Cocoa and sustainability

Today, we learned about the process involved with the production of cocoa in Ivory Coast. Most farms are small, family owned ones which struggle to make even 10% of the global poverty standard. Companies like mars and Nestle are trying to enact change to better compensate their growers, so that they will continue growing cocoa. I also looked into the things Nike is doing to be sustainable. Environmentally speaking, they use new construction methods like fly knit which minimizes the amount of material used. They also use left over material from clothing items to grind up and make into shoes.On a humanitarian level nike says "Nike's policy is to evaluate potential contracted factories before they enter the supply chain, and throughout their business relationship with Nike, to assess compliance with high standards of social and environmental performance, including country-related risk for issues including forced labor, human trafficking and slavery."

Smoke Signals Essay

     The film  Smoke Signals is able to mix the ideas of heritage and culture with the changing world in which that culture doesn't always fit, or has been corrupted by circulated interpretations of the culture. The audience sees this struggle through the eyes of the main characters Victor and Thomas, and through symbolism of many aspects of the culture.

     One of Thomas's most important characteristics is his affinity for story telling. The Indian tradition of oral records is forcefully continued by him, much to Victors chagrin. The stories he tells are never true, but the true meaning of his accounts lies not in their veracity, but rather in their ability to evoke emotions in the listener, whether they be wonder, awe, sadness, anger, or appreciation. His manner of storytelling is reminiscent of the sage Indian in Dances With Wolves, which is completely different from Victor's idea of what it means to be an Indian. Thomas struggles between being the kind of Indian portrayed in Dances with Wolves and the fierce kind depicted in most american film and television. At one point, he is confronted by Victor, who tells him that he needs to be more stoic and mean looking; as if he had just killed a buffalo. Thomas replies that his people never hunted buffalo, and were a fishing culture. Thomas demonstrates through his clothing and general mannerisms that what most affects people are their ancestors. Thomas does not have any parents, so he emulates his grandmother to an uncanny degree.

      Victor uses many aspects of his culture to deal with the modern day problems he faces. When he is grieving over his father's death for example, he cuts his hair as a sign of mourning. His father did the same thing after the death of Thomas's parents. Arnold never grew his hair back because he was never able to forgive himself for killing Thomas's parents. Victor is able to forgive himself for playing a part in making his father leave. The audience sees this by his ability to become friends with Thomas again, something that culminates with Victor splitting his father's ashes between the two of them. They return Arnold to the earth he came from; dumping his ashes into the river, where as Thomas says, he might become a salmon.

     Eyre uses symbolism in the movie to illustrate parts of the Indian heritage. Thomas was separated from his parents in a fire, just as many Indian children were taken from their families under the Dawes Act. Another instance was when they rode in the car with the two girls. The car was only able to go backwards. This was symbolic of the Indians not being able to keep from being overrun by the whites.

Cultural Appropriation

Today I researched cultural appropriation. I read an article on the LA Times website that examined several instances of what they described as both cultural appropriation and oversensitivity. They talked about students who were offended by bad sushi in a campus dining hall, people who were offended by a white chef telling people the correct way to eat pho, and about Bowdoin students who were incensed by a tequila party where non mexicans wore sombreros. The general consensus of this article is that people are generally too sensitive. Conversely, It contends that being able to speak out about this issue is very important, and that the label cultural appropriation is sometimes accurate, for example with music. Blacks see the appropriation of their music as a threat because most radio stations, agents, and venues are owned by whites. They see the possibility of black artists being exploited while white artists get promoted. Their issue is with people taking their profits from an art form they created.