June 30, 2023 • 51 mins
Join Mariah and Jason in this powerful and emotionally charged episode of The Mariah Effect. As Mariah shares her recent camping trip with her family, she delves into the importance of storytelling as a means of connecting with loved ones and creating lasting memories. However, the conversation takes a serious turn as Mariah discusses an upcoming movie, "The Sound of Freedom," set to release on July 4th. The film tells the extraordinary true story of Tim Ballard and his relentless efforts to rescue children from the harrowing world of sex trafficking. Mariah passionately describes the movie's plot and the extensive research she conducted on the subject of human trafficking, urging listeners to visit resources such as ourrescue.org, the Polaris Project, and the Starfish Project. Her emotions run high as she implores everyone to see the movie and take the time to educate themselves about this critical issue, emphasizing the importance of raising awareness and working together to keep vulnerable individuals safe. Prepare to be moved and inspired as Mariah's heartfelt plea shines a light on the power of storytelling, the fight against human trafficking, and the urgent need for action and compassion.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-mariah-effect--5832015/support.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
M hmm, let's do it readyready all right? Um? Freezer cookies.
I like eating like hard cookies,not soft cookies. I'm weird.
That is super weird. M totally. I like thin mince from the freezer.
See, these are thin mint cookies. So they're like chocolate cookies with
(00:23):
melted thin mince on top of it, and they're tasty and they're really really
delicious when they're frozen. I thinkthat wraps everything up. You want to
try that one again? Yeah?Um, hi, everybody, Welcome to
(01:27):
the Mariah Effect Podcast. I'm Mariahand I'm Jason, and here we are
this week. How's everybody feeling?I'm good? Are you asking me?
I'm asking you. I'm asking theaudience like I know that they can't talk
back to me, but like Inever really asked, like, how are
you doing you guys? How areyou feeling this week? Well? I
(01:52):
wonder know how you're feeling this week? Me. I am like a little
like down today, just kind oflike trying to come off of like this
epic camping trip that I took thisweekend. Epic camping trip. Yeah,
I went, Where'd you go?I went? So? Um, there's
(02:15):
I think it's a reservoir. Everybodykept saying like reservoir and lake like interchangeably,
but I don't. I think it'sa reservoir. But there's like Strawberry
Reservoir, which is like um byHebrew, which if you don't know Utah,
that's okay. You probably know ParkCity, which is like where all
the lake famous people live in Utah, like super Richie Rich is like kind
(02:39):
of past Hebrew. But if yougo the other way, then that's where
we went camping was over by aStrawberry reservoir, which we went with Mallory's
older sister Erica and her family andI guess like her partner Fred his like
whole family does this whole like likeonce a year or every ten years where
(03:05):
they go camping for like ten tofourteen days, just like completely off the
grid, and it's like so organizedand it's so big, and it was
just so cool, Like they werereally nice and really awesome. We like
they had everything set up where theymade like breakfast and dinner for everybody and
(03:27):
we just had to figure out lunch. I went in a camper, which
I think I've been in a camperonce or twice when I was a kid,
but I don't really remember that well. But being a camper is so
much better than being astronomically, likeI enjoy camping, I do, but
like something about having a fridge isjust like super nice. Yeah, I
(03:54):
think I'm more like a glamper thana camper. Yeah, that's exactly what
it was, was lamping. Itfelt so nice and I like, for
most of the trip I didn't likewear makeup or anything, but the one
day that I put on makeup,I was like, thank God, I'm
not doing this in a hot tentwith no mirror. Like, but yeah,
(04:16):
it was so fun and like gettingto spend time with like family,
like my brother Kyle and Sarah,his wife, went to and so we
were just all together. I didsome henna and stuff for Fred and that
was really fun because he's never donethat before. And all these little kids
(04:40):
came up and we did these likewe had these like temporary tattoo pens that
we like drew with stencils on thesekids and it goes away and like I
don't even know, like twelve hours, like I did one and it was
gone before I even like really gotto appreciate. It was on my skin,
but it was like cute. Theywere just coming over and putting like
(05:01):
a thousand different stencils on them andlike drawing it on and so they were
like these like tatted up kids.It was very cute. But yeah,
it was so fun. I'm soglad you got out of the house.
You know, you've had to likebe indoors so much lately. That's awesome.
Yeah, it was really nice Ispent It was difficult though, because
(05:23):
like there were so many activities andthings that were going on that I just
did not have. I didn't havethe energy to like walk to those like
activities that were going on, letalone like participate in the activities because a
lot of it, like it's outdoors, you know, like doing like cool
like sports and stuff together or likegoing on a hike and things like that
(05:47):
is just like super fun stuff thatI just am missing out on just because
I am feeling so sick. ButI am happy that I did go.
Oh because it was nice to spendtime with family, like I said,
and also really cool to like meetall these fun, awesome people that do
(06:08):
this all the time. Yeah,that's incredible. Yeah, did you was
it like euphoric being in nature afterso much time inside. Yeah, I
really enjoyed like being able to getsunshine. Although I think I got too
much sunshine. You can't really see, but like I had, like I
(06:28):
still do. I can feel it, like fully, the red lupus butterfly
on my face and it's like allover my shoulders. And I had this
like sports brawl that I wore mostof the time that has like these fun
straps, so my back is likegot these white beijie lines in the red.
It's very funny. X marks thespot. Yeah, that's wildly sent
(06:55):
me some beautiful photos. I you'rea good photographer. Yeah. We passed
this waterfall that was so awesome.I just like, you know, I
live in Utah where there's like mountainson either side of me, like either
side of the freeway that you drivealong, and it's so crazy beautiful that
(07:16):
sometimes it's like I don't know,have you Have you seen the Simpsons movie?
No, No, there's a scenein the Simpsons movie where they go
to Alaska and there's like a theyhad like a brochure or like a picture
or something where like on a mapor something of Alaska and it's this beautiful
(07:36):
picturesque view, and it kind oflike goes across the windshield, and so
they have to like grab it offthe windshield, and so somebody grabs it,
but then they like get confused andthey're like, oh, nobody grabbed
it yet, and they go tograb it again, but they like there's
nothing there, and it's just whatthey're seeing, you know. It's like
seeing a beautiful picture of somewhere that'sreally detailed, really awesome, but it's
(08:01):
like what it actually looks like,you know, no editing, no filters,
whatever, Like that's just what itlooks like. And that's what the
mountains here look like all the time, like just beautiful, like snow caps
and like just so close. It'slike right there. You know, we're
from Colorado. You're not supposed tosay this, but I think Utah is
(08:24):
as pretty, if not prettier.What do you think? I think it
is maybe prettier. But the onlyreason I say that is because I grew
up in Aurora, Colorado, whichwas like forever away from the mountains.
It felt like, at least likewhen you're looking, it's like, okay,
(08:46):
those things over there in the distance, those are the mountains, and
so that's west, Like, that'swhat you grow up within Aurora, Colorado.
But if you grew up like closerto the mountains, I'm sure that
it's like, Oh, Utah's nothingon the beauty of the Purple Colorado Mountains.
You know, I'm glad you broughtup Aurora, Colorado. You know,
(09:07):
since you're doing this podcast and puttingyourself out in the world. You
know some people that we now getto see on television that are from Aurora.
Some people in television. Bowen Yang, who's on Saturday Ight Live.
Oh really, I didn't know thathe went to Smokey Hill. Whoa you
(09:28):
know who else did? Who areyou seeing the TV show Billions? Billions?
No? Okay, well there's acomedian named Dan Soder who also went
to Smokey Hill High School. It'sfrom Aurora. That's crazy. I did
not go to Smoky Hill. Youdid Overland, right, I went to
Overland. I went to Overland wherewe were kind of the underdogs in a
(09:50):
lot of ways comparatively to the othercherk Here the other Cherry Creek schools.
Did you say the underdogs? Yeah, because it was like the school where
like the school that I went toOverland was like prime place for like diversity,
(10:15):
Like that was the biggest thing aboutOverland is that was so diversified,
which meant that a lot of whichto a lot of other schools meant that
we were ghetto and so like wedidn't really have like a stadium, like
a sports place for people to play. Like we got the I st Building,
(10:37):
which was which was like a scienceand technology kind of situation that we
kind of shared with the middle schoolthat's right there. But other than that,
like Overland was kind of viewed aslike super ghetto. I don't know
what it's like now, but itwas viewed as really ghetto like the other
schools like Smoky Hill and Cherry Creek, which is where we went for like
(10:58):
literally all of our games. Almostlike yeah, just had like kind of
a negative view and anytime I wentto those other schools, it was like,
oh, white, sea of white. You probably were like more.
