The end to the "R Word"

                The “R-word”, most have used it and openly admit that they use it, while others know that it’s wrong but they still use it and hide the fact that they do in fact use it. I will not be one of those people living in denial. I admit that I have been known to say the “R word” and I know that it’s wrong but I never really grasped the concept that they understand what it means and that it hurts their feelings when they hear people saying derogatory things that were once used to define them, but are now being used to insult others. It has always been a bad habit of mine to use that word and not think of who I’m affecting around me.

                 I have always had the mindset that mentally disabled people don’t get what’s going on and get in the way a lot. Like they are good at just certain things and nothing else. Was I wrong or what! This past weekend I was working on my service hours for school and there also volunteering was a person who has adopted 3 mentally disabled kids.  At first I didn’t notice (because I tend to be slow at those types of things,) but when I did at first I was freaking out. Why do they have knives? Are you sure that they can handle that? And so on. And the answer to all those questions is yes. They can do whatever we can do, and in some cases they can do it better.  Those hours spent there were some of the best ones I have spent in a long time. They were so care free and happy and always laughing. Not “stupid”, “slow”, or anything in between that we tend to associate them with.

                And with volunteering there with them I had to make sure that I wouldn’t slip up and accidentally say something derogatory. There’s also the issue of having the habit of throwing it around in public because for most it is a horrible habit. You never know who is out there. Maybe someone is mentally disabled or someone is related or close friends with a mentally disabled person. The offense slur hurts more than just the people you’re directing the “joke” to; it can hurt a lot of other people.

                After spending those hours with them I can now truly see what mentally disabled people are actually like. They are not stupid or slow and they do deserve to be out in public just like everyone else. I am now truly starting to see what the “R Word” actually does to people and I want to do my best to help end it. 

My Teacher won’t let me Swear on the Internet

            Swearing, a controversial topic. Most people would say that it’s their 1^st Amendment right, freedom of speech. Yet our teacher won’t let us swear on the internet.

            Swearing is either looked at from the view point of, only uneducated and dimwitted people swear to the view point of, everyone does it, its part of our everyday language.  And I can see why our teacher won’t let us swear on the internet that he is personally connected to. It’s a “learning” tool that we get to use because of our computer use and we are a Catholic School.

            To me swearing is something that only seems right in certain situations. If its use is completely unnecessary in the conversation then I could see why its use would be looked down upon. But if something dramatic happens and the result is complete catastrophe then I could see the use of swearing in moderation, at least.

            I guess that my teachers request for us to not swear on the internet sites that he is connected to seems only fair. Since he is connected to it might seem like this class is a joke and it’s a free for all. Which is not the case what so ever. I’m sure that this is not so much to ask in terms of just not swearing around him and just on your own separate accounts.  

Human Trafficking

            This year the month of January has been declared by President Barack Obama as “anti-trafficking month.”  This is the reaction of the fact that there are about 14,500 to 17,500 people being trafficked only in the U.S. annually, that’s not taking into account all the others that are enslaved around the world. Unfortunately slavery didn’t end with the Emancipation Proclamation, the slave holders and recruiters got sneaky and started to go underground with the trafficking. Of the three major international crimes committed, illegal drugs, arms trafficking, and human trafficking, human trafficking alone generates about $15.5 billion and that contributes to the $32 billion that all three generate annually.

            When post people think of slaves they think are people that slaveholders have captured from Africa and that are forced to work in plantations or be servants to the owner and or his family. But the uniformed definition of slavery or human trafficking is forced labor, bonded labor.  CNN determines if it slavery if one person has complete control and ownership of another person or people.

            While most children and adults here in America love to eat chocolate, most don’t wonder where it comes from or who even makes it, all they care about is if it tastes good and how much we can get our hands one. But most 2^nd and 3^rd world countries are forcing children to pick cocoa beans and make them into chocolate. They continue doing this even though it is stated and “enforced” that there is no child labor that goes into the process of making chocolate but you should still check the label to make sure it has the fair trade label. Most of those child slaves never eaten a bar of chocolate, some don’t even know what the word means.

            Chattel Slavery is when the slaves are treated as personal property. This was slavery in the first most basic form. But when they go across borders into different states or countries then it transforms into human trafficking, especially if they are expected to do sexual services for money for the owners.

            I think that the most important facts are that Slaves work in ­fields, brothels, homes, mines, restaurants—anywhere slave owners can feed their greed, they aren’t just forced to work on plantations like they were before. 27 million slaves are in the world today, which you would figure would be less considering that slavery is supposedly ended in the word. The majority of slaves can be found in India and in African countries, this is to be expected since they are considered to be more 2^nd and 3^rd world countries where people aren’t given the basic rights like education and basic human rights.  

10 Resolutions For the World

- Go Greener 
- End unnecessary wars
- Make greater steps on helping and preventing homelessness
- Fight to end childhood hunger
- Work on ending the recession and growing the economy
- Try to elect mature Representatives that can run our country efficiently 
- Fight racial discrimination
- Decrease the unemployment rate
- More communication instead of more violence
- Find a cure for cancer and all the worlds incurable diseases

Invisible Children

                Tuesday November 8^th, 2011 was a day that deeply disturbed me. It was the second time in my high school career that the organization Invisible Children came to present their cause. 

                Invisible Children was founded by 3 guys that decided that they wanted to go to Africa on a film-making adventure. When they got there, they couldn’t believe what they saw. They saw thousands of kids going from their village into a city where they would all sleep in abandoned buildings, in order to protect themselves from a rebel army called the Lord’s Resistance Army, or the LRA. This was been the result of the LRA going in and kidnapping children from their village and forcing them to fight as child soldiers. According to the estimates of the Invisible children the LRA army is mainly child soldiers, about 90%. This is the result of dwindling amounts of people that support the LRA’s cause.  

