I was tagged in another meme by my sweet Scriber/blogger friend Sonja from my old stompin ground in VA. Here’s the gist:
- Consider aspects of our culture where we have too easily compromised, issues that you passionately oppose.
- Then, ask yourself what it would mean for you, both as an individual and as a part of a community, to be a living alternative. Write about it.
- Link back here to this post.
- Tag others to participate.
From the original meme, Jamie Arpin-Ricci wrote, “In an era where Christians are largely known for the sin they oppose, this wisdom could not be more timely. Francis calls us to face the compromises of our culture by becoming living alternatives with how we live.” Amen and amen!
So what is an issue that I’ve begun to (passionately) oppose? After traveling to a few third world countries and becoming much more aware of how the global Brown Man carries the White Man’s economic burden upon his back day in and day out, I’m gaining a burden for the global poor, their plight and condition, and especially how the West/America handles and exploits these people. In our hyper-global culture, we Americans need to begin taking responsibility for our global neighbor, but especially need to individually hold corporations morally and economically responsible for how they treat and exploit the underdeveloped world for Mammon.
In November, fresh revelations surfaced from India that Gap Inc. continues to use contractors that employ child labor, with kids as young as ten years old stitching together cute little polos for suburban ten year olds in America. Later, it was revealed that contractors for yet another corporation, Victoria’s Secret, force their Jordanian workers to work up to 105 hours a week, while receiving just $.04 compensation per knitted $14 bikini. And it’s also fairly well known that Starbucks falls very short of Fair Trade standards for fair compensation per lb. of coffee, compensating many farmers around 2% per pound of the $12-14 retail price tag they charge.
So where does that leave us? Where does that leave me? Here’s what I can’t shake in the face of these stories: When I purchases a sweater at GAP made by an Indian 10 year old, am I not at least somewhat complicit in that Indian child’s suffering? Or when buy a pound of Guatemala Antigua Blend coffee from Starbucks for $12.95 for my late night study sessions, do I not in someway pronounce a blessing upon the Mighty Siren for the $.20 a pound they gave the Guatemalan farmer which perpetuates his life of poverty?
And here’s the rub: When I partner with these corporations through my consumption, what does that do to my prophetic voice?
And more importantly, how would it look to be a living alternative?
This is really no easy question and quite subjective actually. Obviously, I cannot escape at least some economic cavorting with Corporate America, so where do I begin and where does it end? The thing I need to remember is this: I need to start somewhere. I need to start with what I know. And that means not spending my money on GAP (including, GASP: Banana Republic!) and Starbucks. Already I have not spent one cent on even a pair of socks from BR since I found out about GAP Inc. practices last November.
Starbucks is another story.
While I usually go to local GR coffeeshops (my fav is a little place called The Sparrows), which are far better anyway, sometimes Starbucks is just more convenient. I know, pitiful excuse, but its the truth. That’s gonna be a struggle. But after thinking through this meme question the last week, I think its time to cut the ties to the Mighty Siren and go totally local and as direct trade as possible.
Gosh, it sounds so silly writing this. Do I really think I’m going to change something through boycotting GAP and Starbucks? Who knows, but as a follower of Jesus Christ I have a moral obligation to hold corporations responsible through how I spend my money. What’s more: I am morally responsible to the global poor when I knowingly spend money on things constructed at the expense and exploitation of the Other.
So, to begin being a living alternative, I’m adding Starbucks to the list of corporations I’m boycotting.
Maybe I’m silly, but if you and others were silly with me, I wonder what might happen…
For background on my feelings on the global poor, I’d encourage you to read these posts:
1) Keeping USA Inc. Accountable to Slave Labor and Subhuman Working Conditions
2) Victoria’s Secret Lingerie Slave Laborers
3) The Good of Affluence: A Critique and Evaluation of Capitalism
I hear ya Jeremy, and I’m wrestling through these same types of questions. Here’s my issue though: how does me not drinking Starbucks actually do anything to change the problem? Of course, if EVERYONE boycotted Starbucks things might change…agree there. Is my boycott an attempt to appease my own guilt (not that that’s necessarily a bad thing) or is it really working towards transformation of an systemic injustice? Don’t know, and I’ll continue to wrestle through it.
I hear you robo…I mean what am I really accomplishing by boycotting a powerful multinational USAmerican corporation?
Maybe nothing. But then I realized it doesn’t matter nor is that the point. For a systematic theology class, I wrote a paper on capitalism and another on globalization for a global missions class and began to think differently about this notion of moral proximity, which in some ways mirrors the Catholic churches teachings on subsidiarity.
