Warning: the video below is very difficult to watch.
The Judge Rotenburg Center in Canton, Massachusetts is a school for children and young adults with developmental disabilities. The young man in the video above was shocked 31 times. Why? Because he refused to take off his coat. On the JRC website, they defend their use of this electric shock "treatment" on their students. They claim that they only use this method to curb aggressive behavior that presents a danger to students. Now, what exactly was dangerous about a student refusing to take his coat off?
This petition asks Massachusetts Representatives to stop the torture of these students. Will you consider adding your name? Will you stand up for these students?
Well, this isn't my usual advocacy post, unless of course you want to count it as advice for adopting introverted children, which you should totally do, by the way. No, this post is just a result of something I've been thinking about for a long time. Just before school ended for the semester, I got to hear a young man give a speech about his college experience. He talked about a time in his life when things weren't going well for him. At one point he said, "I became really introverted, and that's just not me."
I won't lie. I was a bit offended. Now, I did take a minute to look at the statement from his point of view. I did think, "Oh, he didn't mean it that way. He's not saying that introversion is a bad thing. He's just saying that it was weird for him because that's not his personality type." Even so, the statement rubbed me the wrong way, and after a few minutes of trying to figure out why, the answer hit me. If I went up on stage and talked about my life's challenges, would you consider it odd if I said that I became really extroverted? Would you consider my switch to extroversion a bad thing? The fact is that this culture values extroversion much more than introversion. Society considers introversion a problem that needs to be fixed, partly because not a lot of introverts want to spend the energy it takes to defend themselves.
To my dear extroverted friends and family members, please don't take this as an attack. I love you all. I love your personalities and wouldn't do a thing in the world to change the way that God made you. I'm writing this because I fully get that introverts are more difficult to understand from the extrovert perspective. There are fewer of us in existence, after all, and our brains are wired in a completely different way. That's why I've made this list of things your introvert friends wish you knew. Why didn't they tell you this themselves? Because they're introverted.
1) Introversion is not a problem, and it is not your job to "fix" it. Believe it or not, I actually like my personality, and I am not waiting for a good friend to "rescue" me from my "shell". I know that your heart is in the right place, and I appreciate that you care about me, but please allow me to be introverted and respect the fact that my personality is a different type than yours. 2) I get energy from different places than you. You gain energy from being in large, loud groups of people. I lose energy from being in large groups of people. It doesn't mean that I don't love those people or enjoy their company, but if we've been out together all day, I will be much more tired than you. I "recharge" by being alone or in small groups. 3) Just because I'm not in the middle of the dance floor doesn't mean that I'm upset or that I'm not having fun. I'm actually enjoying this one-on-one conversation I'm having. 4) I am not shy. I am quiet. There is a huge difference. 5) Please don't get offended if I don't join in on spontaneous plans. I have nothing against you. Sometimes I'm up for the "hey, let's all go get ice cream right now!" plans, but at other times, I've already spent all of my energy, and I'd prefer things that are already planned ahead. 6) I am just as fun-loving as you, but I might consider different things fun. 7) If I'm put on the spot, my brain will immediately erase all useful information, which is particularly annoying in language classes. It might take a minute for me to re-gather my thoughts and answer you. It's the only part of being introverted that gets on my nerves. 8) I'm sorry, but you're not helping me if you try to force me into the conversation (see #7). I need time to observe a situation before I jump in. 9) I don't like idle conversation. If I have something important to say, I'll say it. 10) The fastest way to get me to talk to you is to figure out what I'm passionate about. One extroverted friend of mine pointed out that I have quite a few subjects that I'll talk about endlessly. We called these subjects my "soap boxes". Introverts don't like to speak just for the sake of speaking, but when you get us to talk about something we're passionate about, we will not shut up. Ask me about Christianity and the arts. Ask me about the importance of live theatre. Ask me about Down Syndrome. Ask me about orphans. Ask me about introversion. I promise that I will talk so much that you might wish you hadn't asked. :) 11) Please don't say "you're really quiet!" to a person you've just met. Few things are more annoying, and there really is no way to respond to that. I don't understand why that phrase is socially acceptable to say to a complete stranger while saying "you're really loud!" is considered rude. 12) Don't ever, ever, ever tell an introvert to "try being more extroverted" or "try to be more outgoing". This goes back to #1. Introversion is a personality type, not an emotion, so it doesn't change. Think about it. You are literally asking me to change my personality, something I would never consider asking of you. Frankly, it's insulting. Imagine how you would feel if the situation were reversed. Most introverts will be polite and resist the urge to respond with sarcasm. Some introverts will not resist that urge. You have been warned. 13) Introverts can do and have done a lot of things that you might consider "extroverted". I, for example, am a theatre major. I act and sing on a stage in front of people all the time. I love public speaking. I'd much rather be in front of a crowd than in the middle of one, I guess. Don't assume things about your introverted friends. 14) I love my extroverted friends. I appreciate your personalities. All I ask is for the same in return.
