Earlier this week I saw, for the first time, images and videos of the enslaved people of Libya. This news shook me to the core and made me feel powerless to the world we live in. I want to do more than just post about it; however that is where I will start. I want everyone I know to know what is going on in the world around us. I want everyone to know what they can do to help. Now is the time for us to stop thinking only of ourselves and open our hearts to help those who can't help themselves.
Before I continue with my rant on why this matters and why we are Libya, I want to give background information on this situation. Either most people really don't know or most people are ignoring this issue. This week hundreds of migrants and refugees will be captured by smugglers in Libya. Most of the captives are from nearby African countries, like Nigeria, Senegal, and Ghana, fleeing from poverty and war for a new life in Europe. These people are being held for ransom, forced into prostitution and labor and killed. Former captives are telling stories of being put in a house with at least one hundred people being beaten and tortured everyday. This has already been a problem in Libya but the problem has reached an unimaginable magnitude since the fall of Gaddafi. So many people have been killed through this process that bodies are being left outside of the closest morgue. All of the information I have on this situation came from aljazeera.
This should matter to everyone. Every living and breathing soul should care about this. Black people in every nation across the world should care about this. We are constantly being told that slavery against black people has been over for 200 years, yet here we are. Here we are, and how much of the "heritage not hate" group are saying this is wrong? How many of the conservative republicans who have nothing against black people are coming to say this is wrong.? How many of the democrats who thrive because of the poor, black, and uneducated are speaking up to say they have a problem with this? My point is simple: we have to speak up and speak out for each other. Assimilation does not work. Stop blending. Stand tall and proud of how your history has shaped you. Don't be a mouth piece for the authority. Be the authority and push the conversation. Use your voice and make it mean something. Now is not the time to cower and pretend this does not effect us. It is not the time to sit and pretend we have moved on from slavery. It is not the time to pretend we are seen as equals. We have to make noise. We have to make them hear us. The world has to constantly be reminded that black people are not objects to be bought and sold; we are living, breathing people who matter. So we will continue to remind them. As a group, we cannot cower and lie in wait for these things to happen to us personally to do something about it.
THIS IS HOW WE CAN HELP:
1. Make sure the United Nations focuses on solving this issue
2. Support the International Organization for Migration
3. Fight the root causes of slavery and traffic
4. Contact social media companies and urge them to change their policies so that the captors cannot send and murderous videos to the victims' families
5. Donate to anti-slavery organizations
6. Shop slavery free products
Details on how to do all of the things listed above can be found on Bustle as well as the original list.