While walking to the library today, I could not help but notice the sea of blue and white flags spanning the quad.
What is this? A campaign in opposition to human trafficking! Great! I’m glad to learn students are highlighting a significant realm of human rights atrocities. However, upon closer inspection I noticed a large portion of these flags (intended to represent fair working conditions and the maintenance of human rights) had Home Depot advertisements on them.
Wait, what? Home Depot, whose CEO has been sued for employee abuse, misleading consumers with interest-free credit promotions, systematic sexist and racist discrimination of employees, and denial of workers’ overtime payments. This business sells old-growth rainforest wood, spurring an illegal and unsustainable demand for wood that, until a court order in 2001, was treated with cancer-causing arsenic. Oh, by the way, between 1999 and 2003, Home Depot allocated $1.5 million to the Republican party and Bush election campaigns, and past top members of the corporation have served as aides in the Bush administration.
Seems kind of antithetical to the aims of Slavery Still Exists. In America, our voice as consumers is often louder than our voice as activists — don’t support businesses with bad labor, environmental, and political practices. And by all means, don’t misleadingly advertise for those businesses under the banner of human rights promotion! Do your homework.
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