Moral proximity says that our moral focus should normally be on the problems and issues that are nearest, that we best know and care most about the local problems. According to some theologians most ordinary Western Christians are so far removed from the actual oppression and injustice wrought upon the developing world to warrant any condemnation or divine judgement, thus absolving America from the plight of the Kenyan coffee farmer or Indian garment worker.
Globalization has changed all that.
In light of the reality of our global economic system, it is incredibly difficult to dismiss the Christian responsibility to the global poor. There should be a more nuanced, exhaustive discussion of our redemptive responsibilities toward those whom we are economically linked. Redemptive, prophetic witness should include questions that challenge Christian abundance and affluence, including: Why do we Americans believe we have the right to two homes when others in Mexico stuff five families in a one room shack? Why do we Americans believe we have the right to a $120,000 Lexus when people in India earn less than $2.00 a week? Why do we Americans believe we have the right to 12 pairs of shoes when gypsies in Romania don’t have a source of water in their village?
So in the case Starbucks (or really any business that extorts the Other in distant lands), it isnt necessarily about the impact I make on Starbucks bottom line, but my moral responsibility to and culpability in the oppression and extortion of human beings to get me that $1.40 cup of coffee (or $19.99 polo).
But that said…I still am at a loss with you own questions, though maybe this is how I would answer them! Thanks robo!
-jeremy
Hi, Jeremy. One of my concerns in this whole discussion of boycotts is the necessity of believers sitting in judgment against unbelievers (1 Cor. 5:9-13), something which Paul clearly says belongs to God alone. I can’t think of any biblical commands that require us to avoid commerce with secular corporations, no matter what their business ethics. Were there no unscrupulous businesses to boycott in the early church era? If so, then why doesn’t Jesus, or Peter, or Paul address these things?
Also, think about the past 2,000 years of church history and ask, “Where is the historical evidence that the church has ever adopted boycotts as a method of expressing solidarity with the poor or protest against unfair trading or employment standards?”
So could this be a distraction of the enemy? A way to make Christians look even more foolish in the eyes of the world? To take our attention away from the more urgent matters of sharing the Gospel and discipling the nations? As you said, the subject is “quite subjective” but these are my thoughts.
Am I too understand that there is no place for prophetic outcry in the mission of the Body of Christ against injustices wrought by people/corporations in the world? Thats an interesting one…I’ll have to think about that one, Bill, especially in light of 1 Cor. And I do mean that…thanks for the challenge 🙂
Now onto the real matter for me: the real discussion is how I and those within the Church partner in the exploitation of the weak and global poor through economic transactions. For me and others Amos is the guide here.
At the risk of prooftexting take a read:
“This is what the LORD says: ‘For three sins of Israel, even for four, I will not turn back {my wrath}. They sell the righteous for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals. They trample on the heads of the poor as upon the dust of the ground and deny justice to the oppressed.” (Amos 2:6-7)
“You who turn justice into bitterness and cast righteousness to the ground, you hate the one who reproves in court and despise him who tells the truth. You trample on the poor and force him to give you grain.” (Amos 5:7, 10-11)
These, among others, were indictments by God against those who DIRECTLY abuses and oppressed the poor. Now onto the women (whom God calls ‘cows of Bashan’!) who BENEFITED from the abuse:
“Hear this word, you cows of Bashan on Mount Samaria, you women who oppress the poor and crush the needy and say to your husbands, ‘Bring us some drinks!’ The Sovereign LORD has sworn by his holiness: ‘The time will surely come when you will be taken away with hooks, the last of you with fishhooks. You will each go straight out through breaks in the wall, and you will be cast out toward Harmon,’ declares the LORD.” (Amos 4:1-3)
These women were not the actual perpetrators of injustice, but complicit in their silence and enjoyment of the goods/services rendered at their expense. Amos accuses them, too, of oppressing and crushing the poor.
An indictment I and God’s people cannot ignore.
A boycott was probably the wrong way to frame this whole discussion. For me the conversation is about how we spend our money and how that spending binds us economically and morally to the Global Brown Man as neighbor. And if you want to go the ‘historical evidence’ route, there is PLENTY of evidence to prove the Church’s complicity of deliberate acts of INJUSTICE: Holocaust, Rwanda, the freakin NIV is printed in China for pete’s sakes!
And why ISN’T the church declaring solidarity with the global poor? Where is the outrage? I’ll tell you where, its stuffed in a Puma Shoe box, crushed in a Crate and Barrel shopping bag, in front of the Chevy Suburban behind a closed garage and nice white picket fence.