You're like you got to La andyou're like, Okay, finally like a
(11:18):
normal group of people. Yeah,absolutely, like at least a normal like
a normal sample of what the wholeworld is really like rather than like just
some different places. Although I willsay there's some parts of la that are
very not diverse, and it's usuallylike because of money or whatever. But
(11:48):
you mean like you're bel Air instacartadventure. Yes, absolutely, And it's
crazy because you know, the FreshPrince of bel Air was in the nineties
where it was like, whoa thisblack family that lives Beller, that's so
crazy, and today it's like kindof similar. It's like the same.
You're so funny. You you go. You always do entertainment references like the
(12:09):
Fresh Prince of Bella Air. Firstthing. It's like, but I can't
believe you haven't seen Billions listen,never heard of it? Wow, I
can't wait to see if you likeit. I well, And then I'm
thinking about entertainment. How did yousurvive camping? You didn't watch TV?
You didn't you didn't read books?What? It was really hard? So
(12:30):
I did read books because I havea book that I'm reading with my friend
Mallory right now that's like a murdermystery book that I was like, oh,
I can't, I can't like stepaway completely from that. And I
had another book I was reading onmy phone, which I downloaded on my
phone so I could read, sotechnically I wasn't completely unplugged, but I
(12:54):
was away from Internet for most ofthe time and being able to watch TV
show and things like that, whichI love. But it was nice to
take that time to just be present, to be in the moment, you
know, because I used to doall that stuff to pretend like I wasn't
around the people that I was,around, the situations that I was around,
(13:18):
the stuff that was going on,And now I just do it because
I've done it my whole life.But like, being able to unplug made
me realize, like it's not thesame as it used to be. You
know. I'm surrounded by people thatare my family because they've chosen to be
my family, and I've chosen themto be my family, and they are
(13:43):
just so kind and sweet and funny, and like, being able to not
be on our phones for that timewas so nice to be able to like
really talk to each other, eventhough we live in the same house,
most of us, not with Erica, but most of us, like,
I don't know, I think wejust take that for granted sometimes. So
(14:03):
it was nice to be on thetrip, but it was really nice to
come home. I bet, Ibet I was thinking about you with Um,
the way that you talk about whyyou went into books and entertainment and
you know do you you just saidto sort of withdraw from you know what
(14:24):
you're in. But um, whyif you make up a story about like
if part of if that chapter ofyour life was preparing you for a future
part of your life? Like whatdo you tell yourself? What do I
tell myself? Yeah? So youknow, why might you have grown up
(14:46):
in a world where you immerse yourselfin books and literature and everything. I
think that, like, it's it'sdifficult to ask the question of like why
because that gets into all this oflike I don't know. Sometimes that makes
it turn into like why me,you know, of like why did did
(15:07):
these things have to happen to me? Why did I get cancer? You
know which I use a funny voicebecause I feel like it's it's sometimes silly
when I say those things or Ilook back on when I thought those things,
but it's genuine like feelings and emotions. But I think that there are
a lot of things that happen tome in my life, are things that
(15:30):
suck and don't really have a reason, but I give them a reason so
that I can move forward. Sothat I can push myself to be not
a victim, if that makes sense. So I think of it as like
(15:50):
this, I don't know why thishappened, but it did happen, and
that can give me a way toconnect to other people who it's happening to
you, or other people of whoit's like who are going through that or
have gone through that and are stillstruggling with something that I've already overcome.
(16:11):
If that makes sense, Yeah,that it makes total sense. Well,
you're talking about like meaning making right, Like did you ever read Man Search
for Meaning? Since you're such areader, I did. What do you
think about that? I thought itwas really profound. I thought it had
so many good quotable moments. Ohyeah, I thought his observation that you
(16:37):
know, we we we make meaningout of certain circumstances. We have stimulus
and then we have response. Youknow, you were describing like you make
meaning out of the things that havehappened to you. But so how do
you how are Like my question wasreally aimed at how are you making meaning?
What now? Like, so youbecame a reader, you became a
(17:00):
your tainment consumer, you really fellin love with story, Like Yeah,
why I think that there's something aboutstories that give us a chance to accept
things that are happening to us orcome to terms with what are things that
are happening with us. Because wecan see or we can relate to characters
(17:23):
or people who are writing about orshowing us in the form of media and
shows and things like that, we'reable to kind of view our situation in
a different light too. Sometimes youcan watch something and it will give you
(17:47):
emotions that you were keeping buried becauseyou didn't want to face what's been happening
with you, or you didn't wantto confront it or whatever, and you
watch this piece of media or youread this book, and it creates this
like connection with yourself and with thischaracter or whatever that is eternal. Like
(18:08):
there's My favorite book is called aSpeak, which is about this girl in
high school who goes through a sexualassault. And when I read that book,
it was almost right after something similarhad happened to me, and it
(18:29):
was really it gave me the chanceto be like not so embarrassed, because
that's what I felt, was embarrassmentthat it happened to me because of whatever
reason that I had, And itgave me the chance to actually kind of
try and process what happened and tryand go through like my emotions about what
(18:51):
happened. And it took a longtime for me to, you know,
get to where I am now withit. That's something that I enjoyed about
books is sometimes I used it asa way to think about something else,
think about somebody else, think abouta different world, a different problem,
And sometimes I used it as away to think about my own problems.
(19:12):
And I think that's the wonderful thingabout it is it can be used as
a distraction, but it can alsobe used as a tool. Yeah.
Yeah, well, I mean speakingof stories as a tool. I've noticed
you like to tell stories and thenlike bring people along in why you're telling
(19:33):
them that story. But you sentme this video a link to a movie
that you saw recently. Yeah,what was it called? The Sound of
Freedom? The Sound of Freedom?Okay, yeah, it was a couple
of weeks ago. It was likeearly June. I would say that mom,
(19:55):
who's been on the episode, who'sbeen on an episode? Patty Merrill,
she works with with Angels Studios,and so she was going, I
think her and a couple other peoplewent to go see a movie the week
before and I couldn't go because ofchemo or something, and so she invited
me. She was like, itwas a really good movie, but there's
(20:15):
this other movie that I really wantto see and I would love for you
to come with us. And Iwas like, yeah, like if I
can, like if I'm feeling upto it, whatever, like sure,
and she just kind of told meabout it. I think we maybe watched
the trailer, but I was likefalling asleep or something because of being tired,
(20:37):
and so I all I knew aboutit was that it was about human
trafficking. That's all I remembered fromwatching the trailer or whatever, was that
it was about human trafficking. Andso I was like, yeah, I'll
go and see this movie with you. And so we went and it was
kind of like everybody. It waslike everybody in the house besides basically Dad,
who was sick, but we allgo to see it and it was
(21:00):
incredible and it was a previewing.The movie comes out on the fourth of
July, and we saw it acouple of weeks ago, so way before,
and it was just so it wassuch good storytelling because it was about
(21:22):
this real event that happened with thisreal person who exists, and it was
just so perfectly crafted into this movie. This way for people to consume this
information that isn't the same as watching, you know, a news story about
it or an art or reading anarticle about it. Being able to see
(21:45):
it and be put into the positionof this man, this u the hero
of the movie. It's just it'sa totally different experience and it really gives
you a good grasp of what theheck is really going on. So what
can you tell me a little bitabout the plot? Yeah, so this
(22:10):
movie is about um Tim Ballard,who was at the time of the start
of the movie was working for HomelandSecurity and was working at finding pedophiles basically,
who are you know, selling childrenpornography or you know, consuming it
(22:33):
or whatever. And through this processhe ends up he like has this conversation
with a co worker who's kind oflike new, kind of new on it,
and he's been doing it for likea decade or something, and he's
kind of like, you know,just because we caught this guy, doesn't
it Like it doesn't make me feelany better, you know what I mean,
Like, we're not getting these kids, We're not saving kids, and
(22:59):
the you know, Tim is kindof like, we are making a difference,
but I feel you, you know, And so it just kind of
shows his like him how serious hislife was because he was so consumed by
his job that it kind of tookaway from his moments with his family,
where he like was very withdrawn andjust like thinking about all these horrible things
(23:23):
that he has to witness he hasto expose himself to in order to do
his job. And then there's thisopportunity to actually save a kid that comes
up, and he jumps at it. He takes he takes control to be
able to save this kid, savesthis kid, and he's talking with this
(23:44):
kid and realizes that this kid wasa part of a group of kids that
were taken and this kid's sister isstill out there, is still stuck in
this situation, and he's like hemakes this kid is basically like please save
my sister, Like you need tosave my sister. And he's like,
(24:06):
I'm going to save your sister.Like it's almost like a they kind of
take it onto this like religious thingwhere he like looks inside of himself and
he's like I have to save her, like I know I can. And
it takes him on this international journeywhere he goes and he tries to recruit
other people to this cause he hasto quit his job because the government can't
(24:29):
fund this expense and looking for thisone girl. And he goes through all
these trials and his wife is theentire time telling him, like, I
support you, like at this point, this is like my daughter that we're
looking for because of how passionate youare about this and how important this is
to you, and she supports him, and like he goes on this adventure.
