Bangladesh: Why should we care?

Last week I spent the afternoon with seventh and eighth graders at Pinehurst Alternative School. I was invited, along with the Executive Director of the Washington Fair Trade Coalition to talk to the youth about the End Death Traps Tour we coordinated last month. For those of you who missed the article, Seattle was privileged to be one of the 12 cities visited by former garment workers and activists Sumi Abedin and Kalpona Akter.


Sumi is a survivor from the Tazrene Fashion’s factory fire that killed 112 last November. Kalpona is a long time labor activist and the Director of the Center for Bangladeshi Worker’s rights. You might have seen her picture in the New York Times standing in the burnt out remnants of the factory and holding up the fade glory label jacket as proof that Walmart clothing was produced there (they denied this initially). We shared some video footage of the forum that took place at the University of Washington last month where Kalpona talked about the fire and also about the labor challenges in Bangladesh.

Why should we care about what happens in Bangladesh? We asked the students to take a moment to look at the labels on their clothing. Just within one classroom there were labels from Vietnam, Honduras, China, Indonesia, and yes Bangladesh. Bangladesh is second only to China for the amount of clothing it produces for export. In the world we live in, globalization is the norm. We are a part of a supply chain that links us together with a wide variety of exporting countries. The question now becomes are we responsible for each link of the chain or just what happens in this country?

Since 2006, over 600 people have been killed in factory fires in Bangladesh. That number does not include the body count from the fire that happened just hours ago (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/09/world/asia/new-fatal-fire-at-bangladesh-clothes-maker.html?_r=2& ) or the more than 1,000 people who were killed in the building collapse two weeks ago. At the end of our presentation, one of the seventh graders raised her hand to say that while she had learned all this information before, seeing Kalpona speak gave those numbers a face. I hope you will take a moment to think about the people behind the numbers, because when you do, I think you will come to the same conclusion that those seventh and eighth graders did…that yes, we are responsible.

There are many things in life that we can’t change, but these fires are preventable. People do not need to die in order to make our clothes. Moreover they don’t need to work in poverty either. The minimum wage in Bangladesh is $37 per month, which works out to roughly 18cents per hour. Now there is a difference in the cost of living, but even still most Bangladeshi’s would need double that to survive. How much do jeans at the Gap cost? Clearly there is money in the industry that is not trickling down to either the garment workers or towards building safety standards. We, as consumers have the power to advocate for change. Kalpona and Sumi were very clear in stating that they do not want us to boycott Bangladeshi clothing because even poverty wage jobs are better than no jobs at all. But there is one thing we can do. We can call for Gap, Walmart, and all the other major corporations to sign the Bangladesh Fire and Building Safety Agreement.

United Students Against Sweatshops and other organizations have already begun pressuring the Gap locally in Seattle with the support of many important community allies. They will be continuing throughout the summer, just as we will be continuing to work on Walmart. Next week Walmart associates from around the country will be caravanning to Bentonville for Walmart’s annual shareholder’s meeting. To follow their efforts check out the Making Change at Walmart facebook page. Also to find out more about what USAS is up to check out http://gapdeathtraps.com to learn about our national efforts.

Day 17 of my 30/30

Dear Random Man dancing on the corner of Orcas and Beacon Ave S.,


Hallelujah! I thought I was the only one to hear the music. No one else tapped a toe, snapped a finger. They waz all spines vertical and hips horizontal, bearing stoic crosses on the trudge towards coffee. But me, I woke up to disco balls flashing glitter against the blacks of my eyelids, and they didn’t dissipate in the bright tangerine of dawn. The beat grew stronger, a robust and complicated rhythm jiggling through my thighs, fluffing up my hair. I felt maracas in my kidneys, tambourines in the slap of my heels, trumpets in my pancreas, trombones down the line of my shin bones. I woke up with violins in my liver, not that mopey longing stringing things, I mean mariachi staccato leaps. My toes were wiggling piano keys. Thank God you can hear it too! Feel the marimbas fluttering up through shoulders. Shake it. Pop and lock it. Shimmy like a Christmas jello mold. Let the vibe wail out like a joy siren. Are we the only two people who got the memo? We can’t be the only ones on earth to wake up to this miracle. Keep dancing Sir and I will too and maybe they’ll start to hear it. Maybe it’ll sneak up on them, their mouths curled up at the corners, getting all crinkly around the eyes, that tell tale sign that this beat is contagious.

