These past seven months of global life have been a whirlwind of trauma, fear, scarcity and a level of thrill that leaves our nation and us as a species looking for answers, an explanation or a timeline for when this nightmare will end.
And it has been a nightmare..particularly for folks that do not share the same economic, racial, geographical or educational privilege white folks like myself hold.
To be clear, I have been able to watch this unfold around me, rather than experience it toppling down onto me.
Human beings are unique in that our collective trauma inherently knocks at the door of our personal trauma. While it’s possible to experience a personal crisis without linking it to global matters, it’s impossible to experience a global crisis without acknowledging the internal crisis we have walked through.
And if you are reading this, you have walked through great trauma and crisis.
If you’re like me, trauma is accompanied by the frantic search for clarity, meaning explanation and truth, however subjective and nuanced.
For many folks in the present, clarity looks like acknowledging the ways the news media spins and twists things to suit a particular narrative. This is true for Fox, it is true for MSN, it is true for Us Weekly.
That’s how capitalism works; you take something that exists in the open and you capitalize on it by re-assembling it to appeal to your target audience. (This explains why I own nineteen overpriced water bottles by various brands.)
It’s important to understand that just because this is how the news works, it doesn’t mean the story they cover isn’t true in and of itself.
It’s reckless, dangerous inaccurate and frankly lazy to call all of it a lie, to call all of it fake news.
As I’ve been on my own journey of understanding the teachings, message and ultimate cry of Q-Anon, there are basic facts and principles that are correct.
It is true that human / child sex trafficking exists. No one disputes that. This is why there are at least a dozen well-known organizations dedicated to the rescue and rehabilitation of trafficked victims and the fervent prosecution of traffickers.
But even those organizations most likely need reform because in examining human trafficking in 25 nations throughout the world, each country has its own environmental factors that create a unique set of anti-trafficking issues and obstacles.
For example, in India you can’t address the issue of trafficking without also discussing the caste system.
In the US you can’t properly address the post-trafficking experience of victims without mentioning the hot button issue of immigration.
We also must reform the way domestic abuse is addressed, rectified and prevented (which is the most common form of child abuse and the most fertile ground for trafficking). We also must look at our persistent failure to house people, as well as our foster care system which often and wantonly neglects children of color and those in an economic downfall.
I’d also like to point out (and this is something I didn’t know until I conducted actual research I payed to access) that, research on human trafficking frames in print media revealed that portrayals of human trafficking were for the most part oversimplified and inaccurate in terms of human trafficking being portrayed as innocent white female victims needing to be rescued from nefarious traffickers.
Depictions of human trafficking in movies, documentaries, and television episodes in the United States have followed a rescue narrative, where innocent victims are saved from harmful predators. Additionally, traffickers are commonly portrayed in the media as part of larger organized crime rings, despite empirical evidence to the contrary. Incorrect framing of human trafficking in the popular media may lead policymakers and legislators to adopt less helpful anti-trafficking responses, particularly responses focused on criminal justice system solutions.
Also, the ways in which we collect data and stats on trafficked persons are flawed, as many people are counted as victims who are indeed not. (We’ve seen this with COVID counts, etc.)
I’m NOT minimizing the horrifying reality of human trafficking / child sex trafficking. Quite the opposite. It’s a very serious problem and we must focus on building an immigration policy that protects such victims. President Trump has not build that, nor has anyone before him. His blatant history with rape and dehumanizing treatment of women throughout the decades would suggest he is not as interested in saving peoples’ lives as he is winning for the sake of winning. But time will tell and for the sake of children and older victims, I hope Q is right. I’m rooting for an immigration policy that protects victims, and doesn’t name people of color as inherent animals.
I’m for a policy and system that adequately assists those fleeing abuse and terror in their own country. (Although, the reason other countries abuse their people is largely due to years and years of America pillaging and stripping their land of resources.)
Q is also correct in that there are very wealthy people that sit at the top of the food chain and have a lot of influence over policy and national ongoings, that mainstream media is owned by a small group of very wealthy people who have an agenda. It has been this way since the beginning. Unfortunately, our president has blurred the lines and muddied the difference between mainstream news and journalism.
