A little over a week ago, meandering from one class to another, I found myself absentmindedly scrolling through Facebook. I sifted through the plethora of selfies and vines and came across a post that particularly stood out: hundreds of girls had been abducted from their high school in Nigeria two weeks prior to me reading about it on my newsfeed.
On April 14th, an estimated two hundred seventy six girls, ages fifteen to eighteen, were awoken in the middle of the night by shouts and gunfire. The security guards of their high school had been overpowered by the jihadist terrorist group, Boko Haram, which means, “western education is sinful.” The girls were herded by the terrorists onto the backs of trucks and taken to an undetermined location. During the initial hours of the abduction, fifty girls managed to escape; however, over two hundred have yet to be located. Their families mourn, and for the past month, the world has remained silent.
Approximately two weeks after the attack, on April 30th, the grinning leader of Boko Haram sent out a propagandist video. He gloated that his terrorist organization was behind the kidnappings. Moreover, he announced that each young woman was to be sold onto the black market for twelve dollars. He smirked while announcing, “Girls you should get married…western education should fold up.” A school building once filled with almost three hundred young girls, now stands desolate. Nearly all three hundred must face a fate of either being sold as child brides or slaves.
On May 6th, eight more girls, ages twelve to fifteen, were abducted from their schools, once again by Boko Haram.
As these girls are at the disposal of terrorists, my web browser is filled with stories surrounding the engagement of George Clooney, Monica Lewinsky’s new tell-all essay in Vanity Fair, and most importantly, the resignation of Donald Sterling.
How could it possibly be that twenty-six countries searched for a missing plane of more than two hundred passengers, but the world has remained silent regarding the bleak fate of over two hundred missing Nigerian young women?
Interest has only begun to generate. The social media campaign of #BringBackOurGirls has slowly begun to spread, as more people are becoming aware of the already not-so-recent events. It has taken over a month and a social media campaign to ignite the appropriate outrage, yet until this past week, no word regarding plans for action had been solidified.
There is an intrinsic connection between the events in Nigeria in light of the recently sparked conversation regarding privilege, spurred by the article by Princeton freshman, Tal Fortgang. In the article titled, “Checking My Privilege: Character as the Basis of Privilege”, Fortgang discusses the offensive phrase “check your privilege” and the problematic assumption that all white people have the same privileged narratives that entail certain advantages. Amidst his discussion that privilege is an issue that is beyond skin-deep, Fortgang writes, “I am privileged that values like faith and education were passed along to me.” There is no doubt that judgments regarding someone’s upbringing and social status are presumptuous and often offensive. However, race aside, there are privileges that our upbringing has provided that often are unacknowledged. The education we are afforded is an unequivocal privilege.
There is a certain irony that comes along with writing this article while sitting in a classroom in Stern. The opportunity to be enrolled in a women’s college is an undeniable privilege. While we sit in class, girls are being sold into human trafficking due to their pursuit of an education. We sit in class, unaware of the benefits our privilege has afforded us, and how it can make us blind to those less fortunate.
As our school days draw to a close, we must be aware that there are those who could only dream of having a glimpse of graduation, or another year in college. We owe it to ourselves, and to others, to look beyond the Donald Sterlings of our web browsers, and be aware of those less fortunate who are worthy of our attention.