I usually avoid writing on the really big China issues, figuring they get enough coverage elsewhere. When I first saw the pictures of the prostitutes with their heads bowed, I instantly thought of Bull Connor :. One of the most enduring images of the Civil Rights Movement is that of Birmingham firemen and policemen using water hoses and police dogs against African-American demonstrators in Birmingham. Civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. Shuttlesworth and others.
Televised reports of police dogs lunging at African-American citizens and people being washed down the streets by water from powerful fire hoses dramatized the plight of African-Americans in segregated areas. The events in Birmingham helped mobilize the administration of President John Kennedy to begin efforts leading to the most far-reaching civil rights legislation in history, the Civil Rights Act of Those pictures of Bull Connor and his henchmen spurred America to live up to its laws and to its ideals.
Bloggers weighed in in cyberspace. On a Sina. The majority see the shaming incident for what it was: a feeble attempt by the government to exercise moral authority.
The sex trade is one of the blots on modern China, but it will take more than public humiliation to curtail it. The police of Shenzhen are trying to conduct a vice crackdown, and this is their brilliant idea on how to handle prostitution β march suspected prostitutes and johns into the street and read their names out loud so everyone can get a sick thrill out of shaming them.
Regardless of how you feel about prostitution, this is unacceptable. The problem associated with prostitution that should concern people is the way that most women involved are being mistreated and exploited. The little stunt is just an extension of the same mistreatment and abuse prostitutes get on the job, only this time the dogpile of abuse has a stamp of social approval on it.
