Passerby

So I went to the source to get the numbers firsthand. To nobody’s surprise the numbers they’re using are entirely made up. The most recent full report in the archive (in .pdf form) is from 2015

But let’s just forget for a moment how perfectly comfortable they are leading their arguments with utter dishonesty and break the information they’re portraying dishonestly down. There are multiple statistics, one of which I’m sure they’d seize on mid-sentence acting like it vindicates their views because taken in isolation it might make their intentional lie appear accidentally almost accurate. Human trafficking in terms of peonage, forced labour, and street level pimping/hooking the defendants prosecuted were overwhelmingly black at 60.4% with whites being the runners up at 20.4% At first glance that might seem like it’s lending credence to their position. However, there are separate statistics set aside specifically for sex related crimes like child pornographers and the luring/kidnapping of vulnerable individuals to be pressed into the sex trade and since it’s the sexual predation specifically these jackasses are trying to paint as an inherent tendency of the black population let’s give that a close look. Those numbers are overwhelmingly white at 77% and 65.4% respectively. The runners up in those statistics are Hispanic at 13.4% and 21.8% What’s more? Those latter two categories eclipse that first lump designation twice over. It brings the total racial breakdown to 56.9% white offenders. 24.2% Black. 17.3% Hispanic. 93.9% US citizens. 3.1% Illegal aliens. The note about the percentage of the actual population that represents and the utterly fraudulent math about “how much more likely a race is to be a criminal” runs into another couple of logical hurdles that anyone thinking rationally and addressing the issue honestly would realize.

The idea that the sex industry operates solely out of run down crime infested squalor is flatly false. I think it’s safe to assume we’re all aware what call girls and escorts are. Professions actually partially shielded with a veneer of legitimacy that I’ll get to in a minute. Street pimps staking claim to a corner and brothels are likely to be found in poor neighbourhoods generally populated by minorities, that’s true, but the reason for that is that cops typically consider them places to dish out easy tickets rather than a place they’re supposed to actually serve and protect. They’re the low end of the trade where the expendables get to be middle management in exchange for bearing all the risk of being a stationary target. And the general laziness of policing in those areas is consistently dependable as a buffer against real investigation if anybody ever musters enough of a sense of duty to actually bust the brothel because it’s not likely to carry through after the easy prize is attained. It’ll just be attributed to the ghetto being the ghetto. The exact same principle applies to sweatshops and similar forced labour conditions. What’s more, the deliberately cultivated image of minorities being terrifying and violent thugs adds an element of control through fear used to keep captives in line. The perfect shield, the perfect scapegoat, and operations like these being busted just reinforces the cover, scapegoat, and elements of fear used for control. The people filling those places with bodies, though? They’re not operating on an easily traced fixed address and they are certainly not living out of slums and flophouses. The big money and driving force as always has an investment in manipulating perceptions of race to keep attention off of themselves and maintaining a facade of natural respectability. Not only do they keep their hands clean of the dirtiest work when they do slip up and get caught they have ways of downplaying their actions, creating degrees of separation, and if justice ultimately cannot be avoided they make themselves fit into categories of crime that don’t seem as severe if you don’t sweat the details. Working the most frustrating differences between saying something outright and only implying it. It’s a mental bit of contortion that affects the perception of the masses. Something as simple as rebranding child slaves sold into servitude as “bonded labourers” repaying outstanding debts as well as their advances for daily need for example sounds a lot less heinous, doesn’t it? Then there’s the call girls and escorts I brought up before, employed by and catering to considerably more wealthy - and incidentally a lot whiter - people than these bozos are picturing and rather than sleazy pimps semi-legitimate agencies expertly navigate loopholes and offer their service by implication rather than statement. And methods of control less obvious than a scary thug threatening to cut runners, sometimes employing methods like manipulating immigration papers in ways the escort will ultimately be held liable for even though they had no hand in it being lured by false pretenses.

But the worst ones of all, the child pornographers? They wander around in the middle of the day in idyllic little neighbourhoods with nobody around them giving them a second glance because of financial status, social standing, or the colour of their skin. They go to work, they go to church, they pick their kids up from soccer before performing atrocities unimaginable but because they fit the visual shorthand for clean American living they are beneath notice and people who set the visual shorthand are busy putting everyone else under a microscope… inventing the numbers outright to make them a tiny bit scarier if need be.

So the issue isn’t race. That much should be obvious. Putting aside the asinine demonization trying to create dividing lines and a visual shorthand for what’s “safe” is exactly how the worst of the problem can successfully operate. The issue is giving enough of a damn about people regardless of what you think about whatever the hell designation you want to pigeonhole them into to put some goddamned effort into noticing signs that they are being coerced into something they never asked for, that their wellbeing is being threatened and rights violated, and finally following through the information to the source as a matter of principle and not just to make an immediate problem small enough to just ignore until it becomes a nuisance to whatever designation of group you consider yourself a part of and not just “somebody else’s problem” to shuffle responsibility around for. And then punish them for it being their problem, which really isn’t conducive to solving it. Particularly not when you include kidnap victims forced into prostitution as people you’re punishing, that’s just making victims suffer more and pretty much making a strong implication that their own powerlessness was itself a crime making power the only arbiter of justice which really does not make for a steady foundation when claiming moral superiority.