The dark underbelly of "Black Friday"

I spent "Black Friday" far from any shopping center.  Instead, I spent it with a sister peace warrior in the battle to empower young people.  We spent our day talking about what we can do to help disadvantaged girls get ahead in a society which does not adequately prepare them to be successful in the world of work.  These girls have not been given the coaching and education they need and deserve to know just how to fight for themselves and navigate the rules to the game of life.  We dis-empower such young people by allowing the perpetual cycle of poverty to continue.  My friend and I do what we can and when we don't know what else to do, we look to others who do this good work to brainstorm with so we can come up with more ideas.

The irony of it it all is that I have chosen to stand up against the retail enslavement of people in my community and across the world today.  Yes, I said enslavement.  And yes, today is Black Friday.  Those who work for barely living wages do so because there is a feeder system (young people grow up without adequate workplace and career-planning training, in addition to the lack of programs that teach young people how to "unlearn" the habits and negative self-talk of poverty).  As long as my society demands the right to consume at dirt cheap prices, there will be companies who engage in low-wage employment practices, further perpetuating the cycle of poverty. There are those who fight against me right now as I take a stand on this issue but I know I'm not alone and I will stand up for what I believe until others stand up with me.  And you can start by (1) being conscious of how your shopping choices impact all the unseen people involved in bringing a product to you and (2) making any small change in your shopping choices.  Even just one.  Shop locally, support a local craftsman, make your own gifts, give to charity, sponsor children living in poverty, reduce your holiday spending budget or even just buy one less thing.  Any small action you take is one important step.

Source: https://www.facebook.com/brainsparker?fref=ts

2012 Black Friday: Enslavement of the low-wage American worker: 

Last night, before I went to bed, I checked Facebook and saw several posts by friends and many of my college-age former students posting about having to head to work at retail stores at midnight. They went because they need to keep their jobs and they need the money. Did they have a choice? No. And why not? Because our culture of CONSUMPTION has become one which now makes Black Friday not just an opportunity for retail stores to "kick off" the Christmas shopping season, but rather a requirement for us to consume, consume, consume. And who will make this possible for us? The low-wage workers who have no choice to work at these businesses, because when you live in poverty and you lack skills for higher paying jobs, you take and keep any job you can get.

Is it appropriate for any of us to ask someone to work a ten or twelve hour overnight shift they don't normally work when their bodies should be resting so that we Americans can purchase low-priced goods made in sweat shops across the world? No. And now we have become a society which has successfully established the enslavement of our own people (those working the low-wage jobs, of course) to fulfill our selfish desires to both make money (corporate retailers) and consume (citizens who have fallen victim to this ploy to get them to spend). This will not stop. Thanksgiving/Black Friday 2013 will be just as ridiculous - or worse. Retail workers will not be allowed to sleep through the night because their income hails from retail stores which now "have to" participate in order to compete in the profit game. Only WE can stop this. Ask yourself what truly matters and know that the sweatshops and enslavement of workers has finally come here, to our own community. It is as close as that cashier who took your credit card at 2:15AM so you could get that $55 flat screen television made by enslaved workers in China it's easy not to think about.

No one should have to drink Red Bull all night to make it through a ridiculous work shift their bodies are not already accustomed to. Ever. Especially mere hours after celebrating an American holiday which reminds us to "gives thanks" for what we already have.

My stance may shake people awake or it may anger them.  I struggle to censor myself anymore because I know the truth and I have to sleep at night knowing whether or not I took a stand and did whatever I could to make life a little bit better for those who need our help.  There are so many inequities and so many battles to be fought.  This is a challenge for a peaceful warrior who chooses always to see the love first but sometimes the love is the one thing at the heart of the shakedown which remains true.  As the following quote states, enlightenment is a destructive process.  We cannot awaken half-way and we can no longer pretend that the time has not come.  When everything is falling apart around us, it is the best sign I can imagine that it is time for us to destroy our own limiting and fearful beliefs too.

