This video is the first I’ve heard of the Human Rights Channel. After watching it, I Googled them to find out who they were. That took me to http://www.witness.org/human-rights-channel where I not only learned about who they are, but I also learned how I can participate. They have training videos. I learned that while cell phones can be used, a camcorder along with a tri-pod and an external microphone will do a much better job. Now, I doubt that you’ll find me out in the middle of a demonstration or even documenting human rights abuses, that’s just not the world I live in. Or is it? I’ll never forget the morning I woke up seeing lights flashing over the ceiling in my bedroom and hearing “pops” in the street. I got up, looked down on the street below and saw police cars all around, with police in the street, guns drawn and shooting at a car which had ended up on the sidewalk. This was in Lincoln Park, a supposedly a low-crime area of Chicago. In the car, I later learned there was a man of a minority group, the kind you normally don’t find in that neighborhood, who was shot and killed—all this in front of my eyes. When this event hit the papers, I read quite a different story from what I thought I saw. I am not a trained observer and I salved my conscience with that bit of knowledge. Today, I wish I’d had a camera. I could have recorded what took place and sent it to the above Internet web site.
I am not against the police, I am not against Democrats, Republicans or any government. I realize they are like me, just simple people trying to do the best they can with the limited knowledge they have. I am for people, people everywhere. The simple beauty of this Human Rights Channel, i.e. “See it; Film it; Change it” gives me a tool I can use to help make my world a more compassionate one. I will probably stick to issues like we’ve been covering in this blog thus far, but who knows? Maybe with the new tools of camera, tripod and microphone, I’ll awaken to a world different from the beautiful one I see on the major media channels where all is taken care of just by buying a new car, eating at the right restaurant or wearing the right clothes.
We are a community of laymen and laywomen who, with vowed Passionists, seek to share in the charism of St. Paul of the Cross through prayer, ongoing spiritual formation, and proclamation of the message of Christ Crucified.
