Globalization and Colonialization is Fostering Unity among YouthMost of my experience with colonialization has not seemed good. I am a person of African descent. My family history is traced to slavery. Forced migration led my people here. In the mid to late 1990s, I was one of those who challenged globalization at the political level. The bourgeosie were stealing the labor of the proletariat. Now mothers as well as fathers were not home with the children. All parents and even children have to work to make a living. Americans spend more time with fellow workers than their families and since the climate at work tends to be so strict, the anxiety and venting about our circumstances tend to fall on the family and kin in a strange version of negative reciprocity. Family seems last on our list
time-wise. The impact of industrialization and commodification in our state economy.So we are having a conversation, an inquiry, that is designed to really get up under your social constructs, which can seem like getting under your skin. Stirring up confusion, angry, and other feelings that may not be comfortable. Know this: it's all part of the learning process. Like walking out to look at the edge of the earth before our superstitions were upended, it can really seem threatening to confront our social constructs and the discourses that keep them in place. Our mindset is designed to reinforce the status quo. We cannot really seem beyond "what makes sense" or seems "real" to us. It's not a social construct.
That's the way life is.Here is the first video I want you to examine and dig into. It's called SOMETHING TO HIDE documenting a delegation composed of university students who head to El Salvador to find out who makes clothing for Nike and Wal-Mart. They find out it's people their age with little knowledge of their labor rights.
The second video called THE HIDDEN FACE OF GLOBALIZATION is produced by the same media organization the National Labor Committee. They support workers rights in a global economy. The second video is also about sweatshops but in Bhangladesh. Watching both had me realize how universal or at lease pervasive this experience has become relative to some of the largest US corporations such as Nike. From El Salvador to Bhangladesh cultlure is becoming a universally dismal like of labor and not much else.
It has been through live aid concerts and sweatshop campaigns that young people around the world have been out to make a difference. In 2008, Live 8 founded by Bob Geldof advocated for canceling Africa's debt to save African lives. Check out his appeal at the concert.
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