Source: https://www.facebook.com/truthBECKONS

The greatest dichotomy...

It isn't black versus white.
It isn't good or evil.

It's the cavernous and almost endless stretch of pain, injustice, abuse, neglect and power that extends the distance between poverty and wealth.

Poor versus Rich.
Give versus Take.
Life versus Death.

It is no longer a catchy and kitschy theme for a Hollywood television show or comedy a la the rags to riches variety.  It's a terrifying and ever worsening two-headed dragon that humanity has single-handedly created.  It's a beast that has been fed  with the blood, fear and lives of countless human beings.  And it is a beast that is killing hundreds of millions of people around the world.  Tens of thousands while you read this.

You know the headlines.  You've seen the pictures.  But it's worse than you think.  It's worse than even I can imagine.  The "causes" themselves are the new players in the game of wealth versus poverty.  We believe that good people and organizations are doing their best to address the needs of those trapped in man-made poverty/war/starvation all over the world, but more than you can begin to imagine, we are led to believe something is happening (with, perhaps, our own money) but in reality, we're being lied to about what is really happening.

In this article in TIME, an employee who works for one international aid organization admits:

"Western aid agencies aren't reaching many of the starving. Some, incredibly, are pretending they are. Oxfam is one agency raising money for Somalia and claiming to be reaching hundreds of thousands when, as a spokesman admitted to TIME, it doesn't actually distribute food and has no staff in the famine area. Less disingenuous agencies will admit the emergency operation is not going well."

This, sadly, is one admission to the crimes being committed in the world by the very people we put our faith and home in to do the work we cannot do ourselves.  Or can we?

It doesn't seem impossible once you begin to consider that the starving child in Somalia is your child.  When you look at another human being as yourself, as your loved one, as your own child then everything in your heart changes.  What you pay attention to changes.  What you advocate for changes.  What you can do grows bigger.  You grow bigger.  And it is in the growing bigger that you do within yourself where the change in the world begins to happen.  Your single consciousness can ignite a fire powerful enough to spread across the globe - and change the hearts and minds of people you'll never know as it catches flame between you and your friends - to their friends and their friends' friends.

It's the pebble in the pond.  It's one small change in your world that can make a change and bring balance to the dichotomy between extreme wealth and poverty-disease-starvation.  It's your heart - and your informed mind - that can and must insist on fairness and equality in the world.

One day, we can and WILL live in a world where hundreds of thousands of human beings don't die of starvation mere miles from stockpiles of food.

Heal the world... You can make it a better place.

There'd better be a good excuse for a blogger with a fair number of regular followers in all corners of the globe - from Demark to Hong Kong, Romania to Sri Lanka and Argentina to Israel - to disappear for six weeks, right?  Well, I've certainly got a good reason -- and countless stories to tell.

I've spent six weeks in a part of the world with the greatest dichotomies I can imagine.  I've seen the richest of the rich living fat and happily on one side of a concrete wall while the most poverty stricken human beings live on the other.  That these extremes exist is heart-wrenching in and of itself - that they exist within a stone's throw of one another is unfathomable.  That they live daily with the reality of each other is heartbreaking.  That nothing is being done to change this is criminal.

I've seen poverty, slums, starvation, corruption, child prostitution, abuse of power, child neglect, beggars, crippled outcasts, blatant pollution, hard labor, bare feet on city streets, animals and children eating from dumps, trash in national parks, exploitation of natives, parading of culture for commercial consumption, exploitation of those doing good and false promises by those who should be doing good.  I've seen it all, I've felt it all, I've been changed by it all.

There will be many stories to come but this is the opening of the box of souvenirs I brought home in my own heart - a collection of vile and screaming injustices that must be changed in the world.  I ask you to join me, if only in your heart.  Open up, ask yourself to give your attention and compassion to any of these stories and you will have made the first step.

I'll see you there - where we are changing the world, one step at a time.