(24:53):
He goes into the like thick ofthis like horrible human track picking like
labor trafficking, sex trafficking situation that'sin the middle of nowhere, and it's
just him, Like it's not asif he has this team of people that
are going in to the forest withhim. It's kind of just him on
(25:14):
his own. And he goes andhe finds the girl and he gets her,
and there's so many other parts ofthe story, but that's, you
know, the main plot of thestory, and it's just from his like
almost like stubbornness that he's gonna dothis, that he's gonna, you know,
save this girl. And just beingable to see all of the hoops
(25:40):
that he has to kind of jumpthrough to be able to do this,
and to get through all these sortsof obstacles, and finding out how many
people were one way, like tothe public and in behind the scenes,
are supporting this horrible thing. Likethe reality of that is astonishing and heart
(26:04):
wrenching and provocative, and I thinkthat everybody needs to see it. Everybody
needs to see this movie because it'sa real life story and it's a real
life issue, and people don't wantto talk about it because it's something that
(26:26):
is taboo. It's something that nobodywants to talk about because it's dark and
it's twisted, and it's horrible andit's awful. And everybody wants to think
about the happy things and the goodthings happening in life, and they want
to focus on the good, butthere are so many people who are stuck
(26:47):
in this darkness that if we don'tlike shine a light on it, they're
going to be stuck there forever.What do you think shining a light on
it looks like? Ultimately, Ithink it's spreading awareness, and like there
are so many things that because Idid all of this research afterwards because I
(27:08):
knew I wanted to talk about iton the podcast, and also because you
know, I'm the type of personthat has so much compassion and care and
love that I've spent so much ofmy life not watching the news, not
wanting to know about things that arehappening right now that are horrible. Like
(27:32):
I hear about a shooting and I'mlike, I don't want to read about
everything that's happening with that shooting,or with you know, how many people
have died, or with what's goingon with that, because it's something that
in a lot of ways, fora lot of my life felt like this
hopeless thing, that this is justgoing to keep happening and there's nothing I
can do about it, and Idon't want to look at it because it
(27:56):
makes me sad, it makes mescared, it makes it hurts, you
know. But I think that inthe last couple of years, I've come
to realize and recognize that the reasonthese things keep happening and the issues keep
happening is because of that very thing. Nobody wants to look, nobody wants
to see it, and so it'sable to continue and to grow and become
(28:22):
this horrible thing that because nobody's payingattention to it, thrives, if that
makes sense. And so I thinkbeing able to spread awareness about what's going
on and being able to think about, you know, what you are doing
or what is happening around you.Like let's say you're a parent and you
(28:52):
have your kids. You have yourkids go and spend time at their at
the neighbor's house, right, andyou feel safe because you know the neighbor.
You know, smiley, happy person, spends time with your kids,
your kids like them, whatever,the kids go over spend time at this
neighbor's house. You don't know what'shappening over there. You don't know what's
(29:14):
going on behind closed doors at yourneighbor's house. Because at the end of
the day, you can't really knowwhat a person is thinking, what a
person is feeling, you know whatI mean. You don't know what people's
intentions are. And so, likethe point I'm trying to make is that
there are all sorts of things thathappen, and of all of the statistics
(29:36):
that I read about this about withnot even just child sex trafficking, but
human trafficking in general, which islabor and all that sort of thing is
that these things happen without a theperson that it's happening to really knowing what's
going on until it's too late orit feels like it's too late, and
(29:56):
is because they are with someone orbeing guided by someone that they know and
trust with kids that could be anybody. And this movie kind of talks about
mainly the phenomenon of like kids beingsnatched out of the street or being ployed
by these like you know, likemodeling agencies like oh, your kid is
(30:19):
so beautiful, like they could bea model, they could be this,
and then having them come to thislocation and being like, okay, well
the kids are going to do this. There's a separate place where the parents
can sit, and then the kidsare snatched, you know, without the
parents knowing anything. That is somethingthat happens, But for the most part,
it's more along the lines of afamily doesn't have enough money to eat
(30:45):
or to feed their other kids,so they're like, we'll sell this kid
so that my other kids can eat, or a grandparent who is low on
cash or whatever and take videos oftheir grandchild and sells them. It's horrible
and it's disgusting and it's terrifying,and it's more terrifying thinking that it's people
(31:10):
that you know, people that youthink you can trust. But at the
same time, you need to knowthat that's the sort of thing that's happening.
You need to be able to actuallyask those questions of the people that
are around you, and you know, if something feels even the slightest bit
suspicious, if your kid tells yousomething that is the slightest bit suspicious,
(31:33):
to actually dig into that. AndI'm not saying making crazy accusations to people
that are in your family or whatever, but the reality is is that it's
somebody that you know. It's happeningin your own backyard. Is something that
I've heard too, And it's like, okay, but what's in your backyard?
What are you letting into your backyard? It's really hard to even get
(31:55):
your head around imagining, you know, something like that happening to like a
child that you love. It's hardto imagine that people who say that they're
responsible for children are doing that,you know, for children. Um yeah,
did you end up finding like organizationsthat are doing work in this area?
Like one of the things I'm curiousis like imagine imagine people like like
(32:19):
the guy in this movie, there'slots of organizations trying to stop it.
But I wonder what the barriers arethat they run into and why it's harder
for them to do their work thanwe might think. Well, like what's
mentioned in the movie, they're umlike he was working for the government in
the country that has the most amountof money and the most amount of funding,
(32:40):
and they couldn't even they couldn't sayyes to funding this project. His
boss, which is portrayed in themovie as this guy who like tells him
like, I can't, we can'tspend any more money on this rescue mission,
and is genuinely upset about that.Like he wants to do that,
(33:00):
he wants to be able to dothat, but he is restricted by what
his job requires of him. Youknow, he's not he's not the freaking
president, you know. But thereare like funding restrictions to a lot of
these missions and things like that.And as far as it goes for kids,
(33:21):
like it's definitely like a rescue missionsort of situation, but for you
know, adults that are stuck inthese situations and people that are stuck in
these labor situations, they need torecognize that that's what's happening to them.
(33:43):
They need to understand that that's what'sgoing on, and also need to be
the ones that make certain decisions toget themselves out of it too, because
some people who have been in itfor so long are under the impression then
that's the only thing that they cando to be able to survive, and
that's why they're stuck, you know. And so a lot of it is
(34:07):
being able to spread awareness to peopleabout these sorts of situations so that they
understand what it could look like orwhat it could mean when they are offered
certain things, what that could become, you know, so that they're aware.
A lot of the stories that Isaw A part of I was looking
(34:30):
at this website, the Polaris Project, which had this kind of like training
seminar sort of thing so that youcould be more aware of certain situations,
and I did it so I'm I'mfully trained. But a lot of it
came with listening to stories that peoplehad of situations that they were in,
(34:51):
and most of them were like,I didn't know that's what was happening until
it was too late. I didn'tknow that it was happening until I was
literally like, I don't know howto get out of this situation. I
don't have the money to get outof this situation. I don't have a
single person in my life I canreach out to because I've ostracized everyone around
(35:13):
me by being in this situation,by doing this, just having a difficult
time with that. So it's alsobeing attention to your friends, you know,
like there with this guy who iskind of taking control of their life
and saying like, oh, Idon't like your friends, I don't like
you know who you're talking to,and I want you to, you know,
(35:34):
do this thing with me, orI want to go and be a
part of this party or whatever,and you'll just be there with me.
Like situations that seem fishy, it'sgood to make yourself aware of what's happening.
