Category: Ethical Consumption

Selling Corn Syrup

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It’s all about the spin. I remember back in the early 90’s when medical reports encouraged people to eat less red meat for their health we started seeing the “Beef. It’s What for Dinner” ads. PR to convince us to buy more stuff that isn’t good for us. Well as more people are realizing the dangers and ubiquitous nature of High Fructose Corn Syrup, the Corn Refiners Association has jumped into full PR spin mode. They recently launched a $30 million advertising campaign to convince consumers that HFCS is a natural compound like honey. (It’s made from corn so therefore it’s natural right?) Forget that it can only be made in industrial laboratories using numerous chemicals (including stuff like sulfuric acid), the FDA ruled earlier this summer that it can be labeled as “natural.” Hence the advertising campaign. Take a look at this recent commercial.

 

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Playing on people’s fears and lack of information, the Corn Refiners have hit the sweet spot in labeling lingo. If it is “natural” then it must be good. But honestly even if we buy that “natural” claim, there are still numerous issues with this commercial. First substitute in another natural sweetener like sugar or honey into the dialogue and yes, as a mom I would be worried about feeding that to my child. Added sweeteners are unnecessary and unhealthy. They are a special treat, not just everyday afternoon snack fare. Who cares if HFCS is from corn and is just like sugar and honey – it is just like sugar and honey – full of empty calories and dangerous in large amounts.

The PR spin is necessary because we are consuming HFCS in crazy large amounts. It is in everything, its health issues hidden because it isn’t labeled as sugar. Corn is a veggie and most people might not know that HFCS is a sugar. If they bother to read the ingredients at all the impact of HFCS at the top of the list doesn’t hit them. And so obesity issues and diabetes continue to rise as the food that is easy to find and consume is stock full of high empty calories. And that doesn’t even account for the number of other health issues and allergies that are linked to HFCS.

Because HFCS is so popular (its in everything), most of the corn that is grown is very similar. We have lost the historic varieties of corn and the array of nutrients they provide. We now eat a very nutrient poor form of corn that not only sweetens most of our food but is the feed for the cows and chickens we consume. Our diet in essence is based strictly on corn. This is a health risk as we need a greater variety of nutrients to stay healthy. But it is also a societal risk to rely on one substance as our main food supply. If corn somehow faced a blight like potatoes did in Ireland, we would be facing a serious food crisis.

But even beyond the health risks, by supporting the use of HFCS one is supporting a seriously broken economic system. Our market is flooded with corn. It is a highly subsidized commodity. Farmers must grow ever increasing amounts of corn that are sold at low prices. Without the government subsidies most farmers would make no profit on their corn at all. But the more corn one grows the more subsidies one receives. So farmers must turn to genetically modified corn that is copyrighted (meaning they must buy new seed each year). They must use vast amounts of fertilizers and pesticides (some which are built into the genetic structure of the corn itself). These chemicals not only destroy the ecosystem and poison water supplies, but they are oil based. To grow this corn we are expending large amounts of oil, an ever dwindling resource in our world.

In addition the US reliance on corn to insert into all of our food has encouraged more farmers to grow the corn. Since the government subsidizes it (and not other varieties of veggies), it is a way for farmers to actually make a living as a farmer. But only US farmers. There is a huge surplus of US grown subsidized corn that continues to flood the world market. Other countries cannot compete. World organizations have declared the subsiding of food on the trade market illegal, but the US continues to subsidize. Good for our multimillion dollar agribusinesses, bad for family farmers around the world. Counties like Brazil are seeking to sue the US for illegal trade practices, but one doubts the affect such suits will have.

