Street Art in Salt Lake City

When I first moved to Salt Lake City from Utah County a couple of years ago, someone from my hometown asked me what I liked about living in the big city. One of the things I mentioned was the beautiful street art that we seem to be surrounded by here. However, I have just recently started to understand the actual significance of street art that is always being thrown in our faces. For one, I had never been much of an art buff before, so I would rarely seek out looking at art. One cool thing about street art is that it isn't just for people who want to see art. Everyone will see it. It makes art accessible to people that aren't necessarily art connoisseurs.

I went on a street art tour with Betsy Brunner, someone who has plenty of knowledge when it comes to art in general. She made a really good point that stuck with me. She asked us about the tags on walls and garbage cans, specifically the illegible ones. "What's the point of the illegible tags?" she asked us. "Because, maybe, it isn't meant to be understood."

This was a new idea for me. I had always thought of art as needing to be read, needing an audience in order for it to be effective. I thought that was the point of art: for a viewer to look at it and interpret it. The thought that maybe people were making art that they didn't want to be interpreted, read, understood...what a new concept. 

I think the point of these types of works can be more for that artist him/herself versus art being made for the audience. An artist has a personal connection with their work (at least, I'm assuming...I've never been much of an artist). An artist doesn't need to make work for other people; they only need to make work for themselves.

Thinking about art in these terms kind of changes all art in general for me. Often times, the artist isn't making art for me to look at it. That's why not all of artists' pieces are always published or displayed to an audience -- that's not what they are for. I can learn from art that is meant to be interpreted, but I can also learn from art that isn't. Not everything needs to be broken down, over-analyzed, and understood, In the case of these pieces of street art, we can just let them be and enjoy them for their simplicity, without trying to read them. Although it may not feel like it, simplicity is still present in this world.

I think the reason we went on this tour for our global citizenship class is that art and activism really have gone together hand-in-hand in the past. Especially street art is becoming more known for its activism. What art is put up on the walls of our city can help people identify what issues are important to the people living here. Simply stopping and looking at the art can help one become more of a global citizen by paying attention to what conversations others in our communities are having.

Environmental Project Data Collection

For my global citizenship class, we got in small groups to do an environmental projects. My group decided to watch the recycling bins in the library at the University of Utah to see if people really used them or not.

There is a bin for trash, one for metal, one for plastic, and one for mixed paper. For data collection, we used two graphs per day. One graph received a tally mark every time someone correctly used the bins, and the other received a tally mark for every incorrect use of the bins. We sat in 4 different locations in the library on 4 different days and 4 different times of day. We observed each day until we had seen 50 people use the bins.

What we noticed, even after the first day, is that people mainly use the 'trash' bin for everything they throw away, even if it's recyclable. On the first three days of data collection, the incorrect use of the bins outweighed the correct use. On the last day of data collection, there was slightly more correct usage of the bins.

Recycling is really important for many reasons. One is that recycling helps reduce the pollution caused by waste. Waste can destroy entire ecosystems and habitats which really isn't fair to our animal friends. It also uses a ton of energy to make things from raw materials, therefore recycling helps us preserve our natural resources. Not to mention, we are running out of room to put all of our waste!

I think it is really important for students at the U to learn about the benefits of recycling and why the separate bins are even in the library in the first place. Lectures or flyers (on recycled paper, of course ;) ) about recycling could be made accessible to students in order to improve recycling rates. There are 30,000 students at the U. Imagine how much waste we are producing that could be recycled!

http://www.recycling-guide.org.uk/importance.html

Clean Air Rally

So I went to my first rally ever. It was regarding what can be done to promote clean air. We all made signs and held them up. Some phrases from the signs that I especially liked were "having a bad air day?" and "be part of the solution, not part of the pollution". We had masks that said "Got air? I don't." Some people wanted to take pictures of us. All around it was pretty fun. I liked hearing the speeches. Although I have no idea who was speaking, there was one man that was pretty funny and I liked what he said. One of the funniest things that he said was "I asked the legislature what we could do about the inversion, and one of them told me to pray for a storm. I did pray alright -- for a new legislature!" I thought that was really funny and clever.

