Blogaround

1. Confederate monument melted down to create new, more inclusive public art (October 26, via) "The project is called Swords into Plowshares, taken from a Bible verse in the book of Isaiah." Yessss.

2. With Funeral Portraits, a Photographer Gives Dignity to Rural Elderly (October 31) "But during her work trips to the countryside, Yang would hear villagers discussing their friends’ funerals and lamenting the absence of a portrait or the quality of the photo. 'In their eyes, it is a symbol of dying with dignity,' she said."

3. Chocolate: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO) (October 30) This is about child labor on cocoa farms. I don't really know what to make of this... back when I was in college, I read a lot about fair trade chocolate, and I felt like I was morally obligated to only buy chocolate labelled "fair trade" rather than just regular chocolate. But... fair trade chocolate was so expensive, and seemed to only have dark chocolate available, and so many snack foods have chocolate in them, so it's impossible to avoid non-fair-trade chocolate... and the idea that there's slavery in the chocolate supply chain but somehow most people seem to be okay with it, except for a few activist groups here and there... it was all too big and impossible for me to reconcile with my understanding of reality. So eventually I just gave up, just kind of put it out of my mind and didn't think about fair trade chocolate any more.

In other words, it seems like if it's really true that most of the chocolate we buy is made by slave labor (or other exploitative working conditions), then ... shouldn't we all be more upset about that? How could this really be real?

But, maybe that's just how the world always works: Those of us who have more money get to pretend that everything's fine, and we set up our lives such that we don't have to see the damage that is being done to the poorest people in the world. And every now and then we spend a little extra money buying fair trade chocolate, and feel like we did a good thing.

4. Alabama Mayor Kills Self After Right-Wing Blog Outs His Cross-Dressing (November 4) [content note: suicide, queermisia/ transmisia/ anti-queer bigotry] This is really tragic.

5. Sam Bankman-Fried Faces 110-Year Max Sentence After FTX Trial—Here’s How Long Experts Think He’ll Be Behind Bars (November 3) "Sam Bankman-Fried was found guilty on all seven counts Thursday after a massive fraud and money laundering trial involving now-collapsed crypto exchange FTX and trading firm Alameda Research, charges that can lead to a maximum of 110 years in prison—and lawyers told Forbes he may face a decades-long sentence, unlike other white-collar defendants."

6. Sarah Huckabee Sanders Decides To Keep Obviously Innocent Man In Prison At Least Six More Years On Top Of 30 He's Already Served (November 4) 

Also from Wonkette: House Speaker Mike Johnson Pushing Christian Extremist 'Ex-Gay' Torture? LORDY THERE ARE TAPES. (November 3) Oh. So Mike Johnson used to work for ADF (Alliance Defending Freedom). Oh. 

When I was in high school, my parents were on the mailing list for ADF, so I read all their newsletters and propaganda- and I totally believed it. It was all about how "homosexuals" have a nefarious "agenda" to destroy marriage and all of society, or something. Years later, I found out all of that was bullshit, and actually LGBTQ people are just regular people, going about their lives, who want to have the same rights that everyone should have. 

Let me be clear: Every single thing that ADF does is built on a foundation of lying about queer people, and demonizing queer people. The bible says "do not bear false witness against your neighbor"- well, ADF bears false witness day in and day out. Their whole entire thing is bearing false witness against their neighbors. Also, the bible says "do not take the Lord's name in vain, for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name"- well, ADF claims to be doing all these things in the name of God. They claim they are on God's side. They ask their supporters to pray that God will help them in their court cases against queer people having rights. I hope that the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses Their name.

The Wonkette article also mentions ADF's "Day of Truth" as a response to the "Day of Silence" (I remember a few kids in my high school participated in the "Day of Silence"- the idea is, you don't talk for the whole day, to show support for queer kids who are bullied and silenced). Well ADF invented the "Day of Truth" where high school kids should hand out propaganda to other students, about "the truth about homosexuality" (ie, it's bad, everyone who lives a "homosexual lifestyle" is unhappy, God can help you change, etc). Just disgusting. How will I explain ADF to my children?

