LETTER TO ELAINE MCCARTIN OF POLARIS

There was an event being held in Los Angeles to discuss "fighting sex trafficking" we saw listed on the Polaris Facebook page.   To protect their anonymity, some of our members will post their feelings using my account so it appears to be coming from me.  This is to encourage those who are not used to expressing themselves yet in recovery to do so.  Many of us have been greatly harmed when expressing our feelings by pimps who say "no one cares what you think" and other such statements.  So to be "training wheels" I encourage our members who aren't quite ready yet, or who have their reasons why they don't want to, express their feelings using their own names by using my account.   One of these members saw the event and got pretty upset none of us were invited to attend a meeting about "fighting sex trafficking".  In fact, none of the people attending were survivors.  Elaine wrote us back the comment was "harmful", "not constructive", and that if we "expressed a harmful comment again on their page we'd be blocked".  She further said that the reason we weren't invited was because it was "a group of academic's who were invited - not survivors".  That she felt there was a "time and place" for survivor's views evidently in this movement founded by them for them.  The below was my response to Elaine about the comment we made about how we weren't included in this event, as any other. 

Dear Elaine:

I'm still not hearing an invitation to have some of our members who have been working in the area of sex trafficking for three decades now in the Los Angeles area (since we launched in Los Angeles - our oldest members live there) to be included in some of the upcoming meetings supposedly to deal with this area. 

I've seen the list of people who are however attending.  They are not only not survivors themselves, but put together they have less experience than one of our older members on our board.  

Now if it's about "fighting sex trafficking" then why not?

I mean would you really have a meeting on "how to improve your baseball game" and not invite Babe Ruth, and others in his league?  

People who are not dependent upon the same grant source for their paychecks?

And you wonder why our members are feeling shut out?

Remember Elaine - the way you treat us is the way you're treating survivors.  Survivors who have a successful track record of helping others, and of founding this very movement.  

Before you launch on us about the way our members are feeling, and expressing those feelings - you might want to just consider those feelings might just be valid and seeing what can be done to correct the situation. 

Because we're definitely getting the feeling this has nothing to do with us.  Doesn't include us.  Refuses to include us.  No - we're beginning to think this has nothing to do with us.  

By the way Elaine - you are aware we have more than one member of our program who IS an academic correct?  We have not only more than one PhD on our board, and among our members, but we have in fact members who ARE researchers in this very field. Survivors who are not open in the press nor shout their survivor status - but who are survivors, and members of SWA, nonetheless.

I say that because you sound like you're excluding us from that meeting referenced because only "academic's" are attending.  Sounding to me like you think the two are exclusionary.

They aren't.

When I had a member of our board put together the first coursework for counselors in how to work with our community in recovery, he also was PhD, who had created the first addiction studies program at Mission College in fact.  This man was also the head and founder of the National Council on Sexual Addiction - focusing in on working with "john's" addiction to buying prostitutes also.  

We also have members who are politicians, attorney's, doctors, psychiatrists, nuns, authors, and a whole host of professions and who have varying educational levels.  

So when you say this meeting is for "academics only" in excluding some of us from being involved not just in that one meeting, but ANY of the meetings you've held or been involved with since you launched - you are aware we have members who are survivors and also academics correct?

Also the comment being "harmful" is ridiculous.  There's no way a survivor voicing their feelings on your page is "harmful" to a group as large as Polaris.  That is a subjective response and to block us is still going to be considered as blocking the views of survivors who don't sound supportive of what you're doing.  Survivors can have views that aren't in alignment with yours and not only are they not "harmful" to you - but they need to be heard and expressed. 

Your pattern of silencing us is becoming quite apparent Elaine and if you want to act like the elephant isn't in the room - well maybe it's because you're the elephant.  

Our views aren't ones to be "dismissed" like we're children.  They are real, valid, and need to be heard and considered.  

Or don't they?  

