R-E-S-P-E-C-T

This is why I avoid campus. Sure, it's a beautiful campus and I usually run into some friendly faces. But sometimes, honestly, I'm embarrased to admit I am even a college student.

You, students across from me in the lower hyphen, I am talking about you. You and your video game scores, your "that's what she said" jokes, your loud obnoxious conversations about your bra sizes and how dumb your boyfriends are. Is that not your boyfriend sitting right next to you? Oh, it is? Huh. Interesting. Oh wait, you're not freshmen? You're seniors? I'm sorry. My bad. Couldn't tell.

I'm irritated. Not just because this particular group is loud and obnoxious and I have to sit at this census table for the next three hours, but because this group is just one example of self-centered, immature, stereotypical college students.

Bear with me while I take what may seem like a large leap and say abuse. Opression. Disrespect and broken people. Yes I just walked through the "Tunnel of Oppression" as a part of WSU's mulitcultural week, yes I just got out of spending half the morning talking about discrimination, abuse and therapy in seminar, I go to alot of conferences about violence, abuse, and exploitation and yes I am a bleeding heart liberal social worker! I'm proud of it. So maybe I'm a little over-sensitive, but it's becoming painfully aware that there isn't a huge gap between the horrors of "domestic abuse", the violence you're turning into a game on your Xbox, and the way a lot of people treat those they call friends. It's a slippery slope, at best.

My mind is a million different places today but I will try to channel this frustration into some sort of watered-down rant from the mind dump I typed up (and my computer deleted before I could post) yesterday afternoon.

I started reading For Women Only Thursday night. While it looks suspiciously like another Christian relationship book (Please God, no!), it started out fairly interesting. It's supposed to be the result of hundreds or thousands of surveys on the way men view life, relationships, and (most interesting!) perceive what women are saying. I had heard a lot of it before, but the other night it forced me to look at the way I talk to, and about, the guys in my life. Even the way I interact with my guy friends or the men at work. Obviously it was a lot about respect, and it challenged me to think about how much I respect, or show respect, to both men and women in my life. I complain about my friends when they do stupid things, I yell at the idiot (to myself) in traffic, I judge you for the uneducated things you say, I give my friends a hard time about any random situation because it's all in good fun. But this week I have become so incredibly frusterated with the way people treat other people - and I'm no longer talking about extreme cases of violence or abuse. I'm talking about me and my relationships. Even after I typed up this rant yesterday about how we all need to be more respectful and encouraging and sensitive, I went home and immediately found myself complaining to my best friend about how stupid and irritating people were.

It's like I don't even listen to myself talk when I go off about how you should be more understanding.

I've decided to take it as a challenge. I can't have a clean conscience standing up for human rights and fighting domestic abuse when my words (or thoughts) are nearly as hurtful. Matthew 5:21 puts it pretty clear as it says we commit murder in our hearts when we hate our brother. Ouch. By judging others, putting people down, even teasing our friends or being rude to someone who treats us badly first, we're creating an toxic environment. We're setting bad examples and we're not even standing up for the basic value of another human being.

I have a hard time showing respect when people are just plain stupid. But I'm gonna try.

Cheaper than a piece of metal

The city of Winona hosts the Frozen River Film Festival every year. It's four or five days full of speakers and independent films, mostly centered around a common topic. I think this year's theme was food, but I am never in Winona, much less attending festivals, so I couldn't tell you for sure.

What I can tell you was that on Saturday at 1:00 they showed a film about human trafficking. I was there. I was there with a row of friends in tow. A doctor from Mayo Clinic came to speak about the trip he took to India that opened his eyes to the horrors of the buying and selling of human beings - no, of children. James Levine told us about the commercial district of Mumbai (formerly Bombay) where streets upon streets are lined with booths selling metal, food, fabric, and women. Apparently one girl in particular caught this doctor's attention. She was wearing a sari with rainbow trim and writing in a blue notebook. Maybe this caught his attention because, as a doctor, James Levine had always believed that education was always the answer. Education is always seen as the step up to the ladder of success. And here was this little girl, being sold behind a booth on a dirty street, reading and writing, and still trapped in sexual slavery. She was thirteen.

Thirteen.

Dr Levine continued that it was often cheaper to buy a young girl for the night than to purchase a piece of metal on the next block. He went home from that trip but could never get this little girl out of his mind. He went on to write a book, called The Blue Notebook. It's a novel he wrote, inspired by the little girl in the rainbow-trimmed sari. This book is now available in 22 languages and being sold all over the world. He's never seen the little girl with the blue notebook again, but he can only hope that his words are speaking up for her and the 27 million others still in slavery today. Her message can be carried across the world without even knowing what it was she was saying.

I haven't read the book yet but it's on my list. Dr Levine was a fantastic speaker with a passion behind his message. I hope you'll check it out on your next rainy reading Saturday.

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Quick facts:
Traffickers made $31 billion in 2008 just by selling other people.
An estimated 8000-12,000 people are prostituted in Minnesota alone. - mcbw.org
731 women have been reported as sex trafficking victims in the last three years.
Minneapolis is in the top 13 cities for sexual exploitation.

Be informed.
Then become engaged.