7. Amazon Execs Intentionally Made Site Shittier to Rake in More Profit, New Quotes from FTC Lawsuit Show (November 3, via) "'Amazon’s online storefront once prioritized relevant, organic search results,' the complaint states. 'Following directions from its founder and then-CEO Jeff Bezos, Amazon shifted gears so that it now litters its storefront with pay-to-play advertisements. Amazon executives internally acknowledge this creates ‘harm to consumers’ by making it ‘almost impossible for high quality, helpful organic content to win over barely relevant sponsored content.’' "

Fair Trade Shouldn't Be Adorable

Several years ago, I wandered around a fair trade shop and had a good time looking at everything. All kinds of decorations, carvings made in Africa, jewelery, wooden figures, all very beautiful and from all over the world.

Image source.

But I concluded it wasn't for me. I didn't really want to buy pretty little trinkets. I was a college student, living in an 8 ft x 10 ft dorm room. The absolute LAST thing I needed was some decorative wooden animal, no matter how cute and well-made it was.

Is this what fair trade is about? Buying silly things I would never in a million years spend money on? Where the only selling point is "this is fair trade, made by women in Uganda"?

So I should buy these items not because I actually want them, but because I pity the people who made them?

That's not right.

I guess some people are looking for decorations for their coffee table, and they really like the style of some African carvings, and that's great. They can buy the fair trade wooden giraffe and feel great about it. But I am not those people.

And for me to buy something I don't want or need, just because I like the idea of fair trade- that's condescending. That's saying, "awww poor women in Africa made this? That's ADORABLE!" Like they're a little kid with an overpriced lemonade stand and terrible business model, and you buy it just to make the kid feel good.

If my obligation to buy little knickknacks I don't want is supplying someone the income to provide for their BASIC NEEDS, something is wrong. We are not equals.

Ideally, the things we buy fair trade should be things we were going to buy anyway. Or things we genuinely like. I was very happy to see From Two To One's recent blog post, A Year of Buying Nothing New: What About Black Friday?, where she profiles several companies with ethical business practices. Most of the ones in that particular post are clothing companies with quality, fashionable clothing that, you know, you might actually want to buy.

This is great and I hope that's the future of fair trade- where it can compete with the "regular" products in terms of quality, price, and availability. Where it's just a normal part of everyday life, instead of something extra you do because you're trying to be a good person. But what about when it isn't?

Is it wrong that "fair trade" is a factor which influences me to buy something? No, that's not wrong- but it shouldn't be the ONLY reason.

And what if the world is an imperfect system, and those of us with extra money SHOULD buy those silly things we don't need, in order to help others? Even though it blatantly shows that we're not equals, and I just buy your products out of pity... what if that's better than not doing anything at all? Yes, something IS wrong, but I'm making the best of it, under the circumstances.

There's so much I don't know about the world and the economy, and I'd like to learn and I'd like to take action and fight injustice, even though no solution is perfect. Even though I have unanswered questions about fair trade, I think it's a good thing. But it's not the magic solution that's going to save the world.

And above all, I hope it's about dignity, not pity.

Fair Trade: My Unanswered Questions

October is Fair Trade Month! I will celebrate by explaining what fair trade is, and then asking a few questions I do not yet have answers for.

Image source.

What does "fair trade" mean?

If a product is fair trade certified, it means that it was produced by farmers/workers who received a decent fair wage. Not slaves.

Fair Trade USA certifies the following products: "coffee, tea and herbs, cocoa, fresh fruit and vegetables, sugar, beans and grains, flowers, nuts, oils and butters, honey and spices, wine and apparel". In general, fair trade is mostly for coffee and chocolate. In this blog post, I'm focusing on chocolate, because that's the area where fair trade most affects my life.