Why no historical, contemporary evidence of acts of solidarity? Doing so would threaten our comfy suburban American Dream lifestyle. Thats why not.
And that, I think, is the true distraction of the Enemy, Bill: our American suburban Dream.
-jeremy
ps-and btw…the meme was about how I can actually live out my passion for the globally exploited. How I (not you) do that is by refusing to fund USA Inc. economic pograms (and yes, thats pograms, not PROGRAMS…wikipedia it!)
I am on a similar path, Jeremy. I think the only reason people default to Starbucks is because it is the culturally “in” thing to do — and because it is Default. If a couple of people and then lots of people are like, “I’m gong to the local, fairtrade coffee shop,” it becomes fashionable — a possible new default — once it isn’t just a hippy reactionary thing but a hip, socially conscious thing, people will want to look like hip, socially conscious people and Starbucks will either adapt or go under.
Today a friend invited me to brainstorm and suggested Starbucks as a meeting place, I said, “even better, let’s meet at Tivoli’s (Fair Trade coffee shop down the street,) and my friend says, “Oh yeah, I love Tivoli’s!” So it seemed to me that she thought it was somehow less acceptable to recommend the alternative gathering place, but once it was acceptable, she actually wanted to go there too!
I feel that a boycott alone simply avoids the issue, especially when it is apparent that it will not affect the situation. While this has the potential to be a lever for action, it seems that all most boycotts accomplish in reality is a soothing of our consciences and (mental) absolution of our guilt. This is not to say that avoiding Starbucks and similar corporations is a bad thing. If by your action, you serve as an example and affect others to do the same, you might make a bit of a difference. It’s important to not allow the mere fact that we are doing something to lull us to complacency, and blind us to the opportunities for pursuing more effective solutions.
Right on Andrew…I think there is something very pious and self-righteous in even saying “oh I’m doing my part to fight injustice…how about YOU!” Pa-lease! Good words of warning regarding becoming complacent in doing genuinely authentic acts of injustice fighting in my actual backyard of Grand Rapids. Forgoing a cup of joe at *$ may sound hip (thanks jemila!) but handing my brother a cup of water in inner city GR is a much more authentic praxis…thanks andrew! -jeremy
What you say here is interesting. I don’t buy GAP or starbucks, but not for the reasons you spoke of above. I’m just a cheap person. I would rather shop at a thrift store than the gap, and I just think spending money on coffee is a waste of money when I could be drinking water or something else.
The question for me really is, what is fair? As my economics teacher in high school said, fair is really the cuss word of economics. Economists realize that fair is an arbitrary word, and the old adage usually used for beauty can be inserted here: fairness is in the eye of the beholder. Workers in India don’t have to pay off houses upwards of $200,000, and they don’t have to pay $5.00 a gallon for gasoline.
I would be interested in hearing about your personal testimony in traveling to third world countries. Were the people there crying out to be let out of their jobs?
Loved this posting.
Many people don’t think about the seemingly small things anymore, but that’s the difference between “christians” and true disciples of Christ.
Because he’s always thinking about us, these things don’t go unnoticed and as he brings them to our attention we should not take it lightly, but move on these things (whatever they may be, however simple we feel they are) may be.
Jam 1:23 For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass:
Jam 1:24 For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was.
Jam 1:25 But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth [therein], he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.
Jam 1:27 Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, [and] to keep himself unspotted from the world.
stop by anytime and share with me
the easiest way around it all is to buy clothing at the second hand stores… (of course that’s beyond a lot of people who are living above their means anyways), but it’s been awesome for me and my family.
i always seem to find the best quality at the best prices.
One year, I bought a leather suit with rhinestones all over the arms (Yeah, I hear the whisperings in the background…LOL I’m a woman of color, that likes to dress well) for $75.
wow, you say, what’s the big deal?
the big deal is that the suit I bought was a $2000 suit normally priced in the regular retail store.
so, all I am saying is that there are multiple ways to accomplish something if it is really of interest to you.
thanks brother
OMG … what a beautiful post. You were the first person I thought of to tag for this and I was right on!
May I be so bold as to suggest Green Mountain Coffee Roasters to purchase your coffee on-line. Now … you can’t go there for wi-fi, but they have one of the best lines of fair trade coffees going and as far as I know have been on the FT band wagon since the beginning.
And, Amos, great heavenly day, you quoted Amos!! And the cows of Bashan … see this post of mine ( http://www.calacirian.org/?p=170 ) from a couple of years ago … I preached/ranted out of Amos. Then I had a nervous breakdown two weeks later. Not kidding. Don’t know if the two were connected. But I love Amos and think it’s highly underrated; very subversive.