In an ideal world there would be no crime, no poverty, no queues at the ATM and no one would go hungry. The reality of the world we occupy, however, makes that ideal a little harder to imagine on a daily basis. Shit goes wrong. People don’t handle it well. Sometimes things are so dire you feel like you can’t go on, so you just shut it all out. And there are plenty ways to block out the reminders of a culture that leaves people stranded on the streets while others roam around lifelessly, debating the big decisions in life: Big Mac or Quarter Pounder Deluxe?
Me? I’ve got my Chuck Taylors on, my jeans zipped up, my pair of D&Gs laying around and an iPhone on charge right next to my glowing monitor screen. But where does all this stuff come from? And I don’t mean the mall (or, as I like to call it, “The Death of Culture”). I mean who actually makes this stuff? Enter SlaveryFootprint.org and a survey whose results pull back the curtain on modern day labor practices.
Despite absolutely reveling in pretty much every goddamn moment I’m alive, I can be awfully critical of my middle class existence. I’m as indifferent to my possessions as I am invested in them, and the bottom line is that I like nice stuff, so I use my invisible bank money to buy it. Well, that’s the bottom line as far as the average person sees it on most days.
Unfortunately, I’m also blessed with the uncanny bad habit of avoiding denial at all costs, and so I can’t help but be aware that the world isn’t always a beautiful place. Slavery Footprint has set up a handy, well-designed page that works towards reminding you what’s going on behind the scenes in the manufacturing of everything you own.
We believe in using the free market to free people. At its core, the Slavery Footprint website allows consumers to visualize how their consumption habits are connected to modern-day slavery. Through our “Free World” mobile app and online action center, we provide consumers an outlet to voice their demand for things made without slave labor. We are collectively raising our voices so we can work with companies to manufacture our stuff “Made in a Free World.”
Based in Oakland, California, the Slavery Footprint team works to engage individuals, groups, and businesses to build awareness for and create deployable action against forced labor, human trafficking, and modern day slavery. In addition to creating and developing the online tools, the organization is also engaged in off-line community education and mobilization programs.
As they point out elsewhere on their site, the companies you buy stuff from don’t even always know about where their products are coming from, but they also don’t stop to think about it. They don’t have the time because they have their own bottom line in mind. The one they need to sustain themselves and, really, to keep people in as many jobs as they can, earning as much money as they can spare to keep the world rolling along like a slowly derailing capitalist bullet train.
The site provides a really simple overview of why this is a public concern. It isn’t set up to attack specific companies or even to make you feel bad, but it’s there to begin a process of enlightenment. I say it a lot but never forget, ignoring a problem only allows it to fester in the dark places we don’t like to look and grow too big for us to handle. At the moment, these labor practices are running rampant around the world as people make their money on the backs of the poor and don’t think twice, discarding the eventual dried-up husks that were people the way you do a roll of 3-ply TP covered in pictures of puppies. And you don’t even think about the dude who punches the little puppy images into the paper either.
I took a look at my own slavery footprint. Despite my relatively sparse wardrobe, I’ve got a lot of other expenses coming off the calloused conveyor belts of Africa, Australia and especially South East Asia. I’m guessing that has something to do with the enormous amount of gadgetry I own or spend money on. Apparently, Coltan is a vital capacitor used in most electronics and I’m making sure there are people bending over in the dark, getting it for me. They told me having gadgets would make me like Batman, but I guess I forgot Batman’s a member of the fucking 1%.
And after the survey comes the big, tough question…
Honestly? For once I’m not entirely sure. I’m just one dude and that map represents an awful big chunk of the world, and some very, very far-away people. I guess, though, it starts with the knowledge that they’re out there; that real human beings like you and me are dying proper deaths to make sure I can even sit at a laptop and type this blog post out. From there, well, let’s get to informing the companies we love where their stuff comes from. Let’s try and get them to do the digging too. The only way we can change things for the better is by taking action. The only way to freedom has been by first acknowledging people aren’t free.