Wait a minute- if "fair trade" means the farmers got paid decently for their work, then does "not fair trade" mean it was produced through slavery?

Yeah, that's the big question, isn't it?

First of all, slavery is real. It is estimated that there are 2.5 million victims of human trafficking around the world. Some are sex slaves, and some are doing forced labor.

In particular, there is concern over using children as slaves in the production of chocolate in West Africa. (Note: There is a difference between child labor and child slavery, but I would argue that both should not exist.) 69% of the world's cocoa comes from West Africa, with 35% from Cote d'Ivoire- and child exploitation is a huge concern for cocoa farms in these areas.

Image source.

It's real. Google it.

Okay so you've convinced me that slavery exists in the production of chocolate. But you haven't answered my question: Does chocolate that is NOT labeled as "fair trade" come from slavery?

Well how can we possibly know? They're not going to write that on the packaging. But I get the impression, based on what I've read online, that any cocoa from the Ivory Coast is a little suspicious.

One reason for chocolate slavery is a drop in cocoa prices. Cocoa is an "unstable crop", and a drop in price forces farmers to cut costs, sometimes by resorting to slavery.

So... does that mean normally they treat the workers nice, and then in bad years they beat them up and don't pay them? What is "normally"?

Like, can we get some idea on the percentage of slave-produced cocoa in a Hershey's bar? 10%? 30%? 80%? 100%? And at what percent do I decide it's immoral for me to buy it? At what percent would it be immoral for Hershey to sell it?

If I boycott non-fair-trade chocolate, is that actually helpful?

Yeah, I don't know. To understand how to address the problem of slavery in West Africa, we first have to understand the culture and the causes of slavery. There's not going to be some magical easy solution.

Some in the chocolate industry (maybe they're a little biased) argue that "A ‘slave free’ label would hurt the people it is intended to help because it would lead to a boycott of all Ivory Coast cocoa." If you just don't buy it because you don't know where it came from, what if it mostly came from honest people who paid their workers fairly? Is it right to boycott anything not marked as "fair trade" just because some of it is suspicious? (Again, percentages could be helpful here.)

Of course, one could also argue that when you buy fair trade chocolate, you know for sure that the money goes to paying workers a good wage; you know for sure it's not supporting slavery. Isn't that superior to buying chocolate of suspicious origin?

Not necessarily...

Hey, isn't fair trade a lot more expensive though?

Well, a Green & Black chocolate bar costs about $4, while a Hershey bar of comparable size (ish) costs about $1.

BUT the fair trade chocolate is much higher quality. It's rich, dark chocolate. Is that worth the price difference? The customer can decide that.

So do I have a responsibility to only buy fair trade chocolate?

Yeah, that's the question I'm trying to answer for myself.

The economy of chocolate is incredibly complex- how can I know what effect fair trade products have on workers on the other side of the world? It's much more complicated then "Hey let's fight slavery- everyone buy fair trade! Yay!"

How can I say I know better than Hershey about the ethical way to buy and sell chocolate? I don't know anything. I'm just over here googling stuff.

Even if ordinary chocolate does partially come from slavery, does that mean it's immoral for me to buy it? I don't have an answer.

In conclusion, the effect of me buying a fair trade chocolate bar rather than regular, cheap chocolate is unclear- I honestly can't make an argument that it's immoral to buy regular chocolate. BUT don't use that as an excuse to not take any action against slavery. Yes, I've raised some valid questions and criticism, but in the end, whoever is going around certifying fair trade products is doing A LOT MORE to fight slavery than I am. 

It's easy to sit here at my computer and criticize people who are trying to make a difference in the world- as if implementing an imperfect solution is worse than ignoring the problem entirely.

Fair trade- it's not the magical answer to save the world. It's not something you're REQUIRED to buy in order to not be a terrible person. No, we need a lot more insight into the culture and economy of West Africa in order to combat slavery.

But it's a good start.