So as one soccer mom embarrasses another mom for her lack of knowledge and encourages her to feed HFCS to her kids, there is a lot more at stake than just a pseudo-natural product. The Garden of Eden parallels in the commercial are frightening. But I guess that’s just good marketing – getting us to not just desire, but eat the forbidden fruit. And we just play along…

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The Roots of Social Change

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So I had an interesting conversation last night on the nature of social change. We were lamenting how so much of the injustices in the world are perpetrated and sustained by untouchable major corporations – systems that control our society so subtly that most of us aren’t even aware of their influence on our lives. It is easy to despair in light of such systems – they have the money to control the opinions of the world and the power to sue you into oblivion if you stand up against them.

It was brought up that often for real social change to occur a dramatic and generally violent event must take place. A bomb must be dropped, the nation decimated by war, a terrorist must strike, a president assassinated, a space shuttle explode… Events that shock us enough to make changes. That change may be immediate – slavery will end, a nation gains independence, people relinquish their civil liberties. Or that change may just subtly change the outlook of a generation – we lose our faith in science to dominate the world. Even the “non-violent” revolutions are long drawn out ordeals that capture the attention of the nation/world before they affect change. Gandhi’s hunger strikes or march to the sea, Rosa Parks on the bus, the “I have a Dream” speech in Washington, or even the decades of marches by women seeking the right to vote. Big events capture attention and our collective imaginations. We are then shocked or scared or passionately motivated into change.

But what is so disturbing about most systems of injustice is that they aren’t dramatic. Take the issues with the environment. There was never any big campaign where the world decided to start destroying the environment. No tragic event that left us convinced we need to trash the earth. But even so, our ancestors of just 100-150 years ago would be horrified at the wasteful and disrespectful habits of our disposable culture. So what happened? One answer is to point to the 100+ years of advertising (by the major corporations) bent on convincing us to adapt a lifestyle most people don’t believe in or need. We were told that if we wanted to be sanitary we needed to buy paper towels, if we wanted to appear educated and upper-class we women needed to use disposable sanitary pads, and if we wanted to be modern and not confined to our grandmother’s kitchen we needed to use foil and plastic wrap. And of course we agreed and bought into the lifestyle of “use it once then throw it away” with little regard to what that would do to our world. We didn’t think about where all that trash would go, the forests that would be destroyed and the dioxins produced to make the paper towels, the diseases the sanitary pads would cause, the oil used for the plastics, and the strip mining for the foil. We just choose step by step, product by product to adopt a disposable lifestyle. Today such philosophy is so ingrained in our cultural psyche that most respond “gross” to the idea that the parchment paper wrapping butter originally had to be marketed as “re-usable” because consumers thought it was wasteful and expensive to throw away perfectly good parchment paper.

The messages we have been fed over the last century or so have done more to completely alter the social habits of our world than any drastic or violent event. There is no date one can point to, or singular event to be blamed, or even a particular person who can be held accountable. We let ourselves walk down the very path – often going quite willingly – that many of now are attempting to change. So while some are asking what sort of drastic event will force us to change our wasteful ways – (the melting ice caps, the extinction of polar bears, $6 a gallon gas prices???), others are simply trying to undo slowly the monster that was slowly created. Sure my decision to alter my shopping habits, or to recycle, or reduce my carbon footprint may not make a huge dent in the problem, but I am taking steps toward change and sending subversive messages. I am letting forces and ideas bigger than major corporations desperate for profit no matter the cost shape who I am. And I believe that a culture that has been shaped to believe in the message of destruction has the potential to be shaped into conscientious stewards as well. Sure those of us who care for creation and its inhabitants don’t have the money or the power to reach masses, but that should never stop us from sending out alternative messages. We may be labeled as extreme or ridiculed, but I take heart in the fact that the first public paper cup drinking fountain was attacked by a group of soldiers convinced that it represented a threat to society. Swaying popular opinion takes time, but lies can be unraveled and better choices can be made.

Social change can take many forms. Dramatic events make the history books, but the slow subtle capturing of the cultural imagination may have the most profound long term effects. The real question is – how can we be agents of this sort of change?

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Good Intentions?

