Slavery, and quite possibly the most hypocritical thing I've ever written

I randomly found this online survey that estimated "How many slaves work for you," as in, "How many things do you regularly buy that come from materials that were mined or manufactured by slaves?" It was interesting and slightly eye-opening, but they lost me at, "Get the app to fight slavery with your Android or iPhone - Ask brands at the store you shop in about where their raw materials come from, and check-in so your friends can help, too."

So let me get this straight, survey. You just told me that slaves in India are forced to mine, under horrific working conditions, for the coltan in my smart phone, and that workers in iPhone factories in China regularly try to commit suicide in the factories they work in because the working hours are so arduous, but now you're attempting to assuage my guilt and even pump me up with a shred of self-righteousness and some less personally sacrificial surface solution, by further encouraging my irresponsible consumer habits under the guise of a hip (and social!) medium?

Oh, and this is after you've called me "stupid" at one point, too. I don't need your pretentious snark, survey!

But to those of you who are reading this, before you point out the obvious hypocrisy of me typing this out on my expensive laptop while wearing my cotton clothes as I slowly roll side-to-side on my rubber yoga ball/desk chair, let me do it for you: I'm a hypocrite.

Yes, I beat you to it (don't you go all stealin' mah thunda! ;). I'm very slowly coming to grips with the realization that much of what I buy is, completely or at least in part, made by slave hands. And by "slowly," I mean I'm only just starting to try and phase things out of my life one at a time, the most major thing right now being chocolate.


Oh lands, yes. You read that right. Chocolate.


Now, before you get all weird about worrying that I'll somehow be offended at your next birthday party where you want to have a chocolate cake, let me assure you, I'm not going to be an obnoxious douche (for lack of a better term) about this. You want chocolate cake? Hurrah! It's your birthday! I like you! I like chocolate! I'll eat some! Here's what won't happen:


"Oh no thanks--I personally don't find the hopeless tears of children stolen from their families and forced into indentured slavery in another country to farm cacao beans for major chocolate corporations to be that delicious, BUT THAAAANNNNKKKKSSSS......"

So no smug, douche-y comments from me--like, ever--and I'm going to happily eat the cake. Hokay? Hokay :).

But I digress. My point is, my admittedly slow acceptance of the truth about my favorite goods, and trying to make smarter consumer decisions, is really hard. Srsly u guyz, EVERYTHING IS SLAVERY. But in the face of my faith, I just can't reconcile not trying to make better buying decisions.

I can't track every single ingredient or material used in every single food or product I buy, but I'm willing to try. And if I hear about how thousands of people are being exploited and forced to work in inhumane conditions to produce the new, cool product I've been eyeing, I hope I'm strong enough to resist the temptation and remember that I can't use my dollar to silently agree with this anymore.

It'll be hard, and I'm sure I'll find out horrifying details about even the things I think aren't compromising ("Oh, you're enjoying that 'fair trade coffee,' hmm? That's nice. TOO BAD IT WAS PROCESSED IN A FACTORY WHERE WORKERS ROUTINELY LOSE THEIR FINGERS IN THE GIGANTIC COFFEE GRINDER THAT ONLY RUNS ON THE BLAZING FIRE OF ENDANGERED TREES!"), but again, I'm willing to try and be smarter about what I consume, and I accept that it might have to happen gradually.

Just to clarify, I realize a lot of working conditions and salaries that we consider to be horrific over here aren't viewed the same way in some circumstances in other countries. You and I might not enjoy breaking rocks in the sweltering African sun for only 30 cents an hour, but I do recognize that sometimes those working conditions don't seem bad to the people who have to work in them. 30 cents an hour might allow one family to buy food and send their children to school, depending on the country. I'm not talking about those who are actually perfectly happy with their wages and work (and don't need a well-meaning but out of touch American to come along and mess it up for them).

I'm talking about those who are forced to work for unsustainable lengths of time, are beaten and/or sexually exploited if they don't, and are paid far below what they need to survive. These are the conditions I'm silently protesting with my dollar.

Weirdly enough, the decision to stop eating commercial chocolate just sort of "happened" one day. I was reaching for some "Sweet and Salty Dark Chocolate Nut Blend" thing, and some documentary I had seen months before (and hadn't exactly forgotten about up this moment) came to mind, and I just thought, "You know, how can I eat this chocolate, knowing that it came directly from the hands of scared, kidnapped slave children?"


OK, now I'm starting to sound like I'm getting smug, and you're probably thinking that I think you're a jerk because you might not have this same conviction. But I don't! I promise! You're probably super awesome at only buying local produce and actually doing Meatless Mondays, or something, but I'm not there yet. Or maybe you sponsor a child overseas--I'm not currently doing that! So there's no judgment here, trust me. Your first step to making the world a better place in Jesus' name was different from mine, but both of our steps are equally valid.


Ugh, I feel like this has been all over the place. I'm sorry. I think I maybe wrote this more to suss out my thoughts rather than have a huge "insight" to share, but I'm glad I wrote this out. Hopefully (maybe?) this will help someone else, and if you're curious about "chocolate slavery," here's the documentary, "The Dark Side of Chocolate" (no worries, it's public):

Psalm 10 also comes to mind, as I'm processing all of this. I was picturing the wicked man the psalmist describes as the one who takes these slaves captive and holds them there, assuming that God won't see him and come for those he is exploiting, but now I'm wondering, "By buying these products, are we the wicked ones, too?"


I'm encouraging these wicked people to enslave and exploit innocents, because I continue to buy the goods that use the materials they produce. Can I really, in good conscience, say that I haven't had a direct hand in slavery, just by being a mindless consumer? Deep stuff :(.