I was very grateful to find an article that I'd read in September, and then could not find.
As far as I know, neither OUR nor the US Marshal service ever said anything about a trailer with 39 kids being rescued. However, announcing that 39 children were rescued under a single operation gave that impression, because of how people think. The reality is more complex, and usually more mundane.
Not only were the children in different locations, and for different reasons, but not all of them were being trafficked. Checking on missing and endangered children can mean locating runaways, finding the other parent in a custody dispute, or taking custody of a child who is being abused by a parent.
In the last post, I went over harm that could be caused by Operation Underground Railroad (and the newer groups that are copying them) but I don't think that harm is intentional or even understood. Instead it comes from a desire to do good that is not disciplined enough to understand good.
The best example of that may be how OUR uses the story of Liliana.
You have to scroll down a bit, but her story illustrates a more common reality of trafficking, and is worthwhile for that.
It is also telling how OUR misrepresents her story. I don't just mean that they take unearned credit for it; I am sure they think their work makes them responsible for the greater efforts. (I am sure they are the reason for some of the copycat orgs, so if those were doing any good, OUR could take some credit for that).
I think it's more interesting that they make her younger and less involved in her own choices, both the choice to go with her exploiter, and to escape. There is some chauvinism in there, which comes up with other responses when other sex workers or people previously trafficked question OUR,
But also really interesting is how Tim Ballard told this story as a way of selling the need for a border wall, because then they would have had to come in through a checkpoint, and then customs agents would have rescued her.
This ignores tunnels and using smuggling techniques to get people through checkpoints and also planes and ladders and shipping containers (as well as shoddily made wall sections falling down and people taking wall donations to enrich themselves, but that's another story).
It also ignores the many stories of ICE agents raping and molesting, and other patterns of law enforcement as a whole.
If you have an agenda, it is easier to ignore evidence against and accept evidence in favor. That goes back to last week's post. It can be so easy to believe garbage that you like.
The funny thing was that in doing some research I found a link on the OUR site about them not supporting conspiracy theories.
What it fails to do is acknowledge the boost OUR gets from QAnon:
https://newrepublic.com/article/158974/qanon-operation-underground-railroad-sex-trafficking
There was not a firm denial of the Wayfair rumors, or naming of false sources or anything specific and helpful about not getting caught up in lies. After all, OUR's followers are good and smart people who would not burst into a pizza parlor with a gun, and they don't really believe that Democrat leaders drink the blood of children in strange sex rites for eternal youth or power or anything like that, though they sure don't care about children as much as Republicans, right?
I mean, if it is practically an article of your faith that Democrats are bad and that being righteous specifically requires you to vote Republican, that doesn't mean that you would fall for old lies in new times, does it?
I will now take this moment to tell you that some (because they have MANY) of the conspiracy theories that QAnon pushes stem from the 1980s "Satanic Panic" where concerns about women working and putting children in daycare were turned into elaborate fantasies about ritual abuse of children. A key component of conservatism is resisting change.
In addition, aspects of that could be traced to anti-Semitic stories of blood libel.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satanic_ritual_abuse
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_libel
That doesn't mean that no child has ever been molested in day care, even though it is not the norm. When it does happen, there are usually no chants and pentagrams and Satanic trappings.
Lies don't help us protect children.
That sounds logical, right?
So the question becomes one of whether we are taking in good information, or whether our pre-existing biases might make us more vulnerable to deception.
You really need to see this photo.
https://twitter.com/dappergander/status/1369378995846971396/photo/1
It's something to think about.
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