I was impressed by how many people showed up. It was inspiring to see so many people who care about this issue. I also liked that people used this event to talk about other important issues. For example, I signed a petition that was about using more renewable energy resources.

At first, I was pretty confused about what we were trying to accomplish by rallying at the Capitol. I think it was so that our representatives can see how many people care about this issue. Breathing our air on a red air day is the equivalent to smoking a half a pack of cigarettes, and that's just not okay. I don't smoke because I don't want those negative side effects, and it's a shame that I'm getting them anyway just by breathing.

Anyway, I hope that changes can be made soon. I would love to see some better and more reliable public transportation options. I would love to see RioTinto pay retribution for breaking the laws regarding how much earth can be moved per day. I hope that we can make the necessary changes to respect our planet.

I Have A Nightmare...What Will Happen if We Don't Stop Child Sex Exploitation NOW

I have a nightmare...

Child sex exploitation refers to "the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for the purpose of a commercial sex act where such an act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person induced to perform such act has not attained 18 years of age." (Defined by the Trafficking Victims Protection Act)

I bet you're already thinking, "Oh, human trafficking...that only happens in Europe and South America! My family is safe here in America!"

If those were your first thoughts, you are sadly mistaken. 

RIGHT here, RIGHT now, children are being bought and sold as property in your own backyard. If you aren't seeing child sex exploitation in your town, you aren't looking. Let me just quote a few statistics for you: 

 - At least 100,000 American children are being bought and sold in the sex trade every year (National Center for Missing and Exploited Children)

 - The average age of entry into "prostitution" is 13 years old. Do you know any 13-year-olds that are mature enough to make a decision like that? A 13-year-old that wants to have sex for money?

-  There was more than 1,000 percent increase in complaints of child sex trafficking from 2004 to 2008 (ICAC Task Forces)

- 1 in 7 endangered runaways reported to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children in 2013 were likely sex trafficking victims

Whether or not you want to believe it, this is happening in Salt Lake City, UT. I read an article a little while ago about 3 men who had up to 14 girls (many of them underage illegal immigrants) performing sex acts for Utah Johns (a John is someone who pays for a victim). The men manipulated the girls by telling them they'd get deported if they told. This happened in December 2012.

How many more children need to suffer? How many more kids are we going to let get coerced, manipulated, physically hurt, and sexually abused? I have a little sister who is 13, and many more little sisters who are younger than her. My nightmare would be to see any of them have to go through something as wretched as being used as a slave for sex. 

We can make a change. We can improve this situation. 

There are many smaller issues that need to be resolved in regards to this bigger problem. For example, one way to start would be to make laws against pimps (a trafficker) and Johns harsher, and lessening the punishments against the prostitutes, who more often than not are victims of sexual exploitation. I think the most important tool we can use against child sex exploitation is to raise awareness. The more 13-year-olds who know the signs of a sex trafficker, the less 13-year-olds that will get sex trafficked. It's also important for people around the sex traffickers' targets to know the signs and PAY ATTENTION. Some signs of a potential exploitation situation include:

- An older boyfriend. Many times, these traffickers will pose as an older boyfriend and convince the victim that they love them. Then, they'll make a request of the girl "just this one time", and it just gets worse from there.

- New or expensive clothes. Traffickers may buy the victim gifts to manipulate them.

- Marking tattoos. Often, traffickers brand their slaves with a barcode or Chinese symbol to mark them as owned.

- Skipping school. Traffickers may convince their victims to lie to parents and other adults in order to have more control over them.

THE MOST IMPORTANT thing is to BE AWARE.