PS - Oh one thing Elaine and Jenna - the REASON why someone who IS an "academic" but might not go shouting off to the press or openly in social media they're on our board, or a member of our program, is for EXACTLY the dismissive tone you just used on us in your email, and the "assumption" that survivors aren't academics- nor completely qualified to be involved in the planning stages of things.  I mean honestly Elaine - you do realize it was our work that led to the Trafficking Act of 2000 and maybe that's why our members are feeling a little slighted they weren't invited to a discussion on how "successful" the Trafficking Act of 2000 has been?

We were told for 13 YEARS that if we helped certain people to raise awareness about sex trafficking, that achieving federal recognition would provide US with certain benefits.   We spent those 13 years, over $400,000 of our own money, and many people were cost jobs, promotions, housing, and whole careers doing the footwork to lay the foundation of that Act so we could see things we were promised happen.

Only what we saw was 22 US Attorney's who were involved in getting this passed fired without any explanation by George Bush.  Not all of them rehired either when Obama took over.   http://content.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1597085,00.html

The author of the Act himself, Michael Horowitz,has said in a 2013 interview the movement has been "hijacked" out from under the people who put it together, and who it was meant for.  http://www.reviewjournal.com/news/las-vegas/nevada-movement-draws-line-human-trafficking

We then saw Randall Tobias come in with the TVRA of 2003  and take every penny of money and support WE had been promised would happen after this Act - and give that money, and thus support, over to "faith based groups".  The very groups who not only were part of the problem for us, but who had just up to the year before been organizing events to chase us out of town like we were a cockroach problem.  THEY were put in charge of the money to help us? 

Jeane Palfrey, a member of SWA,revealed in her "Black Book" Tobias' name NOT as a "john" but as someone who was trafficking her.  She did this not only to show she as a madam could be being forced to work in the sex industry, and for men in our own government, but also that current trafficking programs were not set up to help women like her because they weren't acknowledging HER traffickers. Nor traffickers like Joohoon David Lee who could be working in Homeland Security and Immigration while trafficking women in from Korea.  With victims of men like Mr. Lee not able to go for help to the current trafficking program structure which came into being through the shaping of Polaris at the helm WITHOUT us. 

So yeah some of around here are a little sensitive about this issue - especially seeing as Jeane was murdered in our opinion for trying to get the truth out about the "Black Book". 

Especially since as of today over FIVE trafficking task forces have shown to have someone on them who is in fact the trafficker of victims who can't call Polaris, because Polaris refers them back to either the taskforce again OR US.

1.   Los Angeles and Las Vegas http://www.reviewjournal.com/news/las-vegas/las-vegas-restaurateur-says-former-fed-manufactured-criminal-case-against-him

2.   Las Vegas http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/SAN-MATEO-COUNTY-Two-lawmen-caught-in-raid-of-2563465.php

3.  Phoenix http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/a-deputys-death-opens-the-door-onto-a-world-corruption-in-sheriff-joes-mcso-6462478

4.  Los Angeles http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2016/02/10/former-la-county-sheriff-lee-baca-to-plead-guilty-to-charge-of-lying-to-feds/  Here is Baca's connection to the trafficking task forces - http://www.loscerritosnews.net/2012/06/01/knabe-baca-unveil-new-sex-trafficking-campaign-in-la-county/

5. Ohio https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/failures-in-handling-unaccompanied-migrant-minors-have-led-to-trafficking/2016/01/26/c47de164-c138-11e5-9443-7074c3645405_story.html

Now let's throw in New York - http://nypost.com/2016/02/02/nypd-cop-ran-tri-state-prostitution-ring-officials-say/

New Jersey - http://nypost.com/2015/05/20/dea-agents-secretly-owned-strip-club-with-illegal-immigrant-dancers-feds/

Tennessee - http://reason.com/blog/2016/03/04/the-somali-sex-slave-ring-that-wasnt

And the list can go on. 

Us being the ONLY hotline now not connected with law enforcement for them to call for help.  And there's a reason for that and why we hear things different than you do.

But oh I see if we hear things differently than you do, and post things on your wall you don't agree with or that support you - then we're going not to be HEARD but BLOCKED. 

Got it. 

Again maybe if you don't want to hear about the elephant in the room Elaine - it's because it's you.