So my biggest thing with this isawareness is the number one thing to
(35:55):
spread for this, Which is whythis movie is so important because it starts
the conversation, and it starts itin a way where if enough people are
able to go and see it andto and by doing that raising its availability
and popularity so that more people areaware of it and can go and see
(36:15):
it is why it's so important.Yeah, Tim Ballard the person that is
the main character as a real person, and he has an organization called Oh
you are Rescue dot Org and it'sgot it's the what is it Operation Underground
Railroad and it's got you know,places where you can donate to the cause,
(36:42):
you can read more about what they'redoing. It's got these shops where
you can buy some merch where likeI'm worrying right now this um we call
it sweatshirt and it's got like factsand figures in the back of it and
things like that. So it's likeone of those things where like you're walking
down the street, somebody might seeit and be like, yo, what's
(37:04):
that's what's shirt about? And that'sa way you can start the conversation of
being like, oh, I gotthis from this website which is about you
know, human trafficking. You shouldlook into it. And it's got you
know, all the proceeds go intolike aftercare for kids once they're saved and
things like that. And there's aplace where you can buy jewelry that are
(37:25):
made by people women specifically, whohave gotten out of those situations and needed
jobs and so this thing called theStarfish Project has it to where women who
come out of those situations, canyou take classes, learn about things that
they might be interested in doing.Be a part of making jewelry, be
(37:47):
a part of selling the jewelry,be a part of the like money business
side of things. So they canlearn it that way, and then they
can stay with that company and buildthemselves all the way up to the top,
or they can move on from thatexperience and have the knowledge and the
resume to be able to do otherthings, which is also a hard thing
(38:07):
and difficult to find how to havea life after being a part of something
like that. You know, I'mglad you brought up Polaris and Starfish,
because I think it'd be really interestingto learn more from them about their work
and sort of what's working. AndI've worked with all of these nonprofits and
(38:30):
it's incredible the people that work forthese organizations, how they spend their life
trying to help other people. Whatthey run into the way that our society
set up is so weird that oftentimeswe wouldn't even be able to fathom like
(38:51):
their challenges, you know. Like, so one of the things I love
that you're saying, is like awarenessis a big opportunity. I think maybe
one of the areas of awareness wecould follow up on is just awareness of
their work, but also like whattheir challenges are as they as they do
that work in ways that people cansupport them. Yeah, I you know,
(39:15):
I want to continue to UM talkabout this issue and bring it up
and you know, maybe UM speakto some of the people that are a
part of those projects and things likethat to be able to just kind of
see what, you know, whythey did that, why they started it,
(39:37):
why they put forth this astronomical amountof work and effort and care into
these sorts of things that at theend of the day, like specifically America,
but a lot of the world isso money driven, which is why
this is such a huge problem becauseit's you know, and I think and
(40:00):
the trailer they talked about how it'sit's making more money for you know,
this child sex trafficking is making moremoney than illegal arms dealing, so guns
and it's almost well when this moviewas made, which was a couple of
years ago, almost more profitable thandrugs, which is mind blowing, what
(40:30):
a horrifying thought, truly terrible,but with these nonprofit sort of organizations and
things like that. It's not aboutmoney, it's about a cause, which
is the most important, I think, the most important drive for doing things,
(40:51):
and it's something that I really admire, something that I want to do.
And it would be really cool tobe able to talk to people who
have done that and getting to seelike their process in doing so and what
motivated them to do it and whatkept them going, because it can be
a hard road to go down,especially with something like this where people don't
(41:12):
want to talk about it. Yeah, well let's make that happen. That
sounds like a great idea. Yeah, what would what's your takeaway in the
face of the movie, in theface of the hardship that you're talking about,
Like, how do you like whatwould your message be to people in
general? Well, so, oneof the lines, or I guess the
tagline of the movie was fight forthe light, silence the darkness. And
(41:38):
I think that life is complicated andnot always super black and white. It's
got such an array of choices andof things that are happening and complicated ways
to figure out how to solve thingsthat thinking of it as light and darkness
(42:05):
for certain things can be helpful whentalking to a group of people because most
people do just see things in blackand white, but being able to think
about certain things. There are lotsof different takes on things. But when
(42:25):
it comes to innocent children, comesto people who have found themselves in horrible
situations where they're being forced to dothings that they don't want to do or
being forced to be basically slaves,there is not really a lot of gray
(42:51):
with that. To me, it'smore alone the lines of this is wrong
and something needs to be done aboutit. And I think that the movie
makes the makes a good point ofwith every success, there's more to be
had, which is kind of howthe movie ends with this, like yes,
(43:13):
we found this girl, but whatabout all the others? And it's
like it's so profound, and Ithink that it just makes the impact of
there needs to be something done aboutit. One of the better, like
one of the great ways to doit is to be able to go and
(43:35):
see this movie and spread the awarenessthat you take from it, and also
like do research afterwards. I'm goingto put a bunch of resources and things
that I looked into and I readabout on the show notes page for this
episode so that people can see thatand kind of have an easier link to
it if they need it. Butjust being able to research and like look
(43:59):
into things more and being able toeducate yourself so that you can know that
you and the people around you willbe a little bit safer. That's great.
That's great. Well, unless there'sstuff related to that you want to
go deeper on. I'm curious ifthere's anything else on your mind this week.
(44:21):
I just wanted to also mention that. For the movie. So,
like I said before, the moviecomes out officially on fourth of July,
which is a difficult day to goand see a movie about something that people
don't like to talk about, butI think it's definitely worth it. And
(44:43):
they have this thing set up whereit's two million for two million, which
is basically they want two million peopleat least two million people to see this
movie because it's about the amount ofchildren that are currently in sex trafficking right
(45:07):
now is the estimate based off ofthe children that are missing, So two
million for two million being able toget that many people to see it and
to be aware, and they evenhave on the website where they have it
for a pay it forward kind ofthing, so that if you go on
(45:27):
there and you bought your tickets already, you can buy extra tickets for people
who might not have the money togo and see it. So that way
there is no reason, there's noexcuse to not go see it. It's
great. And right now I thinkon't to double check because I looked at
(45:47):
it earlier, so it might bedifferent now, which hopefully it is.
Right now, they're at five hundredand thirty three thousand, nine four tickets
sold for fourth of July. Wow, and some of those are people buying
(46:08):
it for themselves and other people buyingand then buying it for other people.
And yeah, they're almost to theirfirst milestone of six hundred thousand and so
yeah, and that's this is comingout the Friday before fourth of July,
(46:29):
so you guys have all weekend toget those tickets and figure it out.
Get out there, everybody. Yeah, and it's everywhere, Like I'm in
Utah, and Angel Studios, whichis the company that produced the movie,
is also in Utah, but it'scoming out everywhere in America. I'm not
(46:53):
sure about like europe seeing or Europeanaudiences or anything. I know. Also
that it's coming to Mexico. Ijust don't know if it's on the same
day or not, but I'll researchthat and put it in the show notes
if you want to look at that. This is really important and I feel
like you always ask me, Jason, like, what can people do for
(47:15):
me? Like, honestly, gosee this movie. That's what you can
do for me, because it willmake me feel at least a little bit
better about what's going on and what'shappening. Like I mentioned, it kind
of tears me up inside to knowthe real truth about things that are happening.
(47:36):
And I think that being able tospread awareness and know that the people
that I'm talking to on a weeklybasis are listening and are like that I'm
affecting change in my own way,that would really help me to know.
(47:58):
So please go see it. Tellme that you went to see it.
I love that. Yeah. Well, hopefully hopefully everyone does do that,
and maybe they can let us knowthat they've done it. And I guess
we always want to make sure theyknow how to follow along, so give
people a sense of that. Yeah. So, like I mentioned, the
(48:22):
show notes page that's on the dashmarea dasac dot com where it has links
to all of the other know housof how to get in contact with me.
There's all of our social media pagesis on there. Our Patreon is
on there, so you can getextra content and help, you know,
(48:42):
make the pod. Continue to makethe podcast possible. Shout out to Darsana
for continue to be a Patreon member. And also on there is blog postings
that I do. I try toevery week, but it's not been every
week, so just forgive that theycome out when they come out. But
(49:07):
um, but yeah, stay,I stay very consistent on everything else.
So any information that you want tosee, if you want to check out
episodes before this and you've just heardthis episode and not the other ones,
there's show pages show notes pages forthose two with resources that you can use.
(49:29):
And like I said, everything thatI talked about in this episode will
be on that show notes page foryou to be able to click and see
the website. Perfect And because theepisode is not going to come out today
and the show notes page and allthe links and everything, Jason, I'll
send you the link personally so youcan go buy your ticket. Awesome.
