Thoughts on the Local: New Balance

I’ve been on the East Coast for a week. A few days ago, I went over to Lawrence, MA, an old mill/industry town (near Lowell – which is known in social studies books throughout the middle school world as a center for the textile industry during the 1700s – and also where I’d been staying).

I learned about two months ago that very few (i.e., almost none) tennis shoes are made in the United States. Even Tom’s Shoes – so conscious of social justice – operates their industry out of South America (and maybe Africa). This would be great news for those third world workers, as long as the wages are fair. But there’s little data out there for Tom’s. Rainbow Sandals, another well-known shoe that was once made in the U.S., has outsourced production to Asia. INT, a small surf industry outfit in San Diego, stopped making their “traction-pad” sandals a few years ago. Those things were cool.

The only company (that I know of) that still makes any shoes in the U.S. is New Balance. And even then, it’s not 100% of their inventory, and for the small percentage that are made in New England factories, they openly admit that the materials aren’t U.S.A.-made. But, I’m happy that they’re still making shoes, and I bought a pair for $50 (the 992s). And my wife bought a pair. And my brother bought a pair. So would have my dad, if he didn’t have bad shoe-luck (i.e., can’t ever find his size – “the story of my life” he says.

Anyway, it’s not as “local” as I’d hope: I don’t know who made the shoes (or the materials, which very well could have been made on slave labor). But if we patronize companies that make an effort to make shoes on a fair wage, maybe they’ll stay in business and slowly make more and more of their inventory that way, and resist the temptation to use cheap labor in needy countries.

So, anyway, shoes that are a little closer to ethical.

(Note: I’ve realized that I can’t really change my practices, let alone my family’s practices, all at once. We’re still moderns – children of millenial industry. And not knowing where our things originated is standard practice for us, ingrained. So, we have to move much slower, but slow in the good and right direction is better than high-speed inertia down the same old questionable streams. This is a journey indeed.)

Thoughts on the Local: Coffee

I saw Black Gold.

Uh oh.

Thoughts on the Local: Ingestibles

I saw Food, Inc.

Uh oh.

Thoughts on the Local: Clothed in White, Robed in Righteousness

Well, I’m not sure where to start my most recent thoughts. I’m experiencing a few “on-the-verge” situations. The sort of experiences where you’re “just waiting for things to line up.” Stuff regarding the way me and my family live and think and know, etc. Ahhk. That doesn’t depict it too well.

This will have to do for now, I think:

I’m giving away something near 90% of my clothes.

Since my daughter was born (and, come to think of it, I hadn’t mentioned that here yet; but she’ll likely stay off the interwebciclistic blogosphere), we’ve been given lots of clothes by loving and caring family and friends. Really, we are grateful for the love and support we’ve received from everyone. At the same time, I’ve noticed that almost all the clothes/products are made very far away from where we live, by people who we never will meet.

I started checking all the tags of Nan’s clothes. Bleak. I didn’t find anything that was made in the USA. Then my clothes. Four 18-gallon trash bags later, I’m now relying on a small cloth militia of USA-made articles. This is not a “Buy American-made / Support US Economy” thing. Nor is it necessarily an “anti-sweatshop” thing. (Though the latter would not be bad, and certainly is a big consideration to me.)

So, for the past two to three weeks Lani and I have been looking up companies and clothing production stats and fair labor practices and local clothing retailers, and once again, Bleak. For instance, we were in Berkeley, CA last week. And silly me: I thought we might find some locally made stuff at independent baby stores (yes they definitely exist) up there. This is the best I could find: a onesie by a company called “Wry Baby” that has “Produced Locally” billboarded to the thing. On the tag: “Made in China.” Bleak. Depressingly, ironically bleak.

Even Tom’s Shoes… the go-to social justice for-profit clothing company for college sophomores (especially at the Christian university that receives my grad school tuition checks)… even they appear to have warehouses in Argentina and China, “with plans to expand to Brazil and Ethiopia.” This is a good point to bring up Nicholas Kristof’s (NY Times’ social justice fan-boy) argument that sweatshops are actually good for the third-world and for the humans who work in them. Supposedly because a sampling of actual sweatshop workers are happy to at least have a job, and not be rummaging at the dump. But in the end, that is just a lesser-evil argument, utilitarian at the bottom (and therefore, tainted at the core – though I don’t have time to address that here).

That leads me to what I think is the most damaging thing: the average American has no idea where the shirt on their back came from. We’ve become familiar with a “green” lifestyle. We think recycling is good and organic food and cotton is better and on and on. But at the end of the day, we are completely disconnected from the making of the goods we consume, and this is terrifying to me. Yah, that means the possibility of no more Vans shoes (China and Mexico), no more cool “vintage” cowboy shirts (Korea and Hong Kong), no more Dickie’s (Honduras); but there is no way that I can allow my daughter to live in clothing that was made by an exploited third-world child. When this is magnified beyond the clothing issue to other consumables (fabrics, lumber, books, pens, kitchenware, et cetera ad infinitum…), I am awash in a sea of injustice. Under that banner, “what else has the Lord required of you but to live justly…” (Micah 6:8) is not as simple as the preachers and Christian social justice blogs preach.

I’m not an expert on this – I hope I can get more reliable information that has human persons’, animals’ and the earth’s best interests at heart; but I see this clothing problem as (just one of what is becoming many [hence the "on-the-verge" comment above]) an issue that demands a vastly different life than I am currently prepared to live, let alone to lead my wife, daughter and dog to live.

Today I wished I had fur like Margot, or something. I mean, even my undies are made elsewhere; hence… yes. I’m planning to learn that old sewing machine I got for Lani, I guess. Maybe I’ll wear a toga every day.

Lord help me.