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So it is really amusing to hear through the grapevine that Moody Press has just published a book that discusses me and my underwear choices. Apparently chapter 8 of the recently released book Good Intentions uses a poorly (barely) paraphrased version of my “Justice Bra” article from the God’s Politics blog as an extended illustration (to read, enter my name in the “search inside this book” function on Amazon). Now it is one thing to use my own voice to write a somewhat tongue-in-cheek article about buying a bra, but it is a tad creepy to have two (male) economists open a chapter by stating “Julie Clawson needed a new bra.”

The book hadn’t crossed my radar yet (not like I read much out of Moody Press these days), but I found it intriguing that its basic concept is similar to the book I am currently writing for IVP. Both books address relevant issues of our day and attempt to give a Christian response (the issues aren’t all the same though). I’ve only read excerpts of Good Intentions, but from what I can gather our perspectives and conclusions are rather divergent. The Good Intentions promo carries the tagline “few things are more dangerous than good intentions” which gives a good indication as to it’s perspective on people who care about stuff like the environment. The description of the book states that because the Bible is about “morality” it is difficult to apply scriptural principles to economics, so we instead need to apply economic theory to the Bible to understand how best to live. I obviously have an issue with that sort of thinking, believing instead that Biblical morality should be what determines our economic systems in the first place. But it’s not surprising to still find Christians who believe that free-market capitalism was invented by God and should be worshiped as the fourth member of the Trinity.

From the parts I read regarding my “Justice Bra” article, I found that the authors fell into the typical trap common in that line of thinking. To them there exist only two options when it comes to things like sweatshops – either people get paid pittance in an often abusive situation or they have no job at all. Their argument is that people like me seeking “fair and just” products are actually hurting the workers because by demanding the end of sweatshops we are putting people out of jobs. They argue that it is better for the people to have a job rather than not and therefore I am being unjust in buying a “justice bra” and not some $8 piece of crap at Wal-Mart. But they are assuming a false dichotomy here and really missing the point those of us calling for justice make. There is no reason why people should have to choose between a crappy job and no job at all. The idea is that since the cruel sweatshop jobs shouldn’t exist because they are immoral, they need to be reformed into jobs that treat the workers with dignity and pay them fairly. It is about redeeming the system, not destroying it. A good, decent, and safe job needs to be an option – the primary option – for workers everywhere. And if an economic system exists that doesn’t allow for the possibility of such jobs, I have a hard time understanding how Christians should be encouraged to participate in it.

But then again as I see it, rubber-stamping the status quo as “biblical” is far more dangerous than anyone’s good intentions to “act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with their God.”

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Lent and Justice Article

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I have a new article up in the February edition of Next-Wave Ezine entitled Lent and the Pursuit of Justice. Head over there to check it out and to read the other great pieces featured this month.

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I was in college before I discovered Lent.  That might sound strange given that I grew up in the church, but I came from non-denominational Bible church traditions where the church calendar wasn’t followed.  I knew about Mardi Gras and Ash Wednesday, but had no understanding of their significance.  So during Spring Semester Freshman year at my non-denominational Christian college as many of my friends started giving up caffeine or dessert I found myself curious.  I bought a Lenten devotional guide at the college bookstore and tried to figure out what it was all about.

Even so, it took a few years before I began to grasp the spiritual significance of the season.  Sure I joked with my friends about giving up homework for Lent and even flirted with giving up chocolate a few times (how significant is denial if it doesn’t lead to spiritual reflection?), but Lent remained an odd tradition I played at and not a habit I embraced.  I respected the idea of discipline, but balked at the legalism of giving up something just because that is what people do during Lent.  Perhaps hearing my friends complain about how desperate they were for a cola and not hearing anything about how they had been affected spiritually fed my confusion.  Lent just didn’t make sense, at least not in the popular ways I saw it conveyed and practiced.

