My H&M Pledge

I know, not the most practical title (got one better?). Basically this is me keeping it real, as of now I'm not going to step foot into H&M along with several other stores like Primark, Gap and the supermarkets that sell clothes (except to buy food). I've deliberately focused on the Swedish giant because it's the big daddy of all brands with its own store.

If you live in a country with H&M you know what the deal is, they make some trendy looking clothes, sell it dirt cheap and the next day every single person you know is wearing it. That alone is a good enough reason to avoid the place in my opinion. But what happened today was I glanced at one of my t shirt labels and it said made in Bangladesh, I paid £6 for that top and that was full price. The sweatshop debate is something we all know about but it seems we're to materialistic to care enough for our fellow people in the third world. I found myself trying to figure out the person in Bangladesh who made this, came up with a few ideas; an illiterate 12 year old boy, a widowed mother of 5 or even maybe someone my age. I don't even want to think about how much this person got paid. It really annoyed me bad this time and I've seen all the documentaries and read all the books on sweatshops, so I just feel the need to do this to cleanse my conscience, I got that whole liberal middle class guilt thing going on.

Enough of my opinion, let’s talk the facts. Workers in Indonesia work up to 60hours per week, sometimes even finishing jobs at home (well what’s considered to be a home) for as little as $1 a day. In recent news, a work force of Indonesian workers had walked out on protest opposing to the wages they were receiving, this was a work force of around 2,000 members, and once they had left the factory had shut its doors and refusing entry to them. After this, it had been said that “Management immediately hired local thugs to intimidate and threaten workers.”

Personally I got no issue if they charged us a tad more and paid the employees with it, sadly that's not how business works. If you offered people in the developed world those kind of working conditions, I wouldn't allow my dog near the people with most pride who would prefer government handouts instead and I'm talking about people who would rather clean toilets than be jobless.

It's really tough though to have a sweatshop free wardrobe, if you have something branded Nike there's a 90% chance the label says made in Indonesia, Pakistan or Philippines, check if you don't believe me. It genuinely does feel as if a few companies control the entire clothing market if you're not looking to splash out for brands like Ted Baker or Carhartt. I bought a Carhartt top last week for £25, made in Greece and it won't fall apart after one wash. So there is a lot of alternatives out there now days like American Apparel and I found a site that sells a sweatshop free replica of Converse All-stars for the same price (ask me and I'll find the link).

I could stretch this article into a book, but I'm saving some stuff for something else I'm writing, I might be able to post that up, I'll see what happens. Seriously speaking, is our obsession with cheap clothes more important than the state of our fellow man? We all jumped on global warming bandwagon this year, this is much more important and you know I'm right.

Who's with me?

My so called education (written 4years ago)

In one of my subjects I'm currently studying race and ethnicity in UK, it's mostly about immigration, the history, the consequences and a couple of polish plumbers thrown in. At first it seemed like an interesting topic which it is but as it moved on I couldn't help but realise the negative slant and connotations in the content.

The first troubling sign is the race classifications as much the governments fault as the exam boards for choosing to go ahead with it. There's 3 classifications of race; black, white and Asian, in a multicultural society like the UK this is it. This means a Chinese person and an Arab person are the same race, even Stevie wonder could see something isn't right. I mean say if someone's Moroccan, they're not Asian and they're not black either, try explaining that one to me.

Then we got the obligatory dribble about how black and Asians suffer from bad education, poverty and low status and the government’s actions to prevent racism and promote racial equality. Judging from the riots in Brixton, Burnley, Handsworth and Lozells, Oldham and Handsworth again 20 years after the first one the governments doing a superb job, NOT!

The area that really got to me though was immigration and the perceptions that it gives students about immigrants. My class is majority white British and they're experiences are very limited when it comes to such topics, I myself and many of you reading this may have more experience with such things, maybe your parents were immigrants. So you realise that immigrants aren't here for the hell of it or dole money, unfortunately not everyone gets this and the content does not seem to correct them and a teacher can only try so hard to change someone's mind. In one lesson someone said "I saw an immigrant at the coach station" and now I'm thinking what the fcuk does an immigrant look like, was he wearing an armband, maybe even a number tattooed on his arm or perhaps cause he wasn't white?

Should we really be teaching something so complex that the people who run the country can't work out to17 year olds in such a simplistic manner? Is Edexcel seriously this stupid? It merely seems to enforce the notions that they hold before they enter the room. All this talk from the government about integration and communities not isolating themselves seems lost even more when you allow "children" to learn this.

Get the Picture?

March 28. 07