Visioning with my family

Though we all had the same pragmatic Episcopal upbringing, I realized that I have become the family Woo…you know that cooky aunt who talks to spirits, hangs crystals on the windows and wears a lot of purple. I think there is one in every family and in my family it’s me.

Around 2006 I started going to this place called the Center for Spiritual Living. This was my first introduction to Religious Science. If you’ve ever watched Oprah…and well hasn’t everyone watched Oprah…she talks about the law of attraction and manifesting your dreams. That’s know as “new thought” which is actually a misnomer because when you get more into it, these thoughts are ancient and intuitive. I have always intrinsically known without a doubt that there was a God…my questions, curiosity and doubts have been based mostly on me not fully believing in what other fallible human beings have said about God. I mean am I really going to go to hell for eating pork or wearing pants? Is there even a hell to go to that isn’t already right here on earth? I don’t know for sure, but let’s just say a lot of traditional beliefs have left me skeptical.

I digress. Through my adventures in spirituality I completed a two year course of study and become a practitioner of Religious Science which is a fancy way of saying that I am a professional prayer who sometimes leads meditations or teaches workshops on visioning.

To that end my mom asked me to lead a mini visioning workshop. We had our first session on Christmas after dinner, just me, her, and her new man-friend. They had both done some visioning before so we weren’t starting from scratch. In fact my mom pulled up her board and we did some sifting through magazines to start supplementing her current collage.

A few days later my aunt and uncle arrived from out of town and mom set her intention that I would lead us in some more visioning. Of course then we got sidetracked by taking long walks, playing the slot machines at the Casino, going to the movies, and in general having a really fun and different holiday for us.

So it wasn’t until literally 20 minutes before I had to go the airport that we gathered together in the kitchen so I could explain this whole visioning thing and give the cliff’s notes version of the workshops I’ve hosted. Since I had such little time I wanted to use this post as a supplement, but whether it’s your first time or your fiftieth, I hope this might be of use as you begin 2016.

What is visioning?

Visioning is a creative brainstorm…and when I say creative I mean it in the truest sense of the word. You are using your imagination to create a clear understanding of what you want to see in your life.  This can be done in lots of ways, but an easy and fun way to start is with a vision board, which is a collage of how you want your life to be. So get out your paints, crayons, magazines, scissors, and glue sticks…whatever you have that you want to use. I like to start with a picture of myself really happy as the center of my vision because ultimately my happiness is central to everything else. What is the point of being rich, thin, and married to the Rock if it doesn’t make you happy?

Whether you know it or not, you are using your imagination all of the time. The worst possible scenario often dances through my mind. Oh shit, I’m leaving 15 minutes late to work. I 90 is going to be a parking lot, then when I finally hit the 405 I’m going to be so late I’ll have to speed, then I’ll get pulled over for a speeding ticket. I don’t have time to go to traffic court.  What if the cop is racist and I end up like Sandra Bland? And so on so forth. Where did that come from?

Have I ever experienced shitty traffic or racist cops before? Sure. But I have also found myself miraculously falling in love with the gorgeousness of the pacific northwest while crossing the floating bridge, sailing through smooth traffic to arrive 20 minutes early to work even after leaving at the same time as the previous day.

Why is it that my mind most frequently gravitates toward the negative point of attraction? I don’t know, but just like a dog that leaps out at every stranger that passes through the door, these wild and savage negative fantasies can be trained. It is my mind after all. I’m in the metaphorical driver’s seat.

So what would happen if you started to have positive daydreams? What would happen if you started to set intentions? For example instead of waking up in a panic I could wake up and think: I’m going to have an awesome day today. I’m going to get to work early and find that my boss has made cookies and that we’ve exceeded our fundraising goal and are exceptionally well positioned to start our fiscal year.  Maybe that’s what happens, maybe it isn’t.

What actually happens is that when I prepare myself for good things to happen, I start noticing good things happening. Maybe those things were already happening. Who knows? But the point is that in shifting my mind set I am now more predisposed to noticing the good. Which brings me to something of vital importance when it comes to visioning. Gratitude.

