Rachel Lloyd "GEMS"

Who is Rachel Lloyd? This particular outstanding woman is somebody who I have been meaning to talk about. Without a doubt, she deserves to be more than mentioned on my blog. How did I find out about her? Well, one night I was flipping through the channels when I saw a young, fifteen year old girl flash on the screen saying in a very melancholy way "working the streets was something I felt I had to do. I felt there was no way out." My heart immediately went out to that girl, and I was compelled to watch more.....

Rachel Lloyd

Girls Educational Mentoring Services (GEMS) is a program that was founded in 1999 by Rachel Lloyd. Rachel, who was once a teenager that was sexually exploited, recognized the urgent need for educational services that were dedicated to young women at risk of being sexually exploited or who were already being exploited. GEMS has now grown into one of the largest organizations that provides services to commercially sexually exploited and domestically trafficked youth in the United States. GEMS educates and supports young women from the ages of twelve to twenty-one that have been caught in this cruel and vicious phenomena that lurks on the abandoned street corners and places that America turns a blind side to. While watching the documentary, several places were shown where prostitution was abundant. These places were areas that I knew of. Hunts Point (an area in the Bronx), Queens and Brooklyn. I noticed that a lot of the inner city areas seemed to be highly affected by this. But let me make this clear: sexual exploitation and human trafficking happens all throughout the United States and can be closer to your home than you may think...

And to think...here I am singing this song that has been planted into my brain "Its hard out here for a pimp...." and watching movies like Hustle n' Flow that in some ways praises pimps and prostitution, and here you are hit with the harsh reality of it. No Hollywood, no props, no script. This is an actual situation that can be handled and solved if everybody simply can take the initiative to realize that it exists. Girls are to be loved, empowered and cherished...not sold for their bodies.

I encourage everyone to visit the website: http://www.gems-girls.org/ganfs/home.html

Please, Please, Please keep yourself aware of the issues surrounding you, no matter how privileged you are.

xoxo,

Lolita

Today.....

During a disscussion on probability, one of my teachers made two statements (both of which I thought were two very outrageous statements). The first which was "I'm pure African-American" and the second which was "Its ashame, before you know it theres gonna be a whole bunch of mixed babies runnin around at the rate were going."

*cough*

Being a Political Science major and being quite fond of history...there are two important things I have learned. The first of which is that there is NO such thing as any person on this earth being "pure" (since that is what this particular teacher wanted to call it). The second which is that all throughout history, mankind and the governments that we have elected have continuously tried to label and categorize people: "Black", "white", "hispanic", "Native American" and uh oh "Other"...etc. Is it right? Not in the least. For centuries people of all different backgrounds and races have mixed, mingled and produced the beauty of which is the human race. I would love to see a day in which we stop classifying people and can stop checking boxes on our standardized exams that label us as a color.

One day...one day, maybe there will be a box that all of us can check that will be simply marked:

BROTHER or SISTER

And perhaps this was just one of those random rants that go through my mind daily.

xoxo,

Lolita

"Onto the Next One" Jay-Z Video

So Jay-Z brings to us one of his newest pieces of visual art from his latest album The Blueprint 3. After watching this video...I was just left blank. In fact, perhaps I was also a bit creeped out but oddly enough I LOVE it. Or maybe I shouldn't love it because I really cant understand what this man is trying to portray. I feel like Hov was trying to show a whole bunch of symbols. I have no clue. You see for yourself.

xoxo,

Lolita