(49:52):
Well, now that you've asked allof us to go see it, on
first in line. Absolutely right.Any final thoughts as we run out of
time or do you want to takeus home? I think it's time to
go home. I really appreciate everybodythat's listening and has been here listening,
(50:15):
and I just hope that everybody hasa good week, and I hope that
you go and see the movie andtell me about it. I'll see you
guys next week and you don't haveto go home. But you can't stay
here. Get out of here.I'm just kidding. Please come back here.
I love you all, We loveyou all right. Bye bye,
(51:00):
m M. I love you.I love you too, Talk to you
later, talk to you later.Bye yeah bye mm hmmm hm
M hmm, let's do it readyready all right? Um? Freezer cookies.
I like eating like hard cookies,not soft cookies. I'm weird.
That is super weird. M totally. I like thin mince from the freezer.
See, these are thin mint cookies. So they're like chocolate cookies with
(00:23):
melted thin mince on top of it, and they're tasty and they're really really
delicious when they're frozen. I thinkthat wraps everything up. You want to
try that one again? Yeah?Um, hi, everybody, Welcome to
(01:27):
the Mariah Effect Podcast. I'm Mariahand I'm Jason, and here we are
this week. How's everybody feeling?I'm good? Are you asking me?
I'm asking you. I'm asking theaudience like I know that they can't talk
back to me, but like Inever really asked, like, how are
you doing you guys? How areyou feeling this week? Well? I
(01:52):
wonder know how you're feeling this week? Me. I am like a little
like down today, just kind oflike trying to come off of like this
epic camping trip that I took thisweekend. Epic camping trip. Yeah,
I went, Where'd you go?I went? So? Um, there's
(02:15):
I think it's a reservoir. Everybodykept saying like reservoir and lake like interchangeably,
but I don't. I think it'sa reservoir. But there's like Strawberry
Reservoir, which is like um byHebrew, which if you don't know Utah,
that's okay. You probably know ParkCity, which is like where all
the lake famous people live in Utah, like super Richie Rich is like kind
(02:39):
of past Hebrew. But if yougo the other way, then that's where
we went camping was over by aStrawberry reservoir, which we went with Mallory's
older sister Erica and her family andI guess like her partner Fred his like
whole family does this whole like likeonce a year or every ten years where
(03:05):
they go camping for like ten tofourteen days, just like completely off the
grid, and it's like so organizedand it's so big, and it was
just so cool, Like they werereally nice and really awesome. We like
they had everything set up where theymade like breakfast and dinner for everybody and
(03:27):
we just had to figure out lunch. I went in a camper, which
I think I've been in a camperonce or twice when I was a kid,
but I don't really remember that well. But being a camper is so
much better than being astronomically, likeI enjoy camping, I do, but
like something about having a fridge isjust like super nice. Yeah, I
(03:54):
think I'm more like a glamper thana camper. Yeah, that's exactly what
it was, was lamping. Itfelt so nice and I like, for
most of the trip I didn't likewear makeup or anything, but the one
day that I put on makeup,I was like, thank God, I'm
not doing this in a hot tentwith no mirror. Like, but yeah,
(04:16):
it was so fun and like gettingto spend time with like family,
like my brother Kyle and Sarah,his wife, went to and so we
were just all together. I didsome henna and stuff for Fred and that
was really fun because he's never donethat before. And all these little kids
(04:40):
came up and we did these likewe had these like temporary tattoo pens that
we like drew with stencils on thesekids and it goes away and like I
don't even know, like twelve hours, like I did one and it was
gone before I even like really gotto appreciate. It was on my skin,
but it was like cute. Theywere just coming over and putting like
(05:01):
a thousand different stencils on them andlike drawing it on and so they were
like these like tatted up kids.It was very cute. But yeah,
it was so fun. I'm soglad you got out of the house.
You know, you've had to likebe indoors so much lately. That's awesome.
Yeah, it was really nice Ispent It was difficult though, because
(05:23):
like there were so many activities andthings that were going on that I just
did not have. I didn't havethe energy to like walk to those like
activities that were going on, letalone like participate in the activities because a
lot of it, like it's outdoors, you know, like doing like cool
like sports and stuff together or likegoing on a hike and things like that
(05:47):
is just like super fun stuff thatI just am missing out on just because
I am feeling so sick. ButI am happy that I did go.
Oh because it was nice to spendtime with family, like I said,
and also really cool to like meetall these fun, awesome people that do
(06:08):
this all the time. Yeah,that's incredible. Yeah, did you was
it like euphoric being in nature afterso much time inside. Yeah, I
really enjoyed like being able to getsunshine. Although I think I got too
much sunshine. You can't really see, but like I had, like I
(06:28):
still do. I can feel it, like fully, the red lupus butterfly
on my face and it's like allover my shoulders. And I had this
like sports brawl that I wore mostof the time that has like these fun
straps, so my back is likegot these white beijie lines in the red.
It's very funny. X marks thespot. Yeah, that's wildly sent
(06:55):
me some beautiful photos. I you'rea good photographer. Yeah. We passed
this waterfall that was so awesome.I just like, you know, I
live in Utah where there's like mountainson either side of me, like either
side of the freeway that you drivealong, and it's so crazy beautiful that
(07:16):
sometimes it's like I don't know,have you Have you seen the Simpsons movie?
No, No, there's a scenein the Simpsons movie where they go
to Alaska and there's like a theyhad like a brochure or like a picture
or something where like on a mapor something of Alaska and it's this beautiful
(07:36):
picturesque view, and it kind oflike goes across the windshield, and so
they have to like grab it offthe windshield, and so somebody grabs it,
but then they like get confused andthey're like, oh, nobody grabbed
it yet, and they go tograb it again, but they like there's
nothing there, and it's just whatthey're seeing, you know. It's like
seeing a beautiful picture of somewhere that'sreally detailed, really awesome, but it's
(08:01):
like what it actually looks like,you know, no editing, no filters,
whatever, Like that's just what itlooks like. And that's what the
mountains here look like all the time, like just beautiful, like snow caps
and like just so close. It'slike right there. You know, we're
from Colorado. You're not supposed tosay this, but I think Utah is
(08:24):
as pretty, if not prettier.What do you think? I think it
is maybe prettier. But the onlyreason I say that is because I grew
up in Aurora, Colorado, whichwas like forever away from the mountains.
It felt like, at least likewhen you're looking, it's like, okay,
(08:46):
those things over there in the distance, those are the mountains, and
so that's west, Like, that'swhat you grow up within Aurora, Colorado.
But if you grew up like closerto the mountains, I'm sure that
it's like, Oh, Utah's nothingon the beauty of the Purple Colorado Mountains.
You know, I'm glad you broughtup Aurora, Colorado. You know,
(09:07):
since you're doing this podcast and puttingyourself out in the world. You
know some people that we now getto see on television that are from Aurora.
Some people in television. Bowen Yang, who's on Saturday Ight Live.
Oh really, I didn't know thathe went to Smokey Hill. Whoa you
(09:28):
know who else did? Who areyou seeing the TV show Billions? Billions?
No? Okay, well there's acomedian named Dan Soder who also went
to Smokey Hill High School. It'sfrom Aurora. That's crazy. I did
not go to Smoky Hill. Youdid Overland, right, I went to
Overland. I went to Overland wherewe were kind of the underdogs in a
(09:50):
lot of ways comparatively to the othercherk Here the other Cherry Creek schools.
Did you say the underdogs? Yeah, because it was like the school where
like the school that I went toOverland was like prime place for like diversity,
(10:15):
Like that was the biggest thing aboutOverland is that was so diversified,
which meant that a lot of whichto a lot of other schools meant that
we were ghetto and so like wedidn't really have like a stadium, like
a sports place for people to play. Like we got the I st Building,
(10:37):
which was which was like a scienceand technology kind of situation that we
kind of shared with the middle schoolthat's right there. But other than that,
like Overland was kind of viewed aslike super ghetto. I don't know
what it's like now, but itwas viewed as really ghetto like the other
schools like Smoky Hill and Cherry Creek, which is where we went for like
(10:58):
literally all of our games. Almostlike yeah, just had like kind of
a negative view and anytime I wentto those other schools, it was like,
oh, white, sea of white. You probably were like more.
You're like you got to La andyou're like, Okay, finally like a
(11:18):
normal group of people. Yeah,absolutely, like at least a normal like
a normal sample of what the wholeworld is really like rather than like just
some different places. Although I willsay there's some parts of la that are
very not diverse, and it's usuallylike because of money or whatever. But
(11:48):
you mean like you're bel Air instacartadventure. Yes, absolutely, And it's
crazy because you know, the FreshPrince of bel Air was in the nineties
where it was like, whoa thisblack family that lives Beller, that's so
crazy, and today it's like kindof similar. It's like the same.
