Posted: Friday, July 2, 2010 9:34 pm On the Fourth of July, we look forward to celebrating our nation’s independence with parades, fireworks, beer and barbecues. We’ll spout patriotic orations, some more drunken than others, each proclaiming how proud (and lucky) we are to live in the United States. We’ll set off sparklers, eat plenty of food and hope everyone enjoys the moment.
This year is going to be different for me. When the U.S. State Department recently released its “10th Annual Trafficking in Persons” report, all I could think was how ironic the timing that we should be reminded of those still enslaved just as we are about to celebrate our independence.
For the first time, the United States was included in the survey — and the results demonstrate we have a moral responsibility to strengthen efforts against modern slavery. According to the report on the United States: “Trafficking occurs primarily for labor and most commonly in domestic servitude, agriculture, manufacturing, janitorial services, hotel services, construction, health and elder care, hair and nail salons, and strip club dancing.”
It’s been nearly 150 years since we “abolished” slavery. The sad thing is that it still exists. Here and elsewhere, not just in foreign brothels, but on our streets, in our produce, in the production of our electronics and in the making of our cloths. We contribute to it when we check into hotels or when we go to the salon.
I offer you a disturbing promise: that something you are holding, wearing or eating exploited slave labor somewhere in its supply chain — if not here, then abroad.
Lending support
Most of us enjoy the comfort of distance. We aren’t the ones denying a water break and shelter to agricultural workers suffering heat stroke, nor are we the ones holding down children’s heads, drowning them by accident and on purpose, because their lives are expendable when your Southeast Asian shrimp company is dependent on keeping prices at national retailers low. We aren’t the ones doing it, but we are — through our purchases — not so indirectly providing these amoral companies with incentives to do so.
Not only do we buy the results, we rejoice in how cheap they are. Cheap, if you don’t count the cost in human lives. If you discount the suffering and misery of slavery, if you forget that there is nothing that undermines humanity and the beauty of free will like slavery, yes, the cost is cheap. But it takes the thrill away when I think of the hands that made it.
I’m a bargain shopper. I love sales and coupons and rebates. Just like the next shopper, I get a thrill from a good price. Whenever I reach for a price tag and my first thought is “that’s so cheap!” I get excited, then suspicious. It triggers an alarm bell in the recesses of my mind. How is that so cheap? What corners — ethical, environmental and other — did they cut along with the price? There’s a bitter aftertaste, like sucking on a battery, when it occurs to me that forced labor is probably at least partially responsible for the “savings” I’m seeing at the register.
Consumerism is as American as the Fourth of July. There are even Fourth of July sales. We are a country that likes to buy things at a discount. I don’t say that as a criticism, I say it as a fact. It is a powerful part of our culture. We buy and sell better than anyone. And there’s power in that. Any capitalist will tell you that the decisions we make as consumers are powerful determinants of the market. The government can ban a substance but it won’t clear the market nearly as quickly as if people just stopped buying it.
Consumer power
We have power as consumers that we need to embrace. What we buy is a reflection of who we are. People who plaster themselves with brand names and walk around as billboards recognized this a long time ago. It’s time we use that power for good, to make more conscious decisions as consumers.
I know this economy is tough and we all feel the need to pinch pennies. I’m not suggesting a “let them eat cake” approach, just awareness. Awareness of the ongoing tragedy of modern-day slavery that holds over 12 million people in subhuman conditions that we enable with our purchasing choices. We can’t be perfect, but we can be better now that we know our country will also be held to a higher standard.
So on this Fourth of July, let us find a way to think about our purchases to reflect that the value humane working conditions, ethical employment contracts, environmental sustainability, and human dignity. As we celebrate our independence, I would like you to join me in thinking about how we can use our freedom to liberate others.
Slavery is, first and foremost, an economic institution. If individuals and companies can’t make money off it, the institution will cease to exist. And wouldn’t the 4th of July be even better if it were a celebration of universal freedom?
Donna Brazile is a political commentator on CNN, ABC and NPR, and a contributing columnist to Roll Call, the newspaper of Capitol Hill.
Posted in Guest on Friday, July 2, 2010 9:34 pm | Tags: Donna Brazile
Guest opinion: Celebrate freedom: Remember for those without it
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