Then I discovered the connection between Lent and justice.  I was serving as a Children’s Director at a small Baptist church and was attempting to find a way to introduce the kids to Lent in tangible ways.  As I pulled together resources, I discovered that many of the common practices of the Lenten season sprung from the desire for justice.  Prayer represented justice toward God, fasting justice towards self, and charity justice towards neighbors.  Through this threefold pursuit of justice I saw that the Lenten season encompassed more than just personal piety, but called for a period of restoration of relationships with God, with self, and with others.  In essence, a specific time to focus on the ways Jesus had taught us to actually live.

With the children, Lent became a time to focus on the needs of others.  We adopted a homeless ministry to pray for and support.  A practice of this ministry is to pass out bags of toiletries to the homeless, so the kids were encouraged to use their own money to buy travel sized items to donate.  It wasn’t a huge gesture, but it was something they could tangibly engage – involving prayer, personal sacrifice, and charity to others.  They saw that believing in and following Jesus involved seeking justice in these ways.

Through guiding the children through this project, I realized that I too needed the discipline of the Lenten season to put into practice the pursuit of justice in my life.  I had for a few years been reading about the importance of ethical consumption – making just decisions in one’s shopping habits.  I knew that I could care for others, this world, and myself by making better decisions in how I shop, but I always had some excuse for not actually doing it.  It was too expensive, too hard, too inconvenient.  So a few years ago I decided to put my money where my mouth was and use the Lenten season to be disciplined enough to seek justice in my shopping habits.

I choose during the 40 days of Lent to seek to buy food that had been produced ethically.  I sought food that had been grown locally, produced without hazardous chemicals, drugs, or hormones, and for which the producers had been paid a fair wage.  I researched where to find such food in my area and committed to change my habits to serve God, others, and myself in this way.  And it mostly worked.  We had to make serious adjustments in the way we ate in our household, but we also weren’t so legalistic that we starved.  I learned a lot about food and where it comes from, but I also discovered that I could be disciplined enough to attempt to be an ethical consumer.  This was a pursuit of justice that I didn’t abandon as soon as Easter Sunday rolled around, but habits I integrated into my life year-round.  Of course, I am the first to admit that not all of my shopping choices are ethically influenced, but I don’t see this as an all or nothing issue.  I do what I can, where I can.

Lent represents for me a period where I devote myself to following more closely the way of Christ – not just for a season, but for life.  It is a time in which I seek to bring my life into alignment with the values of the Kingdom of God.  Values that include personal sacrifice, devotion to God, and service to others.   It is still a very personal time of devotion as I choose these forms of spiritual growth and sacrifice, but I have finally come to understand a bit of its purpose.  And for that I am grateful.

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Ideological Luddites

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I’ve written often here about ethical consumption and the need to be aware of what we are supporting with our shopping habits. Too often we don’t care that women were abused in the factory that made our shirt or that children were kept in slavery to produce our chocolate. I have a real problem with treating people as objects to be manipulated, used, and destroyed – especially when there are things that could be easily done to make things better. But sometimes even I question the ideology behind some of these discussions.

For example, I am not a fan of hating technology because it is technology. I don’t think that scientific development is necessarily evil and that all technology should be feared (and shunned). Sure it changes the way the world functions, but I’m not the type that sees change as inherently evil. I’m not a fan of rampant advertising from companies that oppress their workers and try to convince people that the acquisition of more and more stuff is the goal of life, but I don’t boycott all TV, Internet, magazines, and billboards in order to avoid any exposure to such things.

Same with things like Facebook and blogging. Sure I am putting my personal information “out there” for any ad exec (or the US government) to access and target me with, but that doesn’t stop me from enjoying the benefits of those mediums (for more on the uber-capitalistic big brother nature of Facebook check out this article (HT – Will Samson)). I’m not a fan of all aspects of the system, but I still participate it in (similar to how I engage with church or politics).

