The Refugee Crisis

Terrorists Refugees and Racism

Syrian toddler found to have drowned and washed up on the coast of turkey.

TThe Syrian refugee crisis has been and continues to be an enormous headache for individual governments as well as international entities (like the European Union). The crisis arose from how the Assad regime in Syria has not been able to protect its own citizens from both rebel groups and Assad’s own military. Because of the constant violence throughout the country, the U.N. has estimated that 6 million people have been displaced within the country. In addition, approximately 3 million refugees have fled the war torn country[1]. Thus a problem has been created on finding countries to host all the refugees. It must also be taken into account that the violence and war in Syria has been by large a product of Western governments prodding where they should not; thus, they must take a responsibility to amend their transgressions against the Syrian people.

            Aside from Germany, who has pledged to take in a significant number of the refugees who have fled war in Syria by migrating to Europe, few Western nations have stepped up to take in refugees. In the United States, governors and senators are coming out to oppose letting the U.S. or their respective state taking in any of the refugees. Especially after the Paris attacks, people reject refugees on the basis of a fear that a terrorist may find him or herself an easy path to the United States by claiming to be a refugee fleeing the war in Syria. This fear-fueled sentiment is inherently racist as it falsely associates the people fleeing violence with those trying to perpetuate it merely because they are of the same “race”. We automatically categorize foreign, Middle-Eastern Muslims to be terror threats. This is a ridiculous generalization to make. It would be equivalent to looking at every white Christian in the same way as one look at a domestic terror threat like a KKK member or a school shooter.

            The social construction of race is so powerful that we inaccurately assign drastic behaviors to whole groups of people who share little to no similarities other than living in the same general region and sharing a religion (even the sects of the religion and the method of practice/ideologies can be very different). These racist notions blind us and restrict us from assisting those who need our help.

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[1] "Syrian Refugees." Syrian Refugees. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Nov. 2015. <http://syrianrefugees.eu/>.

Human Sex Trafficking

Link to where image was published

Human Sex Trafficking

Human sex trafficking is an enormous human rights issue across the globe. Sex trafficking “uses violence, threats, lies, debt bondage, and other forms of coercion to compel adults and children to engage in commercial sex against their will.”[1] It is clear that human sex trafficking is an affront against human rights across the globe; however looking at its demographics gives one key insight into how the structure operates and continues to exploit certain groups of people, which offer a lot to a sociological perspective.

The picture shows a young girl having her mouth covered by what seems like a man’s hand (along with the words “Sex Trafficking” in the frame).  It hints at how vulnerable people are often singled out and brought into the deplorable business of forced sex work. According to the Polaris Project, a group dedicated to spreading awareness and stopping human trafficking, traffickers frequently target “runaways and homeless youth, as well as victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, war, or social discrimination.” Beyond creating its own moral issues, human sex trafficking capitalizes on those who society has already seemed to neglect. It takes advantage of people with already stifled life chances and exponentially worsens their condition of living. Traffickers essentially act as agents of social deprivation in the way they “prey on those with few economic opportunities and those struggling to meet basic needs.”(U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services)[2] Interestingly, but not surprisingly, a few of the shared characteristics of the victims of human sex trafficking include, “poverty, young age, limited education, lack of work opportunities, lack of familial support, history of previous sexual abuse…” (Dept. of Health…) Although no social class or general group is immune to falling into the grasp of sex trafficking, it is clear that those with less chances and education, like an oppressed lower class, face a larger risk of being exploited by traffickers. Additionally, traffickers try to target the most vulnerable group in the United States: (According to the Polaris Project and Dept. of Health) “Minors are among the most vulnerable populations,” Traffickers deceive, manipulate, and coerce minors into the sex trafficking world. The Polaris Project reports that in New York City minors are brought into the forced sex work world as early as 14 and 13 years old for both boys and girls (including transgender youth). This trend is alarming in that the people we must protect the most and who have already suffered is continually being exploited in our society to satiate some disgusting and carnal pleasure.

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[1] "Sex Trafficking." Polaris. N.p., 2015. Web. 01 Nov. 2015. <https://polarisproject.org/sex-trafficking>.

[2] Clawson, Heather J., Nichole Dutch, and Lisa Goldblatt Grace. "Human Trafficking Into and Within the United States: A Review of the Literature."OFFICE OF THE ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR PLANNING AND EVALUATION. U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, 2010. Web. 02 Nov. 2015.

