Feel-Good Friday
image via TIME newsfeed
Sometimes, the internet is a rough place–read the comments on almost any high-trafficked news article or blog post or photo, and you run into a vile world of small-minded prejudice and casual hate and discrimination and nasty, slimy minds that seem like they would be best locked away in the dark. So sometimes, I like to remind myself that the world is not all terrible, and the internet is not only for fat-bashing and bad grammar.
For instance: a little while back, a group of Metafilter posters banded together and to literally rescue two very young Russian women from what was probably a white slavery ring.
This past week, Post Secret showed a postcard from a suicidal illegal alien, musing over her upcoming suicide. The Post Secret readership came together almost immediately:
Within 24 hours, nearly 20,000 people had signed up for a Facebook group titled “please don’t jump,” which was later linked beneath the secret on the Post Secret blog, linking in thousands of supportive comments. On the group’s page, sympathetic users posted comments ranging from simply “I want you here” to “If I knew when you’d be at the bridge, I’d drive all the way from Ohio to meet you there, and hold you until you changed your mind.”
I hope the postcard writer saw this. It’s almost enough to make you believe in people.
Posted by jenfu
Filed under: Feel Good Friday
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Yeah, sometimes the internet is pretty okay. It makes me think of The “Anonymous” character, which is simply a person in a Guy Fawkes mask and a suit. I remember reading about one catching out a pedophile and sending his details to the police, another who would go to Westboro Church’s protests and steal their signs during interviews.
“White slavery” is a very outdated term which values white trafficked women over the vast majority of trafficked women. “Sex slavery” or “human trafficking” are clearer and more accurate terms.
Those notes to this poor kid are amazing. Also, I hadn’t heard that story about the Russian girls. It’s nice to see glimmers of humanity, even when it’s born out of tragic cirucumstances.
@lilacsigil–I always wondered why it was called white slavery (as opposed to just “slavery”). That never made any sense to me. Thanks for shedding some light on that!