I have a hard time accepting the luddite tendency these days to condemn all forms of technology and media because they have the potential to be used by corrupt and controlling forces. I’ve more of a mind to embrace that which I enjoy, ignore that which is stupid, and oppose that which I see as wrong. I’m not a fan of the constant culture of advertisements we see, but I would rather be critically aware of the system instead of rejecting the entire system. I don’t mind the way something like Facebook works because I expected no less from them. If I tell the world that I like XY and Z products/bands/movies I am under no delusion that that won’t be used by someone somewhere. But I do have the choice to not allow advertisements on my own blog if I don’t want them there. I choose what I want to participate in. (although I do find Gmail ploy to scan my emails so they can target me with “Pastor Ringtones” and “Girlpower Marketing” creepy and annoying).

So to bring some sort of conclusion to my ramblings today (which I hope make sense outside my head although I am beginning to doubt that), I would just say that ideology must be coupled with critical thinking. To me there are differences between committing actual evil, encouraging the support of evil, and the potential to commit evil. And for all I prefer to help redeem the system instead of reject it altogether.

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Slow Food and the Kingdom

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The Kingdom of God is like a well-cooked Italian meal.  Now it might seem a bit strange to start off a reflection comparing the Kingdom of God to Italian food, but I recently stumbled upon an encounter with the Kingdom of God in a book about food.  This wasn’t even some esoteric aesthetic encounter with the beauty of the earth or even a divinely inspired recipe for the perfect chocolate cake, but an exploration of food that is ethical and good.  In the foreword to Carlo Petrini’s Slow Food Nation I read Alice Waters’ summary of the themes of the book and the Slow Food movement-

“[Carlo] argues that, at every level, our food supply must meet the three criteria of quality, purity, and justice.  Our food must be buono, pulito, e giusto – words that resonate with more solemnity in Italian than do their literal English counterparts.  Our food should be good, and tasty to eat; it should be clean, produced in ways that are humane and environmentally sound; and the system by which our food is provided must be economically and socially fair to all who labor in it.  Carlo’s great insight is that when we seek out food that meets these criteria, we are no longer mere consumers but co-producers, who are bearing our fair share of the costs of producing good food and creating responsible communities.”

As I read those words, the concept of people being co-producers in creating an alternative and ethical world intrigued me.  Christ proclaimed that the Kingdom of God is among us and gave his followers the task of being the witnesses (or heralds) to the advent of the Kingdom.  Although the Kingdom was already a reality, it took the work of these witnesses to make it concrete to those who had not yet heard.  In a sense they were the co-producers of the Kingdom – proclaiming its existence, spreading it values, and training others in the way of Christ.  Active ongoing work was required to insure the Kingdom visibly reflected the pictures Jesus had so vividly portrayed it as in his parables.

In reading the goals of the Slow Food movement of being co-producers in ensuring that our food is good, clean, and fair I saw a parallel to the Kingdom of God.  This movement stands in opposition to the dominant systems of the world and insists on a better way of producing and eating food.  Bypassing the destructive industries of agriculture and the siren’s lure of fast food represent struggles undertaken only by those with a commitment to this better way and a compassion for others.  The goal is to care for people, to care for the earth, and to care for ourselves.  I think in many ways the Slow Food ideals have captured the ethos of those who serve and witness to the Kingdom of God.

The Kingdom of God exists as a radical alternative to the systems of the world, challenging the status quos of oppression and injustice.  It includes the calls to love and to serve and to seek a better way of living that cares for those around us.  The outworkings of these endeavors often echo the goals of the Slow Food movement in our commitment to care for God’s creation, our celebration of the good, our passion to treat people fairly and with dignity and respect, and our desire to bond together in responsible communities that seek to live on earth as it is in heaven.    It is a call to a life that isn’t merely “convenient” or rubber-stamped by the dominant paradigms of the world, but one that takes deliberate effort and committed passion to maintain.  Being witnesses (or co-producers) of the Kingdom requires lifestyle choices that are often seen as odd as the Slow Food desire to cook a sustainable, fair, healthy, authentic and natural (not to mention yummy) Italian meal.  But oddity and difficulty don’t impede the committed.  In seeking God’s Kingdom we are never mere consumers of the way things are, but witnesses proclaiming the good news of a different way.