You're so funny. You you go. You always do entertainment references like the
(12:09):
Fresh Prince of Bella Air. Firstthing. It's like, but I can't
believe you haven't seen Billions listen,never heard of it? Wow, I
can't wait to see if you likeit. I well, And then I'm
thinking about entertainment. How did yousurvive camping? You didn't watch TV?
You didn't you didn't read books?What? It was really hard? So
(12:30):
I did read books because I havea book that I'm reading with my friend
Mallory right now that's like a murdermystery book that I was like, oh,
I can't, I can't like stepaway completely from that. And I
had another book I was reading onmy phone, which I downloaded on my
phone so I could read, sotechnically I wasn't completely unplugged, but I
(12:54):
was away from Internet for most ofthe time and being able to watch TV
show and things like that, whichI love. But it was nice to
take that time to just be present, to be in the moment, you
know, because I used to doall that stuff to pretend like I wasn't
around the people that I was,around, the situations that I was around,
(13:18):
the stuff that was going on,And now I just do it because
I've done it my whole life.But like, being able to unplug made
me realize, like it's not thesame as it used to be. You
know. I'm surrounded by people thatare my family because they've chosen to be
my family, and I've chosen themto be my family, and they are
(13:43):
just so kind and sweet and funny, and like, being able to not
be on our phones for that timewas so nice to be able to like
really talk to each other, eventhough we live in the same house,
most of us, not with Erica, but most of us, like,
I don't know, I think wejust take that for granted sometimes. So
(14:03):
it was nice to be on thetrip, but it was really nice to
come home. I bet, Ibet I was thinking about you with Um,
the way that you talk about whyyou went into books and entertainment and
you know do you you just saidto sort of withdraw from you know what
(14:24):
you're in. But um, whyif you make up a story about like
if part of if that chapter ofyour life was preparing you for a future
part of your life? Like whatdo you tell yourself? What do I
tell myself? Yeah? So youknow, why might you have grown up
(14:46):
in a world where you immerse yourselfin books and literature and everything. I
think that, like, it's it'sdifficult to ask the question of like why
because that gets into all this oflike I don't know. Sometimes that makes
it turn into like why me,you know, of like why did did
(15:07):
these things have to happen to me? Why did I get cancer? You
know which I use a funny voicebecause I feel like it's it's sometimes silly
when I say those things or Ilook back on when I thought those things,
but it's genuine like feelings and emotions. But I think that there are
a lot of things that happen tome in my life, are things that
(15:30):
suck and don't really have a reason, but I give them a reason so
that I can move forward. Sothat I can push myself to be not
a victim, if that makes sense. So I think of it as like
(15:50):
this, I don't know why thishappened, but it did happen, and
that can give me a way toconnect to other people who it's happening to
you, or other people of whoit's like who are going through that or
have gone through that and are stillstruggling with something that I've already overcome.
(16:11):
If that makes sense, Yeah,that it makes total sense. Well,
you're talking about like meaning making right, Like did you ever read Man Search
for Meaning? Since you're such areader, I did. What do you
think about that? I thought itwas really profound. I thought it had
so many good quotable moments. Ohyeah, I thought his observation that you
(16:37):
know, we we we make meaningout of certain circumstances. We have stimulus
and then we have response. Youknow, you were describing like you make
meaning out of the things that havehappened to you. But so how do
you how are Like my question wasreally aimed at how are you making meaning?
What now? Like, so youbecame a reader, you became a
(17:00):
your tainment consumer, you really fellin love with story, Like Yeah,
why I think that there's something aboutstories that give us a chance to accept
things that are happening to us orcome to terms with what are things that
are happening with us. Because wecan see or we can relate to characters
(17:23):
or people who are writing about orshowing us in the form of media and
shows and things like that, we'reable to kind of view our situation in
a different light too. Sometimes youcan watch something and it will give you
(17:47):
emotions that you were keeping buried becauseyou didn't want to face what's been happening
with you, or you didn't wantto confront it or whatever, and you
watch this piece of media or youread this book, and it creates this
like connection with yourself and with thischaracter or whatever that is eternal. Like
(18:08):
there's My favorite book is called aSpeak, which is about this girl in
high school who goes through a sexualassault. And when I read that book,
it was almost right after something similarhad happened to me, and it
(18:29):
was really it gave me the chanceto be like not so embarrassed, because
that's what I felt, was embarrassmentthat it happened to me because of whatever
reason that I had, And itgave me the chance to actually kind of
try and process what happened and tryand go through like my emotions about what
(18:51):
happened. And it took a longtime for me to, you know,
get to where I am now withit. That's something that I enjoyed about
books is sometimes I used it asa way to think about something else,
think about somebody else, think abouta different world, a different problem,
And sometimes I used it as away to think about my own problems.
(19:12):
And I think that's the wonderful thingabout it is it can be used as
a distraction, but it can alsobe used as a tool. Yeah.
Yeah, well, I mean speakingof stories as a tool. I've noticed
you like to tell stories and thenlike bring people along in why you're telling
(19:33):
them that story. But you sentme this video a link to a movie
that you saw recently. Yeah,what was it called? The Sound of
Freedom? The Sound of Freedom?Okay, yeah, it was a couple
of weeks ago. It was likeearly June. I would say that mom,
(19:55):
who's been on the episode, who'sbeen on an episode? Patty Merrill,
she works with with Angels Studios,and so she was going, I
think her and a couple other peoplewent to go see a movie the week
before and I couldn't go because ofchemo or something, and so she invited
me. She was like, itwas a really good movie, but there's
(20:15):
this other movie that I really wantto see and I would love for you
to come with us. And Iwas like, yeah, like if I
can, like if I'm feeling upto it, whatever, like sure,
and she just kind of told meabout it. I think we maybe watched
the trailer, but I was likefalling asleep or something because of being tired,
(20:37):
and so I all I knew aboutit was that it was about human
trafficking. That's all I remembered fromwatching the trailer or whatever, was that
it was about human trafficking. Andso I was like, yeah, I'll
go and see this movie with you. And so we went and it was
kind of like everybody. It waslike everybody in the house besides basically Dad,
who was sick, but we allgo to see it and it was
(21:00):
incredible and it was a previewing.The movie comes out on the fourth of
July, and we saw it acouple of weeks ago, so way before,
and it was just so it wassuch good storytelling because it was about
(21:22):
this real event that happened with thisreal person who exists, and it was
just so perfectly crafted into this movie. This way for people to consume this
information that isn't the same as watching, you know, a news story about
it or an art or reading anarticle about it. Being able to see
(21:45):
it and be put into the positionof this man, this u the hero
of the movie. It's just it'sa totally different experience and it really gives
you a good grasp of what theheck is really going on. So what
can you tell me a little bitabout the plot? Yeah, so this
(22:10):
movie is about um Tim Ballard,who was at the time of the start
of the movie was working for HomelandSecurity and was working at finding pedophiles basically,
who are you know, selling childrenpornography or you know, consuming it
(22:33):
or whatever. And through this processhe ends up he like has this conversation
with a co worker who's kind oflike new, kind of new on it,
and he's been doing it for likea decade or something, and he's
kind of like, you know,just because we caught this guy, doesn't
it Like it doesn't make me feelany better, you know what I mean,
Like, we're not getting these kids, We're not saving kids, and
(22:59):
the you know, Tim is kindof like, we are making a difference,
but I feel you, you know, And so it just kind of
shows his like him how serious hislife was because he was so consumed by
his job that it kind of tookaway from his moments with his family,
where he like was very withdrawn andjust like thinking about all these horrible things
(23:23):
that he has to witness he hasto expose himself to in order to do
his job. And then there's thisopportunity to actually save a kid that comes
up, and he jumps at it. He takes he takes control to be
able to save this kid, savesthis kid, and he's talking with this
(23:44):
kid and realizes that this kid wasa part of a group of kids that
were taken and this kid's sister isstill out there, is still stuck in
this situation, and he's like hemakes this kid is basically like please save
my sister, Like you need tosave my sister. And he's like,
(24:06):
I'm going to save your sister.Like it's almost like a they kind of
take it onto this like religious thingwhere he like looks inside of himself and
he's like I have to save her, like I know I can. And
it takes him on this international journeywhere he goes and he tries to recruit
other people to this cause he hasto quit his job because the government can't
(24:29):
fund this expense and looking for thisone girl. And he goes through all
these trials and his wife is theentire time telling him, like, I
support you, like at this point, this is like my daughter that we're
looking for because of how passionate youare about this and how important this is
to you, and she supports him, and like he goes on this adventure.
