For my #saveourchildren peeps (do we still say “peeps”? oh well, I am):
📌 Please stop making this a competition with other causes, such as #blacklivesmatter. Activism isn’t an either/or situation. “Whataboutism” is dangerous and unproductive (and I know it’s easy to do, I’ve fallen into that trap myself).
It’s also largely associated with Russian and Soviet propaganda, but that’s a topic for another day. The point is, people fighting for Black lives are not, by default, against saving children from pedophiles.
📌 Look at the data on child trafficking in the US if you haven’t already, and you should notice something. The majority of victims are not white. The majority of victims (of all races) are at-risk, in poverty, and highly vulnerable to exploitation.
📌 There are BLM advocates in other cities raising these issues in their protests. The problems with child exploitation, poverty, race, DHS/CPS, over-policing, etc tend to overlap. Don’t assume people don’t care about child exploitation just because we don’t all use the same hashtag.
📌 Just like with everything else – if you’re passionate about it, learn as much as you can and help where you can. Shouting at people with shocking memes is fun sometimes, but not a long term strategy really. Education and awareness helpful though, and they can look similar at times, so if you’re going to put out education, please include sources somewhere. It helps weed out the propaganda and disinformation from the real stuff.
I care about this issue, but I only have so many hours in the day to research everything.
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