And so the Kingdom of God is like an Italian meal, but with far greater rewards.

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Patience and Food

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I have issues with being patient. For certain aspects of my life I really can’t stand waiting. But then for other things it’s no big deal.

For example, I like waiting for Christmas. I like the anticipation, I like celebrating on Christmas. I was never one of those kids who tried to find/open my presents early (I guess the modern equivalent would be seeing what’s been bought off my Amazon Wish List…). To me waiting until Christmas Day to open presents was part of what made the day special. So waiting for the right time to enjoy or celebrate is no problem.

But for other things in life I have significantly less patience. I hate being told by a doctor “we will call you in 3-5 days with your test results” when I KNOW that said results could be obtain in less than an hour. Or waiting around for someone who is late because they couldn’t stop reading a book, or watching TV, or playing a computer game. It bugs me. My patience runs thin.

So I was intrigued by some comments about patience and self-restraint I read recently in Barbara Kingsolver’s popular new book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. This is a fantastic book that chronicles a family’s year of trying to eat locally, seasonally, and sustainably. I can’t quote the exact passage since I immediately lent my copy to a friend, but she addresses the issue of patience in regards to our food choices. She writes (as a mother of two) about how parents often encourage their children to restrain from having sex until the timing is right (marriage…). But she asks how our children can respect our insistence on self-restraint if we can’t even manage to restrain ourselves to buying food in season. Instead of waiting for the right time to harvest and eat a tomato, we demand on satisfying our hunger whenever the urge strikes. Our promiscuous ways lead us to the grocery story where pale refrigerated shadows of tomato are available stripped of antioxidants and nutrients all year round thanks to the gallons of oil that were consumed to ship it hundreds (or thousands) of miles in refrigerated crates. We don’t think twice about the instant gratification of our appetites generally, so who are we to insist that our children buy into a value we have discarded?

So a tomato may be an easy example for me. I hated the things until I tasted the heirloom varieties delivered in my CSA box one year. I can wait for the real deal to appear in late summer and am not tempted by the reddish tinged impostor in the supermarket, but her point is well taken. Sure I froze and dried some veggies from my garden this past harvest, but not near enough to get us through the winter. I just assume that I can get whatever I want to eat whenever I want it at the store. Like all other consumers I am willing to give up taste, and nutritional value for easy access. I rarely stop to think that anything I am buying in the Winter months (and most everything during the rest of the year) was grown someplace far far away and shipped long distances to get to me (at taxpayers expense btw). Waiting, patience, and self-restraint are ignored as my need for convenient instant gratification gives sustainability the finger.

Honestly, sitting here in snow-blanketed Illinois in the middle of December there isn’t much I can do. I can buy organic and at least reduce the negative impact my food choices have. And I can plan ahead for the future. I’m not going to move to a farm in Appalachia and raise my own turkeys, but there are ways I can sidestep our broken food system and live more responsibly. But it is something that will take time and effort. And a lot of patience.

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Why I Christmas Shop

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In light of recent blog posts and Buy Nothing/Make Something days I feel like I need to state this as a confession – I Christmas shop. Of course there are a few of you who read this blog who might not understand the dilemma. For you, buying gifts for friends and family at Christmas is just a natural part of Christmas. But in this missional/justice oriented subculture (of which I am obviously deeply committed to) I feel like Christmas shopping is a sin I need to confess to committing. Kinda like how I still use disposable diapers for Emma.

Let me clarify. I am very much against rampant consumerism and greed. The American mindset that more is better and “I want, I want” is disgusting and displays more allegiance to an economic system than it does to way of Christ. A recent Walmart commercial displays this dichotomy as it has a mother of twins saying, “Sure, peace on earth sounds great, but unless I buy two of everything there is no peace in my house.” The greed and need to buy just for the sake of getting something doesn’t sit well with me. I didn’t go shopping this past weekend, so I guess I participated in Buy Nothing day, but I didn’t end up making anything either. Basically I lounged around and watched many episodes of Gilmore Girls and The Office on DVD with my in-laws.

