Life Not So Precious

"Precious" is a film about a Harlem teenager in the 1980s suffering through a life that is far from precious. This film inspires so much thought, it's almost impossible to choose a topic to discuss. "Precious" touches on the failures of our education system, obesity, bullying, physical abuse, mental abuse, HIV, teen pregnancy, problems with our welfare system, incest and giving birth to babies fathered by the woman's own father - just to name a few. Each topic is huge enough and important enough to have entire books written on the subject, but for this book of sorts, I'm going to focus on mothers, who know their husbands or boyfriends are having sex with their daughter for years and simply stand by and let it occur. How can this happen? A mother carries her baby inside her body for nine months - that child is truly a part of her. What kind of person stands by knowing that the person she brought into the world is being raped by her man (or any man for that matter) and allows it? As hard as this film is to watch at times, as far-fetched as some may think it is, the devastating truth is that this is not as uncommon as you may think or want to believe. While the rapist is clearly the perpetrator, isn't the mother just about as guilty? She could have stopped it. Mothers are supposed to risk their own safety to save their child in a disaster situation. Isn't incest one of the biggest disasters around? What happens in a person's mind that they can rationalize their actions and believe that not doing anything is acceptable? In what world would that ever be o.k.? Not in any world I'd like to live in.