(24:53):
He goes into the like thick ofthis like horrible human track picking like
labor trafficking, sex trafficking situation that'sin the middle of nowhere, and it's
just him, Like it's not asif he has this team of people that
are going in to the forest withhim. It's kind of just him on
(25:14):
his own. And he goes andhe finds the girl and he gets her,
and there's so many other parts ofthe story, but that's, you
know, the main plot of thestory, and it's just from his like
almost like stubbornness that he's gonna dothis, that he's gonna, you know,
save this girl. And just beingable to see all of the hoops
(25:40):
that he has to kind of jumpthrough to be able to do this,
and to get through all these sortsof obstacles, and finding out how many
people were one way, like tothe public and in behind the scenes,
are supporting this horrible thing. Likethe reality of that is astonishing and heart
(26:04):
wrenching and provocative, and I thinkthat everybody needs to see it. Everybody
needs to see this movie because it'sa real life story and it's a real
life issue, and people don't wantto talk about it because it's something that
(26:26):
is taboo. It's something that nobodywants to talk about because it's dark and
it's twisted, and it's horrible andit's awful. And everybody wants to think
about the happy things and the goodthings happening in life, and they want
to focus on the good, butthere are so many people who are stuck
(26:47):
in this darkness that if we don'tlike shine a light on it, they're
going to be stuck there forever.What do you think shining a light on
it looks like? Ultimately, Ithink it's spreading awareness, and like there
are so many things that because Idid all of this research afterwards because I
(27:08):
knew I wanted to talk about iton the podcast, and also because you
know, I'm the type of personthat has so much compassion and care and
love that I've spent so much ofmy life not watching the news, not
wanting to know about things that arehappening right now that are horrible. Like
(27:32):
I hear about a shooting and I'mlike, I don't want to read about
everything that's happening with that shooting,or with you know, how many people
have died, or with what's goingon with that, because it's something that
in a lot of ways, fora lot of my life felt like this
hopeless thing, that this is justgoing to keep happening and there's nothing I
can do about it, and Idon't want to look at it because it
(27:56):
makes me sad, it makes mescared, it makes it hurts, you
know. But I think that inthe last couple of years, I've come
to realize and recognize that the reasonthese things keep happening and the issues keep
happening is because of that very thing. Nobody wants to look, nobody wants
to see it, and so it'sable to continue and to grow and become
(28:22):
this horrible thing that because nobody's payingattention to it, thrives, if that
makes sense. And so I thinkbeing able to spread awareness about what's going
on and being able to think about, you know, what you are doing
or what is happening around you.Like let's say you're a parent and you
(28:52):
have your kids. You have yourkids go and spend time at their at
the neighbor's house, right, andyou feel safe because you know the neighbor.
You know, smiley, happy person, spends time with your kids,
your kids like them, whatever,the kids go over spend time at this
neighbor's house. You don't know what'shappening over there. You don't know what's
(29:14):
going on behind closed doors at yourneighbor's house. Because at the end of
the day, you can't really knowwhat a person is thinking, what a
person is feeling, you know whatI mean. You don't know what people's
intentions are. And so, likethe point I'm trying to make is that
there are all sorts of things thathappen, and of all of the statistics
(29:36):
that I read about this about withnot even just child sex trafficking, but
human trafficking in general, which islabor and all that sort of thing is
that these things happen without a theperson that it's happening to really knowing what's
going on until it's too late orit feels like it's too late, and
(29:56):
is because they are with someone orbeing guided by someone that they know and
trust with kids that could be anybody. And this movie kind of talks about
mainly the phenomenon of like kids beingsnatched out of the street or being ployed
by these like you know, likemodeling agencies like oh, your kid is
(30:19):
so beautiful, like they could bea model, they could be this,
and then having them come to thislocation and being like, okay, well
the kids are going to do this. There's a separate place where the parents
can sit, and then the kidsare snatched, you know, without the
parents knowing anything. That is somethingthat happens, But for the most part,
it's more along the lines of afamily doesn't have enough money to eat
(30:45):
or to feed their other kids,so they're like, we'll sell this kid
so that my other kids can eat, or a grandparent who is low on
cash or whatever and take videos oftheir grandchild and sells them. It's horrible
and it's disgusting and it's terrifying,and it's more terrifying thinking that it's people
(31:10):
that you know, people that youthink you can trust. But at the
same time, you need to knowthat that's the sort of thing that's happening.
You need to be able to actuallyask those questions of the people that
are around you, and you know, if something feels even the slightest bit
suspicious, if your kid tells yousomething that is the slightest bit suspicious,
(31:33):
to actually dig into that. AndI'm not saying making crazy accusations to people
that are in your family or whatever, but the reality is is that it's
somebody that you know. It's happeningin your own backyard. Is something that
I've heard too, And it's like, okay, but what's in your backyard?
What are you letting into your backyard? It's really hard to even get
(31:55):
your head around imagining, you know, something like that happening to like a
child that you love. It's hardto imagine that people who say that they're
responsible for children are doing that,you know, for children. Um yeah,
did you end up finding like organizationsthat are doing work in this area?
Like one of the things I'm curiousis like imagine imagine people like like
(32:19):
the guy in this movie, there'slots of organizations trying to stop it.
But I wonder what the barriers arethat they run into and why it's harder
for them to do their work thanwe might think. Well, like what's
mentioned in the movie, they're umlike he was working for the government in
the country that has the most amountof money and the most amount of funding,
(32:40):
and they couldn't even they couldn't sayyes to funding this project. His
boss, which is portrayed in themovie as this guy who like tells him
like, I can't, we can'tspend any more money on this rescue mission,
and is genuinely upset about that.Like he wants to do that,
(33:00):
he wants to be able to dothat, but he is restricted by what
his job requires of him. Youknow, he's not he's not the freaking
president, you know. But thereare like funding restrictions to a lot of
these missions and things like that.And as far as it goes for kids,
(33:21):
like it's definitely like a rescue missionsort of situation, but for you
know, adults that are stuck inthese situations and people that are stuck in
these labor situations, they need torecognize that that's what's happening to them.
(33:43):
They need to understand that that's what'sgoing on, and also need to be
the ones that make certain decisions toget themselves out of it too, because
some people who have been in itfor so long are under the impression then
that's the only thing that they cando to be able to survive, and
that's why they're stuck, you know. And so a lot of it is
(34:07):
being able to spread awareness to peopleabout these sorts of situations so that they
understand what it could look like orwhat it could mean when they are offered
certain things, what that could become, you know, so that they're aware.
A lot of the stories that Isaw A part of I was looking
(34:30):
at this website, the Polaris Project, which had this kind of like training
seminar sort of thing so that youcould be more aware of certain situations,
and I did it so I'm I'mfully trained. But a lot of it
came with listening to stories that peoplehad of situations that they were in,
(34:51):
and most of them were like,I didn't know that's what was happening until
it was too late. I didn'tknow that it was happening until I was
literally like, I don't know howto get out of this situation. I
don't have the money to get outof this situation. I don't have a
single person in my life I canreach out to because I've ostracized everyone around
(35:13):
me by being in this situation,by doing this, just having a difficult
time with that. So it's alsobeing attention to your friends, you know,
like there with this guy who iskind of taking control of their life
and saying like, oh, Idon't like your friends, I don't like
you know who you're talking to,and I want you to, you know,
(35:34):
do this thing with me, orI want to go and be a
part of this party or whatever,and you'll just be there with me.
Like situations that seem fishy, it'sgood to make yourself aware of what's happening.