So while I can eschew forms of extreme consumerism, I’m a bit more uncomfortable with some of the messages I’m hearing in the emerging/missional camps this year. The recent round of ridicule of Brian McLaren for his request that people buy his book reveal attitudes of judgementalism towards anyone who spends money on anything. Personally I’m not a huge fan of utterly rejecting the economic system. I’m more for engaging with it thoughtfully and ethically. Which is what led to this confession. This Christmas I am buying gifts. I am not just giving charity. I am not buying only Fair Trade. I am not making my gifts. And I am not going Dark for Darfur.

I like giving gifts. I especially like giving practical gifts that people will use and enjoy. Sure I will give charity, sure I’ll limit how much I give, and sure I’ll buy Fair Trade when possible. But I am also going to do my best to give gifts people want and need. I talk enough about Fair Trade that I assume people know that I am very very supportive of the concept. But I don’t see the need to buy fairly traded home decor gifts that people don’t really want or need just so that I can buy something fairly traded. Similarly I sew a lot and run a small quilting business. But raggy quilts aren’t everyone’s style, so I’m not going to clutter someone’s home with a gift they don’t like but feel obligated to use and display. To me to buy fair trade or spend time making something (that isn’t needed or wanted) just to be able to give something is more consumeristic and wasteful than ordering them a book they really want from their Amazon Wishlist.

So yes I participate in the cultural norms of the season. I don’t reject the trappings of the holiday or fear them unnecessarily. I guess you can say I try to participate in them in moderation. I give gifts, but attempt to do so thoughtfully. I’m not obsessing over decorations, or parties, or cookies (although I have in years past). I have no problem enjoying the cultural traditions alongside the religious roots. And I am trying to not let everyone else make me feel guilty because of it.

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Token Gestures and True Justice

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As a follow up to my post a couple of days ago regarding toys made in sweatshops, I want to point out other recent news regarding children being held in slave-like conditions to produce clothing for The Gap. An article Sunday in the London Observer revealed that children as young as ten years old have been subjected to work long hours without pay and regular threats and beatings in an Indian textile factory subcontracted to produce clothing for Gap Kids. This clothing was destined for American and European markets this Christmas. Children were being held in slavery to we could buy a $30 sequined t-shirt.

Gap of course did what it could to save its own butt and severed ties with the factory and is withholding the clothing. That makes them look good as a company, but does nothing to help the children. What is the Gap doing to assure that these kids won’t be harmed because now their slaver isn’t getting income? What is Gap doing to stop illegal indentured servitude that they found themselves a part of? Just severing ties saves face, but it doesn’t solve the problem

This isn’t the first time Gap has faced negative press because of its usage of sweatshops. Just last year reports came in of Gap clothing being made in sweatshops in Jordon where young teenage girls were trafficked in, stripped of their passports, held in slavery, beaten and raped by the factory owners. Over the last few years, Gap has attempted to overcome those damaging reports (as if the public cares anyway) by participating in token acts of charity and justice. Gap featured prominently in the Red Campaign by selling $50 t-shirts of which a portion would be donated to AIDS relief work. My favorite token gesture is the one Charles Kernaghan, Executive Director of the National Labor Committee, mentioned in his recent interview with Democracy Now!. Gap apparently created a Code of Conduct for their factories – voluntary compliance of course. It was printed on treeless paper using non-toxic soy based ink, all perfectly environmentally friendly and sustainable. The problem was that it was just a PR job, it had never actually been translated into a language besides English. The document about caring for people that itself cared for the earth never made it to the people it was meant to protect. The document was only to calm the fears of English speakers wanting to know that their clothing was ethically produced.