The Importance of Gratitude

When I was a kid my mom used to make me write thank you notes any time I received a gift…often before I was even able to use the gift. Did your godmother send that to you? Did you send her a thank you note? These were common refrains. To that end it has been instilled in me that if you like something and you want it to continue it only makes sense to thank the Universe. You got a new job? Thanks Universe! You got a raise? Thanks Universe! You met some really awesome person who might just be your new boo or your new best friend? Yes. Thank You. I’ll take some more of that.

So you can vision all you want, but if you can’t look around and begin to be thankful for what you already have, how can you expect the Universe to give you more? So even if you are really in a shitty stage of life. You hate your job, you’re broke, friendless, and alone, in poor health or whatever else, look around and find something to be grateful for. Because as your gratitude begins to grow you will notice that your experiences of things you can be grateful for will grow to match. It works. Seriously. If you don’t believe me, take it for a test drive. Spend a week writing down 3 things you’re grateful for every day and by the end of the week 3 will begin to seem limiting.

Advanced Gratitude: Something I started doing this year was being grateful even for shitty things. That’s right. I actually had a gratitude partner and I would write her an email at the end of the day: I’m grateful for the asshole who put a dent in my car and didn’t leave a note. I’m grateful for feeling fat in all my clothes. I’m grateful for having a job I love.

This felt weird at first. I was afraid that bring thankful for the “bad” things would bring more bad things to me, but instead what it did was it cultivated a feeling of non-attachment.  I began to just feel grateful for life. Shit happens, so do miracles…and as an excitable person I’ve been surfing these highs and lows all my life. Something good happens…my life is so wonderful! Something bad happens…why does God hate me? It’s not personal, I just take it personally. So what happens if what happens is just what happens…it’s not a result of me being naughty or nice. The Universe may be all seeing but it’s not Santa.

As I first became more aware of and then detached from this internalized understanding of my life as a meritocracy, I felt freer to vision. Because if no one is out there punishing or blessing me, then maybe no one outside of me is pulling the puppet strings that control my life. Maybe I can control my life…or even better, I can create for myself what I want to see in my life. Maybe I have actually created everything in my life, the good the bad and the ugly…and from that place of accepting my own power I realized I create something different. This is the kind of gratitude that comes with responsibility, but it’s the best kind of responsibility because even if you aren’t where you want to be, you can make different decisions.

Mental equivalent

In my mini-visioning workshop with my family my goal was not to complete anything, but rather get them started. To that end I gave them the homework of building a success resume.  A success resume is a list of the times in your life when you felt the most successful or when you succeeded in feeling the happiest or most fulfilled. These can be big moments or small…waking up in the morning next to the person you’re in love with, graduating from school, getting promoted at work, winning an award, or simply feeling great in your body. Whatever does it for you…makes your heart sing, makes your soul shout yes. I swear you have had at the very least one of these moments. In fact if you really think about it, your life is riddled with greatness, evidence that you are absolutely capable of embodying joy and accomplishing the work of having your dreams come true.

The point of creating a success resume is to establish your mental equivalent. That’s a fancy way of saying what you believe. For example I have discovered that in my mind I have a belief that getting a job is easy.  That’s right. I’ve been working since I was 15. People love paying me to do stuff. So when I became unemployed it was not as stressful as it could have been because I knew that I would find work when I needed to and I did.  In that area of my life I have confidence and ease. That is the sign of a healthy mental equivalent, a belief that is serving me well.

In other areas of my life, for example with dating, I do not have the same mental equivalent. Even though I have fallen in love and had relationships before, they have not all been what I would call successful. I’m at an age where I have gone through several waves of my friends falling in love, then getting married and now having babies. And from the outside it all looked so effortless, like figure skating. But when I tried it, well it was a like if I were to try a double axel…medical traumatizing. To that end I have realized that I have inadvertently started cultivating some negative beliefs that are not serving me well.

When a relationship ends I am filled with feelings of I fucked it up again (even when I really didn’t) and oh God I’m never going to find the guy I want (which I know is absolutely not true). Whereas when a job ends (even if it doesn’t end well…which for me, it usually does) I am usually relieved and excited for the next challenge and to make more money. I’m not stuck or holding onto why it didn’t work. I’m already in the flow.