So my biggest thing with this isawareness is the number one thing to
(35:55):
spread for this, Which is whythis movie is so important because it starts
the conversation, and it starts itin a way where if enough people are
able to go and see it andto and by doing that raising its availability
and popularity so that more people areaware of it and can go and see
(36:15):
it is why it's so important.Yeah, Tim Ballard the person that is
the main character as a real person, and he has an organization called Oh
you are Rescue dot Org and it'sgot it's the what is it Operation Underground
Railroad and it's got you know,places where you can donate to the cause,
(36:42):
you can read more about what they'redoing. It's got these shops where
you can buy some merch where likeI'm worrying right now this um we call
it sweatshirt and it's got like factsand figures in the back of it and
things like that. So it's likeone of those things where like you're walking
down the street, somebody might seeit and be like, yo, what's
(37:04):
that's what's shirt about? And that'sa way you can start the conversation of
being like, oh, I gotthis from this website which is about you
know, human trafficking. You shouldlook into it. And it's got you
know, all the proceeds go intolike aftercare for kids once they're saved and
things like that. And there's aplace where you can buy jewelry that are
(37:25):
made by people women specifically, whohave gotten out of those situations and needed
jobs and so this thing called theStarfish Project has it to where women who
come out of those situations, canyou take classes, learn about things that
they might be interested in doing.Be a part of making jewelry, be
(37:47):
a part of selling the jewelry,be a part of the like money business
side of things. So they canlearn it that way, and then they
can stay with that company and buildthemselves all the way up to the top,
or they can move on from thatexperience and have the knowledge and the
resume to be able to do otherthings, which is also a hard thing
(38:07):
and difficult to find how to havea life after being a part of something
like that. You know, I'mglad you brought up Polaris and Starfish,
because I think it'd be really interestingto learn more from them about their work
and sort of what's working. AndI've worked with all of these nonprofits and
(38:30):
it's incredible the people that work forthese organizations, how they spend their life
trying to help other people. Whatthey run into the way that our society
set up is so weird that oftentimeswe wouldn't even be able to fathom like
(38:51):
their challenges, you know. Like, so one of the things I love
that you're saying, is like awarenessis a big opportunity. I think maybe
one of the areas of awareness wecould follow up on is just awareness of
their work, but also like whattheir challenges are as they as they do
that work in ways that people cansupport them. Yeah, I you know,
(39:15):
I want to continue to UM talkabout this issue and bring it up
and you know, maybe UM speakto some of the people that are a
part of those projects and things likethat to be able to just kind of
see what, you know, whythey did that, why they started it,
(39:37):
why they put forth this astronomical amountof work and effort and care into
these sorts of things that at theend of the day, like specifically America,
but a lot of the world isso money driven, which is why
this is such a huge problem becauseit's you know, and I think and
(40:00):
the trailer they talked about how it'sit's making more money for you know,
this child sex trafficking is making moremoney than illegal arms dealing, so guns
and it's almost well when this moviewas made, which was a couple of
years ago, almost more profitable thandrugs, which is mind blowing, what
(40:30):
a horrifying thought, truly terrible,but with these nonprofit sort of organizations and
things like that. It's not aboutmoney, it's about a cause, which
is the most important, I think, the most important drive for doing things,
(40:51):
and it's something that I really admire, something that I want to do.
And it would be really cool tobe able to talk to people who
have done that and getting to seelike their process in doing so and what
motivated them to do it and whatkept them going, because it can be
a hard road to go down,especially with something like this where people don't
(41:12):
want to talk about it. Yeah, well let's make that happen. That
sounds like a great idea. Yeah, what would what's your takeaway in the
face of the movie, in theface of the hardship that you're talking about,
Like, how do you like whatwould your message be to people in
general? Well, so, oneof the lines, or I guess the
tagline of the movie was fight forthe light, silence the darkness. And
(41:38):
I think that life is complicated andnot always super black and white. It's
got such an array of choices andof things that are happening and complicated ways
to figure out how to solve thingsthat thinking of it as light and darkness
(42:05):
for certain things can be helpful whentalking to a group of people because most
people do just see things in blackand white, but being able to think
about certain things. There are lotsof different takes on things. But when
(42:25):
it comes to innocent children, comesto people who have found themselves in horrible
situations where they're being forced to dothings that they don't want to do or
being forced to be basically slaves,there is not really a lot of gray
(42:51):
with that. To me, it'smore alone the lines of this is wrong
and something needs to be done aboutit. And I think that the movie
makes the makes a good point ofwith every success, there's more to be
had, which is kind of howthe movie ends with this, like yes,
(43:13):
we found this girl, but whatabout all the others? And it's
like it's so profound, and Ithink that it just makes the impact of
there needs to be something done aboutit. One of the better, like
one of the great ways to doit is to be able to go and
(43:35):
see this movie and spread the awarenessthat you take from it, and also
like do research afterwards. I'm goingto put a bunch of resources and things
that I looked into and I readabout on the show notes page for this
episode so that people can see thatand kind of have an easier link to
it if they need it. Butjust being able to research and like look
(43:59):
into things more and being able toeducate yourself so that you can know that
you and the people around you willbe a little bit safer. That's great.
That's great. Well, unless there'sstuff related to that you want to
go deeper on. I'm curious ifthere's anything else on your mind this week.
(44:21):
I just wanted to also mention that. For the movie. So,
like I said before, the moviecomes out officially on fourth of July,
which is a difficult day to goand see a movie about something that people
don't like to talk about, butI think it's definitely worth it. And
(44:43):
they have this thing set up whereit's two million for two million, which
is basically they want two million peopleat least two million people to see this
movie because it's about the amount ofchildren that are currently in sex trafficking right
(45:07):
now is the estimate based off ofthe children that are missing, So two
million for two million being able toget that many people to see it and
to be aware, and they evenhave on the website where they have it
for a pay it forward kind ofthing, so that if you go on
(45:27):
there and you bought your tickets already, you can buy extra tickets for people
who might not have the money togo and see it. So that way
there is no reason, there's noexcuse to not go see it. It's
great. And right now I thinkon't to double check because I looked at
(45:47):
it earlier, so it might bedifferent now, which hopefully it is.
Right now, they're at five hundredand thirty three thousand, nine four tickets
sold for fourth of July. Wow, and some of those are people buying
(46:08):
it for themselves and other people buyingand then buying it for other people.
And yeah, they're almost to theirfirst milestone of six hundred thousand and so
yeah, and that's this is comingout the Friday before fourth of July,
(46:29):
so you guys have all weekend toget those tickets and figure it out.
Get out there, everybody. Yeah, and it's everywhere, Like I'm in
Utah, and Angel Studios, whichis the company that produced the movie,
is also in Utah, but it'scoming out everywhere in America. I'm not
(46:53):
sure about like europe seeing or Europeanaudiences or anything. I know. Also
that it's coming to Mexico. Ijust don't know if it's on the same
day or not, but I'll researchthat and put it in the show notes
if you want to look at that. This is really important and I feel
like you always ask me, Jason, like, what can people do for
(47:15):
me? Like, honestly, gosee this movie. That's what you can
do for me, because it willmake me feel at least a little bit
better about what's going on and what'shappening. Like I mentioned, it kind
of tears me up inside to knowthe real truth about things that are happening.
(47:36):
And I think that being able tospread awareness and know that the people
that I'm talking to on a weeklybasis are listening and are like that I'm
affecting change in my own way,that would really help me to know.
(47:58):
So please go see it. Tellme that you went to see it.
I love that. Yeah. Well, hopefully hopefully everyone does do that,
and maybe they can let us knowthat they've done it. And I guess
we always want to make sure theyknow how to follow along, so give
people a sense of that. Yeah. So, like I mentioned, the
(48:22):
show notes page that's on the dashmarea dasac dot com where it has links
to all of the other know housof how to get in contact with me.
There's all of our social media pagesis on there. Our Patreon is
on there, so you can getextra content and help, you know,
(48:42):
make the pod. Continue to makethe podcast possible. Shout out to Darsana
for continue to be a Patreon member. And also on there is blog postings
that I do. I try toevery week, but it's not been every
week, so just forgive that theycome out when they come out. But
(49:07):
um, but yeah, stay,I stay very consistent on everything else.
So any information that you want tosee, if you want to check out
episodes before this and you've just heardthis episode and not the other ones,
there's show pages show notes pages forthose two with resources that you can use.
(49:29):
And like I said, everything thatI talked about in this episode will
be on that show notes page foryou to be able to click and see
the website. Perfect And because theepisode is not going to come out today
and the show notes page and allthe links and everything, Jason, I'll
send you the link personally so youcan go buy your ticket. Awesome.
(49:52):
Well, now that you've asked allof us to go see it, on
first in line. Absolutely right.Any final thoughts as we run out of
time or do you want to takeus home? I think it's time to
go home. I really appreciate everybodythat's listening and has been here listening,
(50:15):
and I just hope that everybody hasa good week, and I hope that
you go and see the movie andtell me about it. I'll see you
guys next week and you don't haveto go home. But you can't stay
here. Get out of here.I'm just kidding. Please come back here.
I love you all, We loveyou all right. Bye bye,
(51:00):
m M. I love you.I love you too, Talk to you
later, talk to you later.Bye yeah bye mm hmmm hm
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