“Justice Is What Love Looks Like In Public.” — Cornel West
Wait. Take a minute and really ponder that quote. It doesn’t just exist to give you warm fuzzies. Justice…is what love looks like…in public. Everyone needs love. Everyone loves love. Everyone is FOR love. But not everyone is pursuing justice in an active way. Not everyone is seeking out justice through freeing those who are oppressed. Maybe that is because we’re not all aware of the 27 million people in slavery today. Maybe it’s because we simply do not know what to do or how to seek justice for those people….so we become paralyzed by this massive number and do nothing. The thing is, some people just aren’t okay with doing nothing. Some people hear about an issue like this and cannot rest until they are fighting to end it with everything in them. Justin Dillon is one of those people. Like so many others, he read about the global sex-trade in a magazine article several years ago and was abhorred at the thought of this. The problem was, he became aware of a tremendous problem that he could do nothing about. The article offered no way to get involved in working against the issue or equipping the reader with steps to take from there, so he was left frustrated and discouraged.
When Justin was on tour in Eastern Europe with his band a few months later, he began hearing stories from girls at concerts sharing about the promises of good jobs in America and other countries. Promises of modeling careers, waitressing jobs, or even housecleaning rang uncomfortably familiar in his ears as he remembered the article from months before. Justin realized that he had to take action against modern day slavery and there was no more time to waste because young girls’ lives were being thrown away everyday. He began educating himself through International Justice Mission and Free The Slaves. He started talking about trafficking to create awareness and fundraising through concerts. But this still wasn’t enough. The fire burning inside of him would not die down until he did something bigger to incorporate more people. He desired to see individuals coming together to form a collective movement against this issue. The only thing that made sense for this was music. He knows music and loves music. It is both his passion and his career. So, he would use this environment as the catalyst to create change. He started calling everyone he knew in the industry-record studios, musicians, etc. for a few months and then began fundraising to build sets for performances. What started as an idea to bring together musicians for one huge live concert quickly morphed into a beautifully concepted “rockumentary.” Rather than one night of performances, there would be a film chock-full of musical performances [intertwined] with interviews about the issue and advocates speaking out against slavery. Herein lied the collective movement against the issue!
Call and Response, effectively named for both the historical musical relationship to slavery as well as the literal call out to people and response expected of those who learn about “the world’s 27 million most terrifying secrets,” premiered in 31 theaters around the country two years ago. There was no paid marketing, and yet the film rose the the top showing (first or second) in every theater where it was shown. Success! Because the hope was to equip rather than paralyze people, Justin built tools for action on the C&R website. The Slave Free Campaign and Chain Store Reaction are two of the main areas people can easily get plugged into. These tools give consumers the power to use our consumption as a weapon for good in the marketplace. Justin expressed that “labor slavery touches all of our lives by our demand for cheap goods, but we have leverage as the consumer….more than we know!” So this is what we must realize and act on: we have a voice. Individuallly and collectively we can and must use our voices to speak out against this. Are you aware that the amount of money spent on efforts to end human trafficking in America is equivalent to THREE HOURS of the year’s budget for the war on drugs? That is a serious problem! We have a friend, Allison Kami, who works her hardest to combat this issue and others by calling her congressman each day to use her voice for the voiceless. She expresses her concern and asks them to cosponsor certain bills that will bring about change for the good for so many hurting people. We need to join her and use our constituency to create pressure to get more human trafficking task forces built. Soon there will even be an iphone app from C&R to make these things even more accessible! You are no longer ignorant of this issue. You have been called. Now it’s your turn to respond.
Get involved by hosting a rockumentary night at your house with your friends and coworkers to watch this fantastic DVD together and then collectively respond. Go to callandresponse.com to find other ways to get involved. Join Allison in calling your representatives at http://allisonkami.wordpress.com. But do something, don’t do nothing.
