This makes me so sad and angry it hurts.
And I can't stop thinking about it.
For nearly three years now, I've been talking shit about saving the world, giving in to these big dreams in my heart. For nearly three years, I've given up on cynicism, seen it for the poison I believe it is, and changed as a person, I'd like to think for the better. I want to change the world, and I want to believe that I can. No. I need to believe that I can, because every time I start thinking it won't be possible, my heart constricts and I choke up.
Guys. Look at this.
He doesn't deserve that.
We've spent the past few hundred years patting ourselves on the back for eradicating slavery in our country. Oh, go us! How could we ever have allowed such an immoral, horrible thing to go on under our very noses?
If your child went out to look for a job on their sixteenth birthday, and disappeared, you'd be indescribably angry, hurt, and you'd tear down the world by hand to get them back. I assume that of all of you, because all of you are decent people. If you found out that they'd been kidnapped and sold into slavery, you'd move heaven and earth to get them back and then punish those responsible, I assume once more. And then, if you found out that there were huge companies paying the owners of these slave plantations, knowing full well what they were, buying their products-- be it coffee beans, or cotton, or cocoa beans-- you'd want to utterly destroy those corporations. And when you found out that there were farms out there with paid workers, that the only reason there were slave plantations was because corporations refused to pay a fair price to the farms with hired workers? When you found out that your child had been kidnapped and sold into slavery, maybe beaten to death because they wanted to get a job and help you-- and that the only reason it happened was because people wouldn't take a rise in chocolate prices?
Your child, your flesh and blood, your firstborn or your lastborn, the fruit of your loins and the apple of your eye, sold into slavery and beaten to death at sixteen years of age for a candybar.
Yeah, I'm sure you'd all be okay with that.
For nearly three years now, I've been talking shit about saving the world, giving in to these big dreams in my heart. For nearly three years, I've given up on cynicism, seen it for the poison I believe it is, and changed as a person, I'd like to think for the better. I want to change the world, and I want to believe that I can. No. I need to believe that I can, because every time I start thinking it won't be possible, my heart constricts and I choke up.
Guys. Look at this.
He doesn't deserve that.
We've spent the past few hundred years patting ourselves on the back for eradicating slavery in our country. Oh, go us! How could we ever have allowed such an immoral, horrible thing to go on under our very noses?
If your child went out to look for a job on their sixteenth birthday, and disappeared, you'd be indescribably angry, hurt, and you'd tear down the world by hand to get them back. I assume that of all of you, because all of you are decent people. If you found out that they'd been kidnapped and sold into slavery, you'd move heaven and earth to get them back and then punish those responsible, I assume once more. And then, if you found out that there were huge companies paying the owners of these slave plantations, knowing full well what they were, buying their products-- be it coffee beans, or cotton, or cocoa beans-- you'd want to utterly destroy those corporations. And when you found out that there were farms out there with paid workers, that the only reason there were slave plantations was because corporations refused to pay a fair price to the farms with hired workers? When you found out that your child had been kidnapped and sold into slavery, maybe beaten to death because they wanted to get a job and help you-- and that the only reason it happened was because people wouldn't take a rise in chocolate prices?
Your child, your flesh and blood, your firstborn or your lastborn, the fruit of your loins and the apple of your eye, sold into slavery and beaten to death at sixteen years of age for a candybar.
Yeah, I'm sure you'd all be okay with that.