 BITTERSWEET
VALENTINE
A Report from the
Fair Trade Chocolate
Education
Field
in Petaluma
# of flyers
distributed:
about 100
# of Valentines signed in support of Fair Trade Chocolate:
84
I go to the shopping
center where See's candies is located. The plan: to drop off
a flyer about Fair Trade chocolate early, before the Global
Exchange sponsored Valentine's Day of Action to express how
I feel personally about their refusal to use Fair Trade chocolate
in their candies, and to see what they will say. It was as
if they had been prepped for it by "the main office"
in case some "serious action" went down on Valentine's
Day!
I go in and walk
up to this kid working as a greeter who hands me a café
au lait chocolate truffle, I hand him my Fair Trade flyer
and within one second he gets this freaked out look on his
face and responds with "I'm not allowed to talk to you,
I'll get my manager." I'm totally confused. He can't
talk to me? "What?" I say, as he disappears into
the back room with the flyer for what seemed like five minutes.
Then this stern lady in full See's uniform emerges, "Here,
you can take this." she says, handing me a yellow piece
of paper, (the See's rebuttal to requests for Fair Trade chocolate)
and turns around and walks away into the back room. I try
to speak in response to this, but she is gone and I am completely
ignored!!! The workers of See's continue on as if nothing
has happened. I am flabbergasted, still holding the café
au lait chocolate truffle.
The actual day
of action we make some buttons that say "We want Fair
Trade, not child slavery and poverty wages!", I wear
a red dress and carry a basket full of blank Valentines for
See's customers to sign if they want to let See's know they
wish for Fair Trade chocolate, and a red bag with hearts that
say "See's Have a Heart" to collect the signed Valentines.
Scott has flyers to hand out with info on the issue and the
"Global Exchange response to the See's response"!
Two other friends, Attilla Nagy and Liz Records join us in
our Valentine's Day expression of Love for our global community.
Liz found out about the event on the Global Exchange website
and Attilla, after finding out about it through email, hunted
around Petaluma until he finally found the See's! When we
arrive, we are worried that they will tell us to leave, but
no one says anything. No one even comes out. They completely
ignore us.
The day went great—we
stayed about three hours—until we ran out of flyers.
There were many receptive people! I am always amazed at how
great people are. They thanked us for being there and for
educating them. One lady was a See's stockholder who was very
upset about unfairly traded chocolate. We told her that as
a stockholder, a letter from her to See's would mean a lot
and she seemed excited about that idea. I looked into the
windows occasionally and saw people standing in line reading
the flyers. I like to imagine that there was discussion among
the customers. Some people who wouldn't sign on the way in,
signed Valentines on the way out after reading the flyers.
A demographic report:
Almost every black person who passed signed our papers and
every single Latino who passed us signed, even if they had
kids. I say even if they had kids, because almost every single
white person who had kids with them was not interested in
child slavery in the chocolate plantations. One lady even
said it wasn't "very nice to be standing in front of
Sees" and I'm thinking child slavery isn't very nice
and then we held the door for her since she was loaded down
with shopping bags. Another woman said of child slavery, "Oh
it's tough isn't it?" sarcastically, as she herded her
children into the store. I'm amazed at this kind of blindness,
but have to say I'm even more amazed at the caring that SO
MANY PEOPLE do have! Most people were very receptive. One
woman signed a Valentine with her broken arm and one Latino
woman carrying a baby and some bags, stopped and signed and
her friends waited their turns to sign. Some of the Latinos
and one older lady tried to give us money.
One man said we
were "barking up the wrong tree". "These retail
workers can't change anything." he says, even though
we were talking with the public, not the retail workers. "Public
awareness does shift things" answers Scott, "it
has started to shift things regarding coffee and tea."
We become aware that people find it easier to believe that
the power lies elsewhere, that some other group of people
who can "really change things" is who to talk to.
I realize that educating even a handful of people is a great
thing; that working for positive changes in the global community
actually happens at a local level, like this, as we connect
with each person on a human scale.
It was wonderful
to see people's faces light up as we explained how Fair Trade
certified chocolate can help plantation conditions. "Oh!"
they would say, a half smile of new understanding on their
faces, thrilled that someone had thought of a solution to
these impossible faraway problems, a solution that they can
contribute to personally!
Many people have
been led to believe that the power to change things resides
elsewhere, but the power resides in all of us, and in the
networks we link with. Interacting with your neighbors is
a delight that we don't often experience, and Fair Trade Day
at See's was a great way to address a global problem, while
educating and becoming more connected with our own community.
Karen Schell
February 14, 2002
All content © Copyright 2002 Sustainable
Petaluma Network.
|