I’m not telling you this to be self-deprecating, but to let you know that just because you are strong in one area of your life does not mean that you are strong in all areas of your life and that is okay. Start where you are. Acknowledge which of your beliefs are working for you (and which ones are not) and see if you can allow this to help boost your confidence. Your strengths are transferrable assets.

For example, if you are awesome with friendships and have deep meaningful fulfilling relationships with ease, but you are a disaster with money and perpetually broke, use your strength to set your new mental equivalent. Take the feeling of ease and prosperity that you experience in your relationships and apply it to start envisioning a new vitality in your relationship with your money. Make money your friend. Sound easy? Sometimes it is and sometimes it’s not, but every time I’ve been successful in upleveling my mental equivalent I’ve been thrilled with the result.

How do you know when you’ve upleveled?

Your vision will begin to manifest. For example, I was born premature and was often sick as a child. In fact I missed 6 whole months of my Sophmore year of high school because I was ill. My parent often said things like “you can’t take Reagan to the corner without her getting sick.” This became my belief. Then one year I had this incredible revelation that my physical health was interrelated with my mental health. I began to notice that when I got sick it was usually because I was tired and overwhelmed. It was like my body’s way of saying sit down and be quiet.

My mind and body had probably sent me this message multiple times, but I wasn’t really listening. When I got sick, I had no choice but to listen. That is a very different story than me just being a sickly kid. That is a story where I have the power to change the outcome. And so I began to make the choice

to pay attention. If I started to feel overwhelmed or tired, I took a pre-emptive day for self-care and rest.

Do I still get sick? Sometimes, but not like before. I used to get strep throat and bronchitis at least once a year. I thought it was normal. It’s not. Just recently I got a letter for my doctor saying she hasn’t seen me for 17 months. Yes I’m overdue for my well woman check up, but WOW I haven’t been sick and needed to see a doctor since 2013. For me that’s upleveling.

So I make a vision board and then what?

So you’ve made your success resume and put together this awesome collage of what you want your life to look like. Now what? There is no wrong way to proceed. Some people put it away and then look at in 6 months like a time capsule. Some look at it everyday. I’m in the look at it every day school of thought. I put my vision board in a place where I see it every time I wake up. I like to meditate with it as a focal point, but that being said, the point is not the board, it’s the vision.

Just through going through the process of thinking deeply about what you want often helps clear out the cobwebs of what you don’t want or at least provides you with a sense of clarity about where you are and where you want to be. To that end, don’t be surprised if your vision changes. Sometimes what you think you want changes.

The power of emotion

In Hawaii there is a word that they use to describe non-native Hawaiians – Haole. It translates to without breath, because when many foreigners arrived in Hawaii they didn’t know how to conduct the native greeting which involved touching noses and breathing in each other’s essence.  Though it’s commonly used when you think about it, the insult is severe, saying you have no breath, no essence, is like saying you are soulless.

Many people are Hoale about visioning. They cut out some pretty pictures. Oh here’s a nice car. Oh I like the picture of that couple kissing. Oh let me cut out this check for a million dollars. But they don’t really believe in their vision. It’s just some magazine clippings. When they look it, there is no spark, no life. When you finish your vision board you’ll know you’re done when you look at it and every part of you says YES! If you aren’t able to feel that either you need to revise your board until you do or you need to cultivate a sense of excitement. If you knew that everything you put on your board would come true, wouldn’t you be excited about it? Wouldn’t you go to bed like it was the night before the best Christmas ever?

Well it’s up to you to make it true and if that feels like too much pressure then at the very least indulge yourself in a little make believe.

Make-believe

Did you ever have an imaginary friend? I had whole imaginary worlds. Now-a-days people might diagnose it as something bad, but when I was growing up as an only child, this was called being self entertained (it’s a life skill!). Give me a my little pony, some tinker toys, and Legos and that was enough to keep me busy for hours. I also think it was the start of my obsession with fiction writing.

Fast forward I have begun to tap back into my childhood creativity to give my visioning a jump-start. Recently I became the teaching assistant for a Live Your Dreams class through the Amazing Grace Spiritual Center. It’s 40 weeks and everyone in the class supports one another to realize our dreams. Something my small group and I have done that’s been super juicy is that we began sending one another “act as if” emails where we wrote to one another from the future in which all our dreams had come true. I got letters from Paris where people were on vacation. I got letters talking about the incredible things they had achieved. One week I wrote an email every day and at the end of it one of the women in my group sent me one back asking if we were still playing or if these things had happened because what I wrote was so real! That’s not hoale. That is breathing life into your vision.

