Black Friday Shopping: How Can You Reduce Your Human Trafficking Footprint? (And an Apology)

Today I want to start with an apology specifically from myself, Lydia Taylor. Several days ago, I began this exact post and at one point I accidentally closed the page and it was deleted forever. I was so frustrated I gave up on it entirely for a few days. That's no excuse; and I plan to continue updating every day (at least every week day) for the foreseeable future. Human Trafficking is an issue that goes beyond daily annoyance and I should've had better willpower than I had in that moment. So, if you're still with us, thank you, and prepare to see a new post every day from now on!

Now for our real topic: Black Friday. Everyone loves a good sale, and Black Friday is the one day a year when we are guaranteed to find one no matter where we go to shop. So, it might be easy to head to every store in our town looking for deals; but are we feeding slavery in the process?

It's not a fun thing to think about; that your cheap clothing and electronics were most likely touched by slaves. None of us want to think that simply by being consumers in America we're contributing to the human trafficking plague. However, it's a tragic fact that we need to be more careful which companies we buy from or people less fortunate than us may pay the price.

Let's use Wal-Mart, for example. This one may not come as a surprise to most of you; which is why it's a little disheartening that so many people still shop there. If you watch John Oliver like I do, or follow the news in a different way, you'll have probably heard about Wal-Mart's scandals with factories which make the clothes they sell really being sweatshops filled with slaves in 3rd world countries. You may also have heard that these factories seem like they came straight out of early 1900s America; no fire escapes, windows, etc.  The question here is: how did Walmart react to those claims? Basically, they pretended to have no part in it. They said the factories had not been approved by Wal-Mart. Why is this questionable? The clothes being made in these factories were being shipped to and sold by several Wal-Mart stores; how could that have happened if the factories were not approved? Another fishy fact in the hunt for answers was that there were floor plans of the buildings which showed fire escapes. However, the fire escapes straight up didn't exist. Reporters followed the plans to find them; and found nothing but wall and slavery.

So, Wal-Mart is out, and that might have already put a big gap in your shopping plans for that great day of spending which ironically comes soon after the day for being thankful for what we already have. Does this mean your day has been ruined? Surely not! My biggest advice is to head to secondhand stores which may have some sales of their own while also being cheap to begin with and having no affiliation with the stores the items they carry came from. Even if, say, a T-Shirt at your local resale shop came from Wal-Mart, that shirt no longer makes Wal-Mart money. Another thing I like to do is shop online and then do some quick Googling to make sure my online shopping cart isn't messy. Amazon is a good option as long as you check to see which parent company Amazon is selling the product for. You can also go onto smaller websites; such as online stores specifically for funny T-shirts or nerdy pop culture merchandise that is for-sure made by the owners or a small group of well-paid workers by those owners. Youtubers such as John and Hank Green and Jennamarbles also tend to have Black Friday sales, so check up on your favorite social media celebrities to see if they're selling anything on their websites. Big-name celebrities can still have affiliation with human trafficking, but again, a quick Google search can help you avoid that.

Thanks for staying with our project, and happy shopping!