I hope that this list has helped some of you understand where your introverted friends are coming from. :) Basically, just remember that God created all our different personalities with a purpose. Ultimately, the introverts and extroverts need each other and should celebrate each other's strengths.
I never used to put thought into where any of my clothes came from. After reading this post, though, I started going through some of the labels on my favorite pairs of jeans and tops. Most of them say "Made in China" or "Made in Cambodia" or "Made in Taiwan". There were a couple of "Made in the USA" labels, but these labels only made up a small fraction of what is in my closet. After digging deeper into the subject, I found that several well-known stores use sweatshops, child labor, and slave labor to make their clothing. It doesn't even take much effort to find a lot of stores and brands that use this kind of labor. Just do a google search for "(Insert store name) sweatshop" and see what happens. You'll be surprised to find out just how much of your favorite clothing items come from underpaid and mistreated workers. Take a look at this video, and then look up the other three parts if you're interested:
True, a lot of us didn't know that many of our favorite places use slave labor. The very terrible thing, though, is that some of us knew about it and didn't do anything. Some of us just continued to shop as if nothing was wrong. I once listened to a friend of mine say, "I love that place! It's my favorite store," right after I had just finished talking about its use of sweatshops. Now, how can we possibly support a system that routinely abuses, exploits, dehumanizes, starves, sickens, and kills our fellow human beings? We can't. The only way that these stores and brands will stop giving us cheap clothes at the result of abuse is if we all simply refuse to buy. But how? It seems like every last store uses slave labor of some kind. How do we find a place that refuses to exploit human beings?
Well, here are a few alternatives. I haven't bought anything yet because I don't need any new clothes right now, but the second I do decide to buy things, I will be posting reviews on this blog. Feeling adventurous? Need a new skirt? Want to give the person who made your clothes enough money to take care of his/her family? Why not try out one of these websites?
Perhaps I'm old-fashioned. Maybe I'm clinging to antiquated ideas. I might be denying my future children access to a life of technological experience, and I don't care. No matter what nonsense you attempt to persuade me with, I will not change my mind. I believe in books.
Yes, books. Remember those? I love all of the arguments behind why we should all buy expensive e-readers. They're portable. You can read them in the sun. They have a long battery life. You know what else is portable? A book. Know what else you can read in the sun? A book. Know what will never, ever need recharged? A book. Now, I'm not so stubborn that I won't admit that an e-reader might be useful in some situations. They're probably helpful in the long run when it comes to textbooks, for example. However, this whole ad campaign trying to convince us all to replace our actual libraries with virtual ones is just ridiculous. Want to know where it gets even more ridiculous? They're marketing these monstrosities to children. Companies are making brightly-colored e-readers for little ones. I'm sure that does wonders for the attention span. Teach them to read as long as the books can talk to them, just like the television. It doesn't stop there, either. Just in case we're not spoiling children enough, we can also buy them their very own digital cameras and laptops. If you buy the e-reader, the laptop, and the digital camera for your child, you've spent about $130 before tax.