So while all token gestures are not just complete BS like Gap’s Code of Conduct, they still remain mere token gestures. When coffee companies can pay their farmers below living wage and put production demands on them that force the farmers to use unsustainable practices, but by building one school near one of their coffee farms they can appear caring and just to their customers, why bother with anything more than token gestures? When a church group can volunteer once a year at a soup kitchen or fill up a couple of shoeboxes for Operation Christmas Child and feel like they have helped the poor, token gestures are really all we see. Acting justly has become for many a one time event and not a day to day lifestyle. We have settled for token gestures instead of holistic approaches in our lives, and so let companies get away with token gestures instead of true reform. No wonder things have gotten so out of hand.

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Safe and Ethical Toys?

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t’s that time of year again. Halloween is so over and the store shelves are being cleared for Christmas. Time to start your Christmas shopping. Unfortunately recent news has highlighted that the “Santa’s little helpers” making the toys for our children are actually young Chinese women forced to work 90 hour work weeks for pennies an hour and trafficked children held in slavery forced to work in factories. Wow doesn’t that just make you feel all warm and fuzzy with holiday cheer?

In a report released this past week by the National Labor Committee in Support of Human and Worker Rights, the atrocities committed by companies like Gap and Mattel were revealed. Mattel has been in the news a lot these past few months because of revelations of excessive amounts of toxic lead paint in their toys. I find it very interesting that after the lead paint scandal hit the news, my inbox was flooded with emails from other concerned moms spreading the news that our children could be exposed to hazardous conditions. So far no public service emails from moms concerned that people were abused and kept in slavery to make our children’s toys. Guess it’s the old, “if it doesn’t affect me and mine, then I don’t give a shit.”

You can read the full report here and a good interview transcript summarizing the report at Democracy Now!. The horrific conditions at these factories are detailed in these reports. Basically young women making Barbie Mattel toys for Walmart are paid just 53 cents an hour and $21.34 a week. “Forced to work excessive overtime, the toy workers are routinely at the factory 82 to 87 hours a week, while toiling 66 to 70 hours. The standard shift is 14 ½ hours a day, from 7:30 a.m. to 10:00 p.m., six days a week. Mandatory overtime at the Xin Yi Factory exceeds China’s legal limit by 260 percent! Workers are routinely cheated on nearly 20 percent of the wages legally due them – resulting in the loss of two days wages each week. After deductions for primitive dorms (12 workers share each room sleeping on double-level bunk beds) and company food that the workers call “awful,” the workers’ take-home wage is just 46 cents an hour. Managers routinely yell and curse at the workers, and it is common – nearly every day – to see young women workers crying. Workers who are insulted have but two options – to bow their heads and remain silent or to quit and leave without the back wages due to them. Workers can be fired for having an “inattentive attitude” or for “speaking during working hours.” Workers falling behind in their mandatory product goal will be punished with the loss of five hours wages. Workers are prohibited from standing up and must remain seated on their benches at all times during working hours. Workers report that the factory is overcrowded and extremely hot, and that everyone is dripping in their own sweat.Workers in the spray paint department who cannot tolerate the strong acrid stench of the oil paint are immediately fired. Failure to properly clean the shared bathroom in the dorm will result in the loss of one and a half day’s wages.”

What I find most interesting in this whole thing is Mattel’s behavior. This is the Mattel that recently apologized to China for the “excessive” recall of so many lead tainted toys. So if they are apologizing for attempting to make toys safe, then I don’t have much confidence in their treatment of workers. This is also the company that sues someone on average once a month for Barbie copyright infringement. Apparently Barbie has more rights than the 14 year old girl who made her in a sweatshop. This is the Mattel that “sought and won special “waivers” from the government of China to pay below the legal minimum wage in its factories. Mattel also received waivers to unilaterally extend allowable working hours to seventy-two hours per week, which exceeds China’s legal limit on overtime by 295 percent.” Oh and this is also the Mattel whose CEO paid himself $7,278,178 last year in wages and other compensation—which is 6,533 times what he pays his toy workers in China.

So who wants to go Christmas shopping?

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