Good journalism is an art form. It is often dangerous and requires a skillset cultivated over years of practice and adherence to rigid regulations. Good journalism is ritualistic and ruthless in the pursuit of truth.
It is also true the government hides things from its people, from us.
Obviously a certain amount of secrecy is necessary and vital so as to not to incite panic and frenzy on the daily, but we also know the government is an institution made up of white, cis, heterosexual men, who do not make decisions in everyone’s highest good.
Both of these things are true.
It is correct that there are people who come to this country to cause harm. As a free nation, our soil has always been appealing to those who will use any means necessary to survive, and yes, that includes violence and the dehumanization of others.
We must also remember that as Americans we are thriving on stolen land and when we look back even just a few decades, but certainly a couple centuries, we see that our country has rendered many other nations poverty-stricken and vulnerable to corruption.
All of this is complex and nuanced. This it not a “good guy / bad guy” issue. In fact, a documentary about ICE is coming out and I suspect it will force us to remember that although someone’s job description literally tears families apart and causes all sorts of destruction, these folks have families too. And some ICE agents are immigrants themselves, or their parents are. Talk about complexity, paradox and nuance!
I can see how and why Q-Anon has moved to mainstream and I can also see how and why it tugs at many and calls many folks, even unlikely believers in. Though Q-Anon is relatively new, similar movements’ origins date back to the mid 1970’s during a widespread notion of “The Satanic Panic”, where owners of a daycare center in Manhattan Beach, Ca., 2.4 miles / 6 hours from my house. (LA traffic joke) were accused of performing satanic rituals per one of the children who attended. This case was widely covered and has been well documented.
Q, and conspiracy cults in general, functions as a maladaptive coping mechanism. Under circumstances of social change, upheaval or crisis, conspiracy theories serve to grasp a rapidly unfolding situation that has a bearing on one’s life but is beyond individual control.
It charms the parts of us that need to feel a part of something bigger than ourselves…particularly in the wake of tragedy and hardship. We want to feel like we’re making a difference, that we’ve discovered or tapped into something no one, ourselves included, were privy to. Such movements also provoke our innate desire for a more colorful, giant, earth-shattering “Law & Order: SVU” explanation, where in reality, the truth is so often really mundane and straight forward.
Let me say that one more time…the truth is so often really mundane and straight forward.
Let us not forget that now more than EVER before, how important it is to feel a sense of belonging and togetherness as we’ve literally been separated from each other. If we can’t be physically together, intellectual intimacy is king.
If you’re reading this, chances are you are not of the Q-Anon conspiracy, so, like, why am I even writing this? I have no idea. No one’s reading this, I’m talking to myself.
The truth is, the bones of this post originate in an email I sent to a former yoga student the other day. She is of the Q cult AND a self-proclaimed spiritual guru. Maybe I’ll do another post about the correlation of Q and woo woo love & light people, because this movement certainly did NOT start as a voice for that demographic.
I guess I wanted to map out for myself what this is, try to make sense out if it. Were it any other time, any other cult, I might be able to look on, pick up some information here and there and keep walking. But this is different. This cult is dangerous and wide-spreading and I’m so afraid of what it’s done and is doing, causing such harm to the BIPOC community, our earth, humanity.
The truth is, I don’t know what to do or where put this totally bananas time we’re living through. I know that my feelings are big, my privilege is real and my experience is valid…and so is yours.
Resources, Sources and Citations:
Väyrynen R. (2005) Illegal Immigration, Human Trafficking and Organized Crime. In: Borjas G.J., Crisp J. (eds) Poverty, International Migration and Asylum. Studies in Development Economics and Policy. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230522534_7
Van Prooijen and Douglas, 2017, power of conspiracy and cults
FREE Google Scholar article on Human Trafficking and the Media
This is a really helpful podcast that lays out child sex trafficking
Google Scholar is a really fantastic way to conduct real research