Power of My Word Poems

These poems were written as a final project for a class called the Power of My Word. Power of My Word was the second to last pre-req before I can begin practioner studies through Amazing Grace, a church of Religious Science (not the same as scientology). I grew up in the Episcopal church, and it was an awesome place to grow up. I am not like my recovery Catholic friends. I don't wake up in a cold sweat freaking out about all the things I am doing to write my one way ticket to hell. But I did hit a point with the Episcopal church, where service didn't feel the same. I began to become numb. The words that held so much value to me as a kid lost some of their magic and all those question that I never really felt got answered...well they were still there for me.

Fast forward several years. I found myself at the Center for Spiritual Living. This was my first introduction to Religious Science and after that one service it took me 6 months before I was ready to go back. I like it. It was powerful, but it was also kind of overwhelming. So over the last few years I have been easing my way into the church and into a deeped understanding of the teachings of Ernest Holmes. One thing I love, is that I am encouraged to question, to find my own answers, to wrestle with what I believe. These poems are expressions of what thoughts I've been working through lately.

When I told my mother I was going to be a practitioner

When I told my mother I was going to be a practitioner
she said of what?
and I answered Religious Science
and there was a silence
that filled the spaces between us like a canyon,
a breath that rattled days, whole seasons
of inhale and exhale
a stillness etched in rock and color
river water and wind,
with a sky on time lapse,
night and day of slow dancing clouds
gathering and releasing rain
for the simple gentle beauty
of completing another cycle
before she asked:
But what does that mean?
I’m going to be a professional prayer
I told her.
And there was again the loving silence
of a parent whose child
has just expressed an improbable dream
like being the first Black American Queen of England
or a democratic president of the NRA.
No one wants to say
No Sweetheart, you can’t fly with paper wings,
on the off chance that just this once
they will lift and bend beyond law
to the higher nature of children’s dreams
but no one wants
to be the parent that didn’t explain gravity well enough
to keep their child from leaping from the roof.
I had seen this look before,
the measured belief tempered with a healthy skepticism,
a mommy pragmatism
that is always followed up with gentle reminders
about mortgages to pay and how health insurance
is really a great thing to have.
I felt the weight of doubt then,
What is this thing I have been called to do?
Do I even understand it enough to achieve it?
The intersection of mind and spirit,
law, word, and speaking truth into experience.
I imagine myself like Oprah
praying forth new cars and dream vacations,
the squeal of elation,
the jumping up and down
of my own captive audience,
or a Houdini
disappearing need
with flashy hand claps and tambourines.
I might need a theme song
and a roving band of musicians,
at minimum a chorus of Hallelujah girls
to punctuate the miracle
of every shimmering, gold star treatment.
But what happens is very quiet.
Within the canyons of gentle space surrounding
the field of my dream,
the No is carefully withheld
a deep swirling measure of glitter swells
with the in breath
before my mother tells me:
Well that’s cool.
If you blinked
you might have missed it,
but I didn’t.
Another answered prayer to check off the list.

On Praying
There is a part of me that is afraid of getting what I really want. Call it superstition. Knit evil eye covers and toss salt over left shoulder. Genies are never to be trusted. And wishes, carefully meted. No one wants the Midas touch, or to pray for rain from drought only to call in floods. And yet there is a want in me, a river I shade with palm fronds to muffle the rapids, to make it look smaller than it really is. But this water is deep within me and never still, a rushing of please and yes. I don’t want to want too much, don’t want my need to run naked through the streets flashing all my insecurities. To pray is to admit to longing. I would rather these unpleasantries be handled discreetly in back alley way deals with devils and demigods, with contractual agreements that mitigate things like miracles, place reasonable limits to what you can expect so that no one can say you didn’t know what you were getting. I’m not sure anymore if I am more afraid to be surprised by my good or by my bad, it is the never knowing that haunts me. The best surprise is no surprise, but that is the one that never shows up. Do I wade now? Baptize myself in the truth of what is missing then call on sun to dry me on the shores when I am made new and ready to receive? Or do I stay in the forest of my discontent another season? Place my bets on just enough to get by.
Some thoughts on God
How I wish you were a vending machine
filled with Tahitian vacations and diamond chokers,
a huggable life-sized Snuggle bear
that would pull me into your embrace on bad days
or better yet, a magical remote control to stop and pause
rewind and recreate my life until it is just right,
movie perfect and Hollywood happy ending worthy.
But you are God with a capital G
and I neither understand you
nor feel your hand in mine.
I might have seen you before,
from the corner of my eye,
the flint of you,
felt the warmth of your breath
at the nape of my neck.
You have made the hair there raise up in surprise,
But every time I turn to see you
You are not where I think you will be.
I am tired of hide and seek.
You win.
Ollie Ollie Oxen free,
Come out and explain to me
What this all means,
This messy hodge podge of miracles and disease,
Of free will and destiny
Can you just tell me
PLEASE
I promise I won’t be pissed
At the spoiler.
The Release
Letting go is the hardest part,
I think I am,
but hands and mind and heart are sticky with want
gooey with greed for things un-promised.
I can name and claim
with the best of them,
stand in knowing and gratitude abundant,
but I don’t want my prayers to disappear.
Once they’re out of eye sight
I get nervous,
like a babysitter with roving toddlers.
There are sockets to stick fingers in,
fragile plants to knock over.
Every time I close my eyes
I know my prayers are
falling down stairs or wandering into traffic,
swallowing bleach and playing with matches.
I need to gather them back to me
to make sure they’re okay
then I might venture to send them out again
when they are a little older
a bit more developed.