Does it not seem odd that some eight-year olds are running around with electronic devices instead of playing outside while the money spent on those gadgets might have helped a child in need? While we're spending money on electronics for toddlers, other young ones don't even have very basic needs. How much food do you think $130 could have bought for a starving person? How much would $130 mean to a child who needs money to go to a real home? How much would $130 help a child with Down Syndrome or HIV?
How much longer can we ignore this injustice? What are we going to do about it?
"I just can't imagine why with knowledge ahead of time one would allow the birth of a baby with any major mental or physical handicap to occur. You wouldn't walk into Best Buy and say, 'Excuse me, I'd like to buy a broken television,' would you? So why would you allow a broken child to be born?" - jekyll -
This horribly ignorant statement is a comment on a usatoday.com column entitled "Will America Cull People With Down Syndrome?" After reading the column, I'm still not sure exactly what argument the author was trying to take, but the part that really disturbs me is some of the comments, especially ones like the comment quoted above.
Really, Jekyll? Broken? Well, congratulations. You've succeeded in insulting over 400,000 people in the United States alone. Your comment was absolutely ridiculous, insulting, demeaning, and dehumanizing. You've managed to dismiss an entire group of real people. You've just told Mitch, Andrew, Karen, Katie, Tony, and many, many others that they shouldn't exist. Were they not good enough in your high and mighty eyes? Who made you the judge of who is and who isn't a worthwhile human being?
I could go on for pages upon pages in reaction to Jekyll's arrogance and ignorance, but I also want to write about another statement. Surprisingly, Jekyll's ridiculous comment isn't the worst reaction to the column. In a response to Jekyll, Ronald Davis the following statement:
"BRAVO jekyll... I agree 1000% with your analogy! Unfortunately too many people actually enjoy endless war and welfare, prisons and mental institutions!"
Ronald Davis, are you actually insinuating that people with Down Syndrome are the source of all of these problems? That we have Down Syndrome to blame for the very existence of war and prison? You know, somebody else had some very, very similar ideas about people with disabilities. Judging from your comment, I would think that that you, Jekyll, and this man might agree upon a few things...
Perhaps I'm being too harsh in comparing the Ronald Davis' and Jekyll's views to the views of Adolf Hitler. You can read the quotes below and then decide for yourself whether or not you agree with me.
“Anyone who sees and paints a sky green and fields blue ought to be sterilized.” ― Adolf Hitler
“Humanitarianism is the expression of stupidity and cowardice.”
According to this article written by Mark P. Mostert of Regent University, under Hitler's command, The Committee for the Scientific Treatment of Severe Genetically Determined Illnesses required physicians and midwives to report the births of those born with various types of disabilities. The Reich Health Ministry would then determine whether or not the reported children were fit to live, thus not allowing many of these children to exist (161). Adolf Hitler, much like Jekyll, seemed to believe himself important enough to have an opinion on who is and who is not fit to exist. The list of disabilities that required a report to the CSTSGDI certainly sound much like the things that would cause Jekyll to liken a person to a "broken television."
According to the same article, certain types of thinking prior to WWI paved the way for Hitler's genocide of people with disabilities. For instance, Mostert discusses the fact that the legal system of Germany often dealt with behaviors that society viewed as inappropriate. As a result, many began to mentally blend together criminal behaviors and disabilities (156). Does this kind of thinking sound eerily similar to what Ronald Davis said in his comment?
We could very well dismiss the uneducated comments of these two men as lunacy. However, if we've learned anything from history, we should know that ideas such as these have a tendency to grow when ignored by those who disagree. A very real prejudice exists against people with Down Syndrome today, and we simply cannot ignore it. The second we deem one life more important than another, we justify ideas such as the ones that Adolf Hitler believed in. We absolutely must keep fighting against such evils because they will not go away if we just leave them alone.
"Ignorance, when it is voluntary, is criminal; and he may be properly charged with evil who refused to learn how he might prevent it."
"If to be feelingly alive to the sufferings of my fellow-creatures is to be a fanatic, I am one of the most incurable fanatics ever permitted to be at large."
