Angela Shelton
Today, as I was checking my Twitter Stream, I caught a tweet from Angela Shelton (@angelashelton), about reuniting some angels.
You may recall that a while back I recommended Angela, a groundbreaking filmmaker and storyteller, and her excellent documentary Searching for Angela Shelton (aff. link)
I have been a big fan of Angela’s for quite a while…first, through the Safeside Superchick video (aff. link)
Here is a person who is actively seeking to discover herself through interaction and engagement,and she’s confronting big problems, head-on. I can think of few issues more important than confronting child sexual abuse and child trafficking, yet they are not often discussed so openly and in such powerful and personal ways. The stigma associated with these issues is so often placed on the victims, and discussing the prevalence of the issues is unsettling and often avoided. As a society, we know about it, we are troubled by it, and we want it to stop. But it’s easy to sweep aside, as something that happens to “other people,” and to excuse ourselves from the discussion because we “don’t know anything about it,” or that we “can’t imagine what it’s like” to go through it.
Those excuses are blown to smithereens by people like Angela Shelton. She easily fits the mold of the wholesome, cute girl next door, who’s funny and good at cheering people up. It’s easy to relate to her. So when she exposed the dark secrets of her family, and starkly demonstrated how commonplace sexual abuse is, by finding others all across the nation, with the same name and this common experience, she hit a raw nerve, and personalized the issue. Simply put, you won’t be able to brush it aside as something that happens to “other people.” Angela Shelton is clearly “one of us.”
And though she laments at times that she really wants to do more comedy, she’s accepted the possibility that some part of her purpose in life is to bring these issues into the light of day, and to bring together survivors of sexual abuse and human trafficking, and empower them to fight together for better education and efforts to combat these crimes. Angela posted a video on her blog about her efforts to fund an “Army of Angels” conference this fall in Asheville, NC. She shared a very powerful story of two survivors she brought together through social media, who will be at the conference. And she is seeking sponsors for this worthwhile event.
Please visit the blog post and make a donation.