Joy...

My poetry is always kind of gritty. The Leader of my spiritual community recently described it as something that will make you laugh, cry, and sometimes want to punch somebody in my face. I took that as a great compliment, though I would like to expand my emotional range to the other side of the spectrum. It's not always easy to talk about dark things, to be sad, angry, or hurt on paper, but harder still is trying to capture and translate joy, happiness, elation. Maybe it's because I understand happiness less, whereas I am intimately familiar with depression, rejection, and rage...plus it makes for compelling writing. But as I explore the power of my word, I have learned how to purge. I have learned how to use my writing as a forum to release my demons, but now I would like to start invoking my good. I want joy to resonate. I want peace, fulfillment, a sense of happy expectancy to vibrate out...so I guess I have to get to writing.

Being a Plus-Sized Diva

Where I work we have cubicals. I know this is a somewhat standard practice, but I don't think I've ever worked in a place with cubicals before. I sit in a block of six. There are three of us Organizers and three Reps. Store reps, by the nature of their job aren't at their desks very often. They are the people who visit the stores and make sure workers are being respected by management...actually I am discovering that they do way more than that, but I digress. The reps come and go and we say hi to each other when they are around, but it has been a very slow process getting to know them, given their schedules.

The Rep closest to me is a black woman too. We've discovered that we live near one another and have some things in common. She is a person who really cares a lot for her members. Sometimes she gets sad. I watch her fight for them. I see her struggle. Sometimes she goes all day without eating because she just keeps working. I have taken to leaving fruit on her desk from time to time, just to remind her to eat. A few days ago I left a poem on her desk to remind her to breathe...it's a poem I wrote a few months ago after the Oscars when the Onion called a 9 year old black girl a cunt. It was a bad day for me as a black woman. I took it really personally, so I wrote a piece called On Being Black and a Butterfly which is kind of my homage to self love. Well she really liked it, and instead of rushing off to work, she lingered to talk to me.

Somehow we got on the subject of weight. She is a self proclaimed Plus-Sized Diva. I have always been weird about my weight. It exists, but I would prefer not to talk about it. I was like that 40 lbs ago, even when I was in shape and practically lean and I am certainly like that now that I am growing into my roundness. I have never once considered myself a plus-sized diva. I've seen Monique on tv making her jokes and wearing her fabulous clothes and while I admired her, I never really thought about it as something I could relate to. But when my friend said it, when she claimed it the way she did, I thought well why not? Why not celebrate where I'm at today, the beauty I am rocking this moment as opposed to holding my breath, sucking in my stomach and saying well I'll be a Diva once I lose that 40lbs. What if I never lose weight? Will I forever be waiting to feel good about my body?

I guess before I thought when women said that it was like a defense mechanism, but when she said it, it didn't feel defensive, it felt peaceful, like she was really the person who should be leaving poems on my desk to remind me that self love is an iterative process, and ongoing initiative that I have lots to learn about. So today I am a Plus Sized Butterfly (Diva still doesn't quite resonate with me-I don't think it will in 40lbs either, so I claiming my own terminology). I am a woman of consequence, a beauty of grand proportions, thick and curvy...and beautiful.