Death Penalty and Racism

Strange Fruit

        The death penalty, by any reasonable moral or ethical claim, is inherently wrong. It pins man against another man for no end rather than blood thirst. Especially in the United States, there has been a long history of racism associated with this barbaric form of punishment. Songs like Billie Holliday’s “Strange Fruit” serve as a time telescope to look into how often African-Americans were hanged under the shadow of Jim Crowe laws’ branches. Although we no longer hang people in the U.S., the problem of racism bleeding into the courthouse is no distant relic – the issue is well and alive today. The Amnesty International report on the Death Penalty had one extremely striking graphic where it illustrated how “the single most reliable predictor of whether someone will be sentenced to death is the race of the victim.”[1] As I am sure anyone could have easily pred

Report illustrates the disproportionate representation of African-American on Deat Row

icted, a 1990 report, the non-partisan U.S. General Accounting Office (referenced in the Amnesty International Report) concluded that “a defendant was several times more likely to be sentenced to death if the murder victim was white.” In addition, the report reveals that “the overwhelming majority of death row defendants have been executed for killing white victims, although African-Americans make about half of homicide victims.” It is made clear that racism has not just infiltrated into our system of justice; it has full on assaulted the most critical aspects of Justice. The manner in which American society still associates not even just mere criminal behavior, but such grotesque and utterly irreprehensible sin that a man is willing to condemn death to another in a tragically disproportionate way specifically towards African-Americans is gut-wrenching. At the end of the day, anyone with two-cents worth of social awareness would acknowledge that racism is a prevalent problem and is accustomed to confronting it one way or another. However, it is still mind-boggling to see how the sacred and fragile humanity of people viscously comes into question when faced with the test of the accused’s race.  Justice, at least in the Rawlsian-American ideal, is supposed to blinded just as Lady Justice is. After all, why should something so seemingly arbitrary as one’s skin complexion be a weighing factor in the blind scale’s outcome? Justice, to be fair and equal, must avoid falling prey to racist ideologies. The racist “justice” system actively attempts to degrade the worth of African-Americans in its pursuit to unjustly punish wrongdoers. Thus, it becomes evident that racism plays into the application of human rights, like life.

Amnesty International Report

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[1] "Death Penalty and Race." Amnesty International USA. Amnesty International, 2015. Web. 21 Oct. 2015. <http://www.amnestyusa.org/our-work/issues/death-penalty/us-death-penalty-facts/death-penalty-and-race>.

Interview With Former CIA Deputy Director Michael Morell on CIA Enhanced Interrogation Program

CIA and Torture

            The United Nations Convention against Torture defines torture as “any activity by which sever pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining a confession, punishing him for an act he has committed, or intimidating or coercing, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation with the consent of a public official.”[1] In the same convention, the United Nations prohibits torture and declares that there are “No exceptional circumstances whatsoever”. Thus, it is clear that the most prominent international organization considers torture an attack against human rights. However, in an interview with the former Deputy Director of the CIA during the war in Afghanistan Michael Morell, torture (or as the CIA calls them: “Enhanced Interrogation Techniques”) is justified. This brings up the sociological question of what goes into creating this in-group and out-group dynamics that allows torture to occur. In addition, it forces us to confront the sociological impact of justifying torture via these group dynamics.

 Michael Morell outlines reasons why he does not consider the CIA’s interrogation techniques as torture and does not violate any because “… To call it torture says my guys were torturers. And they were told that they were not. They were told they were doing something legal.”[2] Thus, to the CIA and those carrying out the torture, it was justified and was not illegal. Making the torture seem like it was within the boundaries of law and morality allows the torturers commit heinous acts against humanity with little guilt. In addition, the CIA is convinced that a ton of information came from the program that eventually saved lives and stopped terror plots. As Morell puts it, “I have no doubts after looking at this that it was effective”. Essentially, because it was effective, it is justified. Sociologically, this shows us that people a stronger group deems deviant is then less than human and human rights protections no longer apply to the now deviant group.

Morell reminds us that the enhanced interrogation program “was not C.I.A.’s program. It was America’s Program.” Thus, the implication is that a stronger nation (or in-group) can set different standards of treatment for those belonging to the out-group of deviants. Doing this in the arena of Human Rights degrades the very meaning of Human Rights. Human Rights are supposed to be inalienable and are immune to circumstance. Letting a group like the U.S. get away with it is a display of how powerful dominant society is over deviant society.

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[1] "Convention against Torture." Convention against Torture. United Nations Convention Against Torture, 26 June 1987. Web. 13 Oct. 2015. <http://www.ohchr.org/EN/ProfessionalInterest/Pages/CAT.aspx>.

[2] "VICE News Interviews the CIA’s Former Deputy Director Michael Morell."VICE News. VICE News, 26 June 2015. Web. 13 Oct. 2015. <https://news.vice.com/video/vice-news-interviews-the-cias-former-deputy-director-michael-morell>.