-William Wilberforce-
"Evil can be undone, but it cannot 'develop' into good. Time does not heal it. The spell must be unwound, bit by bit."
-C. S. Lewis-
A few nights ago, I drove back to my university from a dance rehearsal for The Nutcracker, fully determined to make it back to campus as quickly as possible. After dropping off a friend, I quickly (and somewhat illegally) parked behind the music building and ran at top speed across the full Humanities parking lot to get to a small recital hall. I arrived at exactly 7:00 pm, and the room was already packed. "Can we try the balcony?" One person asked the student at the table.
"Well, you can try," she said skeptically, "but I think the balcony might be full, too." Another student came rushing down the hallway.
"We just filled up the lecture hall," he said.
Unsure of what else to do, I slipped into the recital hall and leaned against the back wall, trying to take up as little room as possible.
The documentary that I watched that night was very well worth the the rush back to school, the time spent circling parking lots, the risk of a parking ticket, and the challenge of cramming myself into the back of a crowded room.
The documentary was called Nefarious: Merchant of Souls, a work that recorded the journey of a team of four men who traveled across four different continents. Throughout this documentary, the team interviewed victims, buyers, and merchants of the sex slave industry. My own words do not do justice to the haunting images of the film, the intense pain of the victims interviewed, and the cold indifference of those who profit from the industry. Many of the men interviewed in the film admitted that they found the sex slave industry difficult to witness at first, but after a few times of selling a young woman's body for profit, they just grew used to the idea. The most haunting of all of the images in the documentary was a simple photograph of a pair of blue pajamas similar to something that my sister might wear. These pajamas, recovered by a member of the team, had belonged to a seven-year-old girl and were stained with blood.
Nefarious listed multiple ways that people have become trapped into sex slavery. Some are abducted. Others are lured with false promises of real jobs or romantic relationships. One scene that struck me a bit more than the others, though, was the revelation of the fact that many young girls who become slaves are orphans. Orphanages do indeed care for children, but unfortunately, many of those children have nowhere to go once they become adults. Children cannot stay in the orphanage forever, and with no parents to provide training, security, or any kind of help at all, these orphans simply age out of the system and leave with nowhere to go. According to the documentary, orphanage directors often tell pimps when an orphan is about to age out of the system. These pimps hang out around the orphanage and very quickly lure the orphans into slavery. "They just disappear...," a voice on the documentary says. "...Nobody cares about the orphan."
The booklet handed out to students before the start of the film revealed unbelievable statistics about the amount of women and children forced into sex trafficking. For instance, one statistic from Kevin Bales says that "27 million people are enslaved around the world." Now, my brain doesn't process numbers very well, and seeing a statistic on a page does not typically cause me to react or spring into action. However, when I see those intensely heartbreaking stories of human pain in front of me and then multiply each story by the number I see on the page, I suddenly understand that all of those numbers represent real lives. They represents real people who live in constant fear, real pain and guilt that won't go away, and real childhoods that will not be recovered.
Nefarious, though, does not leave its audience with a sense of futility. Rather, it ends with a call to action. For instance, it asks its viewers to pray. Last night, a friend of mine stated that "We always say that prayer is the least we can do, but really, it's the most powerful thing that we can do." Truly, human trafficking will not end without strong dedication to prayer. In addition, the documentary asks viewers to donate funds to causes involved in ending sex slavery and to do everything possible to raise awareness about this problem.
I would like to add one more thing to this list of things that we must to help the least of these. We must end the attitude that "nobody cares about the orphan." Children such as Maya will never have the opportunity of a real childhood or a healthy adulthood without somebody to love and to care for them. If you do determine that you will care about the orphan, though, you can give a child hope. You can rescue that child from a life of misery.
Finally, if you ever get the opportunity to watch Nefarious: Merchant of Souls, I would highly recommend doing so. The film will open your eyes to an issue that we cannot just turn our backs on.
"For I was hungry, and you gave me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited me in; naked, and you clothed me; I was sick, and you visited me; I was in prison, and you came to me." -Matthew 25:34-36-
