somehow brought on their own victimization. 

We as a community don't view this issue of modern day slavery as a pressing one, and for that reason we aren't in a state of collective outrage and anger when we see frightened little girls walking the streets, identities concealed behind garish makeup, skimpy clothes and stilettos.  We don't have a desire to rescue our girls.  Truly, we don't claim them as ours.  We conclude they're out there by there own accord.

Maybe we are hard-hearted because we are in denial.  We Americans want to believe human trafficking only happens in "third world nations".  When we are hit with the hard truth, our response is disbelief and denial, and that reaction cuts across race and class.  Even in the impacted communities where the children are plainly and visibly being sold on the ghetto streets, there is denial.



In a way, this denial of what's right before our eyes is understandable.  After all, who wants to believe that sexual trafficking of our daughters is happening right on our doorsteps? How did we allow it to come to this?  How did we drop the ball so completely and so many of our children are CSEC?  This is very hard for us to deal with, so we continue in our feigned ignorance.  Unfortunately our denial is the currency that the predators of our children bank on.  And they clock mad dollars.  With the community approval by default, our sons pick up the mantle of brutality, the same ways that the overseers of their great great grandfathers.  Our sons hardens their souls and sell the precious bodies of our daughters.  And we wonder why are families are torn apart.  Our neighborhoods have become auction blocks, and our children are the chattel, to the tune of $50 or more a trick, depending on which auction block.  Some slaves cost more than others.  White slaves being the most valuable.  Twelve year old girls are forced to "service" ten or more sexually and spiritually depraved men a night.  The men of suburbia leave their women and come and relieve the sexual demons they picked up from watching internet pornography, into the innocent bodies and souls of our daughters.  We briefly peek out our windows, then quickly close the curtains and pretend we saw nothing.

Yes, the pimps and johns are in cahoots.  They know the community will do nothing to stop them.  The Game is running rampant.  Pimps get to work breaking in the girls, the same way their great great grandmothers were broken by slave masters centuries before.  The brothers unleash brutal beatings and torture on their young confused sisters, effectively breaking their spirits, minds and bodies for the suburban johns' wicked delight.  Those johns then perform various sexually deranged acts on our daughters.  Oh!  You thought the johns were only interested in having little sexual quickies.  No, that's passe.  These men don't leave their wives and girlfriends behind in Walnut Creek to come down to East Oakland for gentle sexual pleasures in the hood.  They often act out vicious sexual fantasies, domination and abuse they watched in their internet pornos, things that they wouldn't dare ask or even want their own women to do for them.  Because we as a community are in denial, by default we are in cahoots with our own genocide.

Yes sadly, we turn our eyes in defeat and shame from the half naked pre-teen girls tottering on mile-high stilettos.  Where do these girls come from? Who are they, who are their families?  Do we ask?  Do we care?  The human traffickers, aka pimps, aka enslavers, are literally kidnapping innocent girls off the streets of their home towns.  While on their way to school or to the store, they disappear into thin air.  It's just like what happened to our people in Africa centuries ago.  We watch the news and learn of yet another girl declared missing.  At least the white girls are reported missing.  Just disappeared into thin air.  In a deep state of denial, we refused to put two and two together.



Denial is a strange thing.  Deep down in the spirit, it knows the truth.  But because the truth hurts, denial turns away and pretends that it doesn't understand or that the issue doesn't exist.  This is what's going on in our cities everyday.  People are too afraid to face the truth - that they have abandoned their children to the devourers, something they wouldn't even allow to happen to dogs.  A huge fuss is always made when we learn that dogs and other animals are being abused. 

People, it's time to pull our heads out of the sand and learn about what's actually going on. What is happening in the life of a girl staring out from vacant, deadened eyes.  How can we bring life and hope back to her?  Learn of the organizations and people who are fighting this genocide and get on board with some of them.  Give them your support, donate resources, join in the fight and start working to end sexual slavery of youth in your neighborhood. 

Here's a list of a few modern day abolitionists who are hard at work in the Oakland Bay Area.

Love Never Fails  Recently organized Walk The Track this past August to bring awareness to the hood and show solidarity with the young victims.

Misssey

Prostitution Research and Education   Recently held a Power Brunch this past September to bring further awareness and raise needed funds.

CASE Act Yes on 35  Ongoing battle to pass Proposition 35, which will force johns to pay much higher penalties when caught victimizing CSEC

Victory Outreach Oakland

United Roots

BAWAR

Re-Generation Church Oakland





 

Friday, September 21, 2012

Men In the Battle Against Domestic Violence

 Professor Ulester Douglas of Emory University
 http://www.idvaac.org/assemblingthepieces/articles/meet/douglas.html

Sixteen undergraduates made history this spring by completing MSV’s first-ever academic course offering at Emory University. The course, Male Intimate Partner Violence Against Women: Critical Issues and Concepts, taught by Ulester Douglas (UD), was the vision of the late Dr. Rudolph Byrd. At the time of its offering, there was no course within Emory College that focused on male intimate partner violence against women or used a community-engaged learning approach to this issue. Students gave their seal of approval by unanimously rating the course as excellent in their final evaluations.
- It is the best class I have taken at Emory and I am a senior.
- Very rarely do students get the opportunity to learn from someone who can speak not only to textbooks applications, but also to real-world and real life experiences.
- Ulester and Dominick (TA for the course) were two of the best teachers I have had at Emory.
UD: “Teaching this course provided an exciting opportunity to reach today’s and tomorrow’s leaders. When students are exposed to this kind of material it raises the stakes that they would do something, take action, to help prevent violence against women. There is still a high degree of indifference to male violence against women, in part because of the lack of knowledge about the issue”
- Almost everything I was taught in this class was new information and I learned to think of abuse in completely new and different ways.
- Before (the class on stalking) I didn’t take stalking very seriously, and afterwards I was aware of its severity and importance.
- I never before thought about the ways in which immigrant women constituted a vulnerable group for domestic violence. [This course] helped me expand upon the ways I view Intersectionality.

continue reading

 

Saturday, September 8, 2012

PRE and Streets Disciples Power Brunch

Registration for Power Brunch


Rev Williams and Mother Brown

Abolitionist Nicholas Sensley

Liberty Bradford Mitchell

Rev Williams, Cesar Cruz and Homies Empowered

Melissa Farley of Prostitution Research and Education with Nicholas Sensley

Rev Harry Williams and the Youth of Re-Generation Church in Oakland




Silent Auction



Rev Williams autographs his book "Straight Outta East Oakland" on Human Trafficking

Rev Williams and Cesar Cruz

Streets Disciples at the book table

Nicholas Sensley of Humanity United






Large turnout

Rev Williams delivers a powerful speech

Streets Disciples

Delicious food