References and Resources:

- http://www.backyardbroadcast.org/

- http://www.missingkids.com

- https://www.ksl.com/index.php?nid=481&sid=23202904

- To see how your state is doing law-wise in the sex exploitation department: http://sharedhope.org/what-we-do/bring-justice/reportcards/

Thoughts on Wednesday's Discussion

Here's a picture of the board after our class discussion on Wednesday. 

As you can see, we had a very interesting discussion...

Many ideas, thoughts, and questions came up for me during this discussion.

First of all, someone in the class brought up that it can be difficult to form opinions on current issues when we are hearing different sides of a story that greatly vary from each other. An example I can think of in my own life is the police brutality issue in Ferguson. At first, I was outraged by what I heard: that an unarmed black man named Michael Brown was shot by a police officer while he had his hands in the air. I then heard people on various news stations stating that "Michael Brown was the criminal" in the situation just because he was robbing a store. Honestly, I was pissed. Just because a person is a criminal doesn't give anyone the right to kill them unarmed. Then I heard another version of the story where Michael Brown was attempting to wrestle a gun out of the police officer's hands. Now I'm confused and don't know what to think about the situation. What sources are trustworthy? Are there any unbiased sources? Oh wait, I already know the answer to that question is no...

I thought that another interesting point that came up during our discussion is that there are probably plenty of issues with our world that we are currently not seeing. I think the reason for this might be because when one problem is solved, it unveils or maybe even creates new problems. Or maybe it's just one big issue that is being solved one small step at a time. For example, in 1848, the issue was that women weren't allowed to vote. When women were granted that right in 1920, the issue was solved. However, now women are still fighting for equal pay in the workplace. So although the women at the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention got what they wanted, a new problem was unveiled. Someone in our class spoke about how she was appalled when she heard someone state that racism doesn't exist in our day and age. Although the problem may no longer be slavery, we have evolved to new forms of racism.

Another thing we spoke about in class was complacency. The fact that so many people my age are so complacent actually makes me a little anxious. Our generation has to make some changes or I feel that we will have nothing left. Maybe every generation feels this way, but it almost seems that things have gotten so bad that we have no choice but to fix things. The environment, for example, is going to be completely destroyed and us out of resources VERY SOON if we don't learn how to conserve and treat the earth with more respect. I hope to be able to motivate people, or to help them find something they are passionate about working on to make our world a better place! If each person just chose one issue they were passionate about fixing, think of how much better of a place our world would become.

Although I left class with a few more questions, some of mine got answered as well. For example, I asked about prioritizing issues. The basic answer to this question is that we can't. We can't say that child abuse is more important than world hunger. We can't say that recycling is more important than police brutality. They are all important, and the best we can do is choose a few issues that we are most passionate about. One person can't take on everything. 

Questions ...

Last semester in my Global Citizenship class at the University of Utah, we were asked to write a few questions that had been raised in our minds from our readings and discussions to be answered this semester. Although  I have many questions, I think these two are the most important.

1. There are so many issues currently going on in our world. How do I prioritize them to figure out which ones are more important and which ones can be put on the back burner?

Between feminism, human rights, animal rights, environmental issues, businesses taking advantage or treating employees and customers unfairly, child abuse, corrupt politicions, human trafficking, police brutality etc, there are just too many problems for one person to take them all on. I've noticed that when my passions don't match up with another person's, they often think I am indifferent and don't care about the issues, when in reality, I just have so many other issues on my mind. Which issues need to be solved first? Which ones are more vital to fix than others? How do we choose?

2. I wish everyone had an issue they were passionate about changing. How can I get more people my age involved in this revolution/movement?

I am sometimes amazed by how indifferent my generation can be. Things are getting more and more out of hand everyday, and people still care more about how many Twitter followers they have. I want everyone to have a passion to fix something. My generation has to be the one that changes things, or we might not have a world to live in for much longer. If each person my age dedicated some of their time to fixing ONE single problem, the world would be such a better place.

I need these questions to be answered. Without knowing these answers, I feel discouraged. Am I really able to make a difference? Do others actually care about our planet and about other human beings? What can I do to help?