The Recap

• ·      Get clear on what you want.
• ·      Feel grateful for what you have.
• ·      Cultivate your own sense of worthiness.
• ·      Create new beliefs that support you in getting what you want.
• ·      Breathe life into your vision.

Now watch your life bloom into it’s best possible version and enjoy the ride! Feel free to post any questions or responses in the comment section below.

I'm Back!

Not to get all resolutiony about it, I’ve decided to start blogging again or more to the truth to start writing for fun again. A cool thing happened in 2015. I actually made enough money through my writing to pay for my mortgage for the first time. It was pretty momentous and a F@#! you to all the haters who ever insinuated that writing isn’t a real job and could never pay the bills. In fact writing can and did, but somehow my writing for fun time disappeared or more accurately was replaced by writing for money. Not to say that writing for money isn’t fun. It is a beautiful alchemy of two things I enjoy very much, and yet there is something about writing at my own pace, without a deadline or an editor that feels good. So here I go…

Saying Goodbye to Barbara James

Kaka with Coco

My grandma, Barbara James, passed away early yesterday morning after a long battle with an array of illnesses. She was one of the strongest and most stubborn people I've ever met and for the most part lived life on her own terms. When I was little girl I named her Kaka because I couldn't pronounce the word crackers and I had begun to associate her with the saltines she would give me when I visited. We shared a lot of mutual interests especially books and hard candy. One of my favorite memories is of her reading me the book Jonathan Livingston Seagull (still one of my favorite books). Through that book we began a lifelong conversation about perseverance. Like Jonathan we both had goals in our life that others told us would be impossible given who we were. She instilled in me from a young age a sense of self confidence and a rebel spirit. 

Mostly we spent holidays together, including the Christmas she, her friend Frances, and my mom came to visit me when I lived in Spain. Kaka was the one who taught me how to stuff a turkey. As a kid I would assist her in preparing our special holiday meals until I learned how to do it all. Then she would sit in the kitchen watching me cook, leaving me pieces of fudge on napkins and pouring sherry for my mother and I. One of our shared passions was putting decorations on the Christmas tree. During one of our last Christmases together we lost the boxes of ornaments we've been using for years (I still have no idea where they went), so we improvised. I found some silky ribbon long enough to wrap the tree and when I was finished she pronounced it the prettiest tree ever. 

 In 2010 Kaka became ill and I had the opportunity to live with her for two months while she recovered from a surgery. It was the longest time we'd spent together alone and I learned a lot about her. She didn't much care for vegetables and accused me of trying to broccoli her to death, but we both liked ice cream and Oprah. Sometimes when she was up to it she would tell me stories about her life, about meeting my grandfather and the challenges of trying to pursue a career in a place where black women were not welcome. Sometimes she was cranky and we argued, but mostly what I came to understand is that it is difficult to make a transition from being a person used to persevering and doing everything for yourself without having to ask for help to a person who needed support. Through this experience I learned compassion and grew to respect her even more for the woman she had been and the strength she still embodied.

Here is the official version of her obituary.

Barbara James, 88, of Des Moines, Iowa passed away April 2, 2015. She was born on May 21, 1926 to Pauline Humphrey and William Brown. An only child, she raised by her mother who founded Crescent Beauty School, the first black beauty school in the four surrounding states.

Barbara and Lewis on the their 25th anniversary

Barbara graduated from East High School then passed the state boards for her cosmetology certification before attending college. She completed her Bachelors of Science Degree in Physical Education and English at the University of Iowa where she met the love of her life Lewis A. James Jr. D.D.S.  They were married for 35 years before he passed away.

During her tenure at the University of Iowa, she lived in a home provided by the Iowa Colored Women’s Club because African Americans were not yet permitted to live in the dormitories.  She was the only black woman to graduate from the College of Liberal Arts in June of 1947. Upon graduating, no Iowa public school would hire her because of her race, so she moved to North Carolina where she spent a year teaching at North Carolina A&T.  Upon returning to Iowa, the field of public education was still closed to her, so she became a social worker at Polk County Welfare. She went on to receive her Masters of Science Degree in teaching from Drake University and completed further post Masters Studies at Drake University and the University of Wisconsin.

