I would like to begin by stating that freedoms are not guaranteed in the United States much less the world. They are fought for by people using their voices, by marching together in protests, by deaths of those advocates who challenge inequality and civil rights crimes. Those who demanded equality and rights have fought hard to have a seat at the “table of decision making” on our freedom.
In my lifetime, I have seen that freedoms are granted to some but not granted to all. I have seen that women get some rights but not ALL rights. We still fight for equal rights in pay, health decisions, professional and sport participation, and in our gender rights. Women can’t make important decisions about their own body because others think they have a right to tell us what to do.
I still see society, Christianity, and the legal system – all patriarchal systems – still view domestic violence as a “domestic dispute” – a private matter between two people – and not the power imbalance and horrific crime that it is and a crime that is handed down from parent to child like a never ending genetic disease.
I have seen human slavery on the rise and increasing to the point that it is now the 2nd leading crime business in the world and yet we sit back and say “not in my country. That happens only in 3rd world countries and so we stick our heads in the sand of ignorance and blatant disregard. Yet in reality we are in the top 10 countries of the world for trafficking our children, teenagers and women.
In my lifetime I have seen parents forget how to be parents and allow their children to grow up parenting themselves. These children are lost, with no family system of love, boundaries, morals, ethics, and who join groups of hate so that they feel love and support from predators and abusers who manipulate them into thinking they are loved. They grow up believing that love is sex and sex is love – with no basis for knowing what a healthy relationship is, much less having, a healthy relationship.
I have seen politicians who are bully’s, petty, and with sociopathic type personalities, who create a manipulative and false picture of “safety, making things good again, and tell lies about protecting us and improving our lives” – so that we – like those lost children – vote for them – when in reality they are lost, without conscience, void of spirit and spirituality.
Not a pretty picture for sure. But in my lifetime I have also seen amazing people, usually individuals, who have stepped up to the “plate of freedom advocacy” and who have made a difference.
I have seen women who selflessly took and take on abortion rights, equal rights, civil rights, and give of themselves to the point of becoming targets of haters in our country. These women in the United States have been burned, tortured, maimed and murdered – yet no one talks about them, shows them on television or honors them. I have seen men who fearlessly sided with the inequality of women and stood strong and proud with those women advocates and who also became targets of hate.
I have been proud to stand with these individuals in my own right, to become an advocate for change, an advocate for improving lives of victims of crime through legislation writing, speaking before the senate/assembly in California and Washington D.C., educating the judiciary, law enforcement, educators and clergy: providing counseling and court advocacy, and using my voice and personhood so that I help all people have freedom from abuse, human trafficking, and from feeling like no one cares; so when they feel they have no “family” in this world who cares about them they know I do. I still have a lot of work to do. And so do all of you.
Together we create the change that our world needs. But let’s narrow it down – that our communities, counties and state, needs. Together we can change the power imbalance of domestic violence – and yes, let’s call it by its real name and not domestic dispute, intimate partner abuse or any other pseudo name – it is RELATIONSHIP VIOLENCE which is A CRIME NO MATTER WHAT the media, child protective services, law enforcement, judges and attorneys call it. Those who are uneducated about it, or who choose to stick their heads in the sand disregarding it, who look the other way and don’t say something about it – they will always be around. However, my dream is that those of us who care, those of us who are fearless, those of us who are stronger than the weak minded individuals and agencies who watch but don’t act; the soul trauma inducing abusers and perpetrators; that those of us who have advocate voices use them standing in our truth about crime and the victims we serve. We are the warriors of our generation who are willing to be the targets of mean spirited and sociopathic individuals who want to keep and wear power and control around them like a blanket, to hide their insecurity and lack of self-integrity.
We are the warriors of individual rights, civil rights, gender rights, equal rights to love who we want to love, and in ending of human trafficking, abuses and other crime. We are the ones who need to, no – HAVE AND MUST be willing to use our purpose and passions to make our world better by standing in our truth.
I want to thank you for what you currently do to make a difference. But my challenge to you is to step it up a notch or two and leave you with this thought – “What more can you do? What more can I do?” Children and the generations to come, need us to change the paradigm and be better than what we are today.