                The LRA was first the Holy Spirit movement but was then changed to the Lord’s Resistance Army after the leader, Joseph Kony came to power. Because of their horrible acts on humanity the LRA was declared a terrorist group in 2001. Then in 2003 when the three young filmmakers made their way into Northern Uganda is where the Invisible Children first got rolling. During their stay in Africa the guys made a rough cut of what everyday life was like in Northern Uganda. They met every memorable people during their stay. When they got back to the states they edited the video and made it into a D.V.D. for people to buy and they hoped would get more people aware of the Africa’s longest war. 

                Joseph Kony first started out with a strong army and was trying to over throw the Ugandan president. When the presidents army was started to either capture them or threaten them until they went against Kony. As more people started to leave out of fear, he started to abduct innocent children. In this past year there was 146 civilians killed with 523 abductions. This adds to the total count of 963 deaths and 1,810 abductions. The child soldiers aren’t Kony’s only victims. After the LRA goes into a village they abduct the children and kill most of their families. They are forced as young children, as young as 9, if not younger to fight as child soldiers. If they didn’t want to fight, tough, they were either killed or they were eventually broken into doing the unmentionable acts. Kony figured that if you get them while their young you can eventually get them to do whatever he says and that they would be purely loyal only to him.

                After a while the D.V.D. gained popularity and more and more people got wind of what was happening in the war. I personally first heard of Invisible Children through a music video of a band that I, at that time currently loved, but I was younger and it didn’t really faze me what it was about until some representatives from Invisible Children came to my school.

                They gained so much popularity that they eventually got President Obama to send over 100 advisory troops to capture Joseph Kony. He is currently the most wanted war criminal wanted by the International Criminal Court.

                This cause is a very important to me. The first time they came I cried my eyes out when they had a person that has lived through it and that has lost family and friends to the hands of Joseph Kony and the LRA. We need to come together and put a stop to all of Joseph Kony’s destruction. 

Citations:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAgbZdrWiN4&ob=av3e

http://www.invisiblechildren.com/

http://kabiza.com/WhoIsJosephKony.htm

A Bully Church?!?!?

                The Westboro Baptist Church is a church, which in my opinion the next Jim Jones incident. They are people that run on the hurt that they cause people. They go around and protest at gay and military funerals. They say that the soldiers are turkey’s not heroes. “They are lazy, incompetent idiots looking for jobs because they’re not qualified for honest work.”  That is a bunch of garbage. They go through a whole lot of training to become a soldier, besides they are the ones that go out to a foreign country to protect us as Americans, from countries that want to attack or control us.  They try to pass off their extreme ideas on that their trying to save the world. “It’s the world’s last hope.”  Most people strongly dislike the ways of the Westboro Church. On the website it states that their members lose 0 nanoseconds of sleep over the opinions and feelings of others. I have no idea on how they are able in good conscience to do that. I would never do that. I have too many moral standards to do those things that those “people” do. What those people do is very immoral.

                They blame the Christians for God’s hatred towards everyone. They blame other religions like Christianity and Islam for example for the scorn of God.  They say that us Christians told lies that God loves all of us and the Jesus died for all of us. They preach that God loves no one. He hates “fags”   and military people.  If God loves no one then he doesn't love them. Also God said that we’re all made in his image. Then those people are in his image. Wait! They don’t believe in everything that the Bible says. Really. God gave us the Bible so we can know how to live and what to follow by.

                By protesting at funerals and putting people down they are basically taking away their human dignity. They believe that they are doing charity to the people that they protest against.

                For one I believe it’s wrong to protest against the soldier’s funeral or the fact that they put people down.  They are part of the reason why so many young people are choosing to end their own life. Because a church is bullying them, aren’t they supposed to be helpful and support full? 

Citations:

http://www.godhatesfags.com/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UMP3AK5jwo

Cyber Bullying

                Bullying is a major problem in today’s society. Teens feel much more open and free to do it, since the creation of the internet. Cyber bullying allows the bully to bully, in some cases without ever seeing the person. With the invention of social media like, Face Book and MySpace, it’s giving the bullying a whole new platform to work with. Instead of being face to face with only so many people to hear, it’s now out on the whole internet where everyone, can see it. There was a bullying case a while back that had a mother bully a student and that student thought it was a girl from school. With the internet, no one has to be exactly who they are. They can be whatever age, gender, or race that they want to be. No one at the time would know who exactly that person is. Cyber bullying can contain many forms. In one article it lists the forms that it can take, how to survive it, and one survivor’s story. (Link is below)

                In generations past when kids were bullied, they were just tormented at school, when they got home it was like their safe haven. Now since the creation of the internet, social media, cell phones, etc. the bullying doesn’t stop just because their home. It’s now a 24-7 problem that is costing lives by the minute. Face Book was meant to bring people together, not tear them apart. Right now there is so much cyber bullying going on that Face Book is just fueling the fire to this seemingly never ending problem. Cyber bullying can contain many forms. In one article it lists the forms that it can take, how to survive it, and one survivor’s story. (Link is below) Does anyone even know why kids bully each other, how about why they cyber bully.  This website (link is below) addresses what some of the reasons are, how you should deal with it, and how to gain awareness on this issue.

Links:

http://kidshealth.org/teen/school_jobs/bullying/cyberbullying.html     

http://www.stopcyberbullying.org/why_do_kids_cyberbully_each_other.html