Grandma with Desmond Tutu

Barbara became an Associate Professor and the Associate Director of Teacher Corp. She spent 10 years training others to become better teachers before the Des Moines School District relented and hired her to teach junior high school English. Upon retiring Barbara continued to lead a very active life.

A very spiritual woman, Barbara was an active member of the Cathedral Church of St. Paul’s. She

served on the Diocesan Commission of Ministry and the Episcopal Standing Committee on Ecumenism for the National Church and was a delegate to the National Council of Churches. Barbara was a consummate bridge player, a world traveler, an avid reader, a huge football fan, a member of the Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, and a writer.

She is survived by her three children, Stanlie M. James, Lewis A. James Jr., and Julie B. James, her four grandchildren, Jordan James, Reagan Jackson, Lewis James the fourth, and Kellan Michael James, and two great grandchildren.

Back row: Lewis 3, Janice, Bernice, Julie, Geraldine, Lewis 2
Front row: Barbara, Pauline, Stanlie

Her motto, given to her by her grandmother Julie Diggs was: “One monkey don’t stop the show.” Faced with many adversities Barbara was a strong willed woman who put her faith in God and always found creative ways to live her purpose and provide for her family.

A visitation and viewing will be held on the evening of Monday, April 6, from 5-7pm at Henderson Funeral Home. Funeral Services will be held on Tuesday April 7 at 11am at the Cathedral Church of Saint Paul 815 High St., Des Moines, Iowa 50309. Shortly preceding the funeral there will be an Omega Omega service open to any members of Delta Sigma Theta at 10am in the chapel at the Cathedral Church of St. Paul. 

Another year of Reagan

It's official I am 34. This is actually day 4 of my 34th year of life. Part of me feels lucky. People ask me if I am a birthday person and I always say yes, because I always think of the friends I've lost and know that having a birthday is much better than never having one again. But another part of me wonders why my life has outpictured so much differently than I imagined it. When I was a kid I had notions. I was going to go to Spelman like my mom, and get a PhD too, maybe write some novels and become president. Something like that. And get married and have kids.I did write some books. That has to count for something right?

For what it's worth...

One of the most revolutionary ideas I'd ever heard was that my job wasn't the source of my income. I always thought that  the whole purpose of having a job was to have an income. But just that simple idea, that God is the source of my income, not my employer was so radical, so empowering. I had been unhappy in my job for nearly two years, before someone told me that and within two weeks of hearing it, I was able to transition into a position that was much better suited to what I wanted to do (and paid better too).

Lately I have spent a lot of time thinking about money and worth. Part of this is because I have been charged with organizing all the Walmart solidarity actions for the state of Washington during the Bentonville Strike. In leafletting Walmart I was met with a myriad of responses. Some employees were very receptive and excited that other employees were banding together to make change and to demand better working conditions. And some were very hostile. One woman in Mt. Vernon made a point to tell us we were way out of line and that it was none of our business how Walmart treated it's employees. She was the first lower level store employee I have ever heard defend their wage and it kind of threw me for a loop. Some of the managers make really great salaries, but for the most part the hourly employees are at or slighly above the minimum wage. Here in WA we have the highest minimum wage in the US, $9.19 which is still barely enough to make ends meet.

I don't mean to keep harping on Walmart, actually this post is not about Walmart, but rather about what people think they deserve. What I am realizing is that everyone has a different idea about what they are worth. Salaries are just one way that it's expressed. What is "good enough" for one person might be wonderful for someone else, or insulting. I once interviewed for a position where I would be running programs for a non-profit. The salary was competitive and the programs were very compelling, but then the funding for the position dried up. I was then invited to reapply for the position, but as an AmeriCorp volunteer. Sure the job itself would have been the same, but I couldn't imagine getting up everyday and working my ass off just to be eligible for food stamps. That is certainly not why I got my MA degree. But isn't that reality. Do the people who work low wage jobs work less hard? Is 8 or 10 or 12 hours of their time away from their families really worth so much less? Just something on my mind...

