Thursday, January 31, 2013

not a joke

Last year, the President declared January to be recognized as National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month. I have supported several organizations who are combating slavery around the world for many years, and I am grateful to anyone raising awareness of this horrible crime.

Unless you're going to make a joke out of it.

Last week on SNL, they featured a skit where men were learning to speak Thai using the software Rosetta Stone. They were learning phrases such as "How much?" and "Is that for the whole night?"

And the audience laughed. My eyes widened. My hands flew up to my mouth. I thought I was going to puke. Was this really happening?

There are women and men, boys and girls, being sold for sex. And this skit turned that tragedy into a joke!

Instead of bringing awareness to this issue in order to break our hearts so much that we seek ways to rescue these victims and take action to not perpetuate the problem, they laughed. They laughed at these kids. They laughed at a culture who, more often that not, thinks "If you can't beat them, join them" and "Do whatever floats your boat." They laughed at the men who are so completely addicted to sex that their little porn problem has escalated and has led them to think that going to a foreign country with the sole purpose of buying sex from a young slave is ok, is normal. They laughed!!!

"One person’s freedom is another person’s captivity." Tim Challies

How is that funny?! Why are they laughing? Why is our culture so accepting of this? With all the awareness that this is a global problem that needs men and women to stand up and be heroes and speak out for these victims, how can this possibly be seen as funny? Are we aware and we don't care?

"All that is required for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing." Edmund Burke

"All that is required for evil to prevail is for us to write an SNL skit about it and pass it off as a joke!" me

This is the last day of January. The last day of National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month. But we should not turn our heads away from this issue come Feb. 1st. Get educated. Support organizations who are fighting against this very real evil. and for goodness sake, don't for a second think that this is ok. or funny.

It is not a joke.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

That's terrible! Those people ought to be ashamed of themselves! I'm glad that you spoke out about this!

Mumbles said...

Wow. I don't watch SNL, so I hadn't heard about this. You're absolutely right, this is awful. Yeah, they have the freedom to say it, and I have to freedom to think they've said something atrocious.

Kris

Anonymous said...

Animo Mucho animo

http://hambreysed.blogspot.com.es/

Juan 3:16

Unknown said...

That's seriously messed up! Just because we have the freedom of speech doesn't mean we can abuse it, and in such a publically, crude manner.