Why This Fight is My Fight

Month 5 of being a community organizer. It’s well past quitting time for the day and I’m in a cramped conference room at the library in Federal, Way with a bunch of Walmart associates who are getting ready to get on a bus for a cross country road trip to Bentonville Arkansas. There is an air of excitement mixed with a buzz of electric anxiety. Striking is a total “oh shit” moment. Jobs are on the line. It’s a moment of overcoming fear and anchoring the deep conviction that what you believe in is more important than what you have been taught to be afraid of. For most of the people who work at Walmart there is no huge financial safety net to fall back on. So this is serious.


At the end of a round of introductions, one woman raises her hand and asks: “For those of you Community Organizers who never worked for Walmart, why are you here?”

Strangely this is the first time I’ve been asked this question. Almost 10 years ago I watched the High Cost of Low Prices and I have been a staunch Walmart hater ever since. The more I’ve learned the more I’ve been disgusted. No one in my circle of friends or family even batted an eye when I told them I would spend the next 6 months taking on Walmart. I’ve never had to justify it before and don’t know where to start. Luckily another organizer starts to answer.

She talks about all of her family having similar poverty wage jobs and growing up and being treated poorly in her job. One by one the other organizer tell the same story. They talk about this fight being a fight for their family and friends, for themselves.

This is my fight, but this is not my story. I never worked at Walmart. In fact I grew up in mostly urban communities where there was no Walmart. I haven’t had a minimum wage job since high school and after getting two degrees, I haven’t even had an hourly job for several years. I make a good living and so do most of the people in my family. But when I wake up in the morning lately Walmart is on my mind.

In the end I didn’t have to answer the question for the group, but I can’t escape needing to answer it for myself. Why is this fight my fight?

I could talk to you about the facts. I could tell you that the average Walmart super center is costing tax payers $1 million dollars a year because the employees there get paid so little that they rely on welfare and foodstamps to get by. I could tell you about the numerous lawsuits that Walmart has had to settle when women and particularly women of color have been faced with systemic discrimination and not been able to advance in their careers. I could talk about the $81 million dollar settlement Walmart just had to pay out because of their crimes against the environment in California. I could even talk to you about meeting Sumi Abedin a survivor of the Tazreen Fashions Factory fire in Bangladesh that killed 112 workers that supplied clothing for Walmart.

But really what I would be trying to express is that there are some things that cannot be ignored, some injustices that can not be allowed to continue and for me Walmart’s standard business practices are beyond deplorable. No I don’t work at Walmart. I don’t even shop there, but I am still impacted every single day whether I admit it or not. Walmart has become the new business model that others want to replicate, but in doing so they are perpetuating a trend of poverty wage jobs that keep people stuck. This is not the world I want to help create. I want the legacy of my generation to be that we leave behind a prosperous economy where workers are valued and treated with the respect that they deserve.

So why Walmart? Because Walmart is everywhere, in countries around the world. They set a standard that others follow. What gets me out of bed in the morning is knowing that I can also help to set a standard that others will follow. I can put my skills and degrees to use as an advocate for self-empowerment. Standing up to live better may sound like a clever catch phrase, but to me it has become so much more. There is a light that comes on in someone’s eyes when they realize that they are worth more, that they deserve to be treated well and to work in jobs where their work is valued and respected. And once that spark catches, it spreads and it creates transformation. Sometimes it is a fragile fire. People let their fears stamp it out. Who wouldn’t be afraid when you have a family to feed? These jobs aren’t hobbies, many associates depend on Walmart for their livelihood and I never want to jeopardize that for anyone. But once associates take that first step and face their fears, everything begins to change.

Change is the nature of life. If you don’t change you die, but the way that Walmart has been changing lately has brought about several deaths both literally and figuratively. Literally if you’ve been watching the news about Bangladesh you know the death toll grows daily from the factory collapse to the numerous factory fires in locations where Walmart has not taken responsibility for creating safe work conditions. But the other murders are also insidious, the death of sustainable wage jobs, of employment with dignity, or fair treatment from management. It is truly time to stand up to live better and if standing beside someone helps them to have the courage to speak up for what they deserve, then I am honored to contribute to this fight.

Sumi Abedin, Me, Kalpona Akter at End Death Traps Rally Renton, WA

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.