How Much Does Justice Cost?

Let justice roll down like waters
And righteousness like a mighty stream.

Martin Luther King quoted Amos 5:24 in his "I Have a Dream" speech, commemorated this past week on the 50th anniversary of the nistoric 1963 March on Washington, but he also quoted that passage in a speech during the Montgomery bus boycott, in his letter from Birmingham jail, in "How Should a Christian View Communism?", "On Vietnam," "Where Do We Go from Here?", "Our God is Marching On."

He quoted it again the night before he was assassinated, speaking in Memphis, Tennessee, in support of striking sanitation workers. Justice, to him, was rooted in scripture, and tied tightly to the just treatment of the poor, and of low-income workers here and around the world.

The book of Amos would be a good text to read on this Labor Day Sunday. Just nine chapters long, it provides a striking view of a period of expansive trade, growing division between rich and poor, oblivious consumption, disregard for the needs of workers.

Amos himself was a sheep herder and fig farmer. Like farmers today, he saw the way wealth and power concentrated into the hands of the few, while those who worked to create the wealth fell deeper into poverty. He also saw what happened when production of food gave way to production of profit.

Hear this, you who trample the needy
And do away with the poor of the land,
Saying
When will the New Moon be over that we may sell grain,
And the Sabbath be ended that we may market wheat?”
Skimping the measure,
Boosting the price
And cheating with dishonest scales,
Buying the poor with silver
And the needy for a pair of sandles,
Selling even the sweepings with the wheat.
 (Amos 8:4-6)

Spend even a little time looking at labor practices in today’s agricultural systems and Amos’ words jump to life.

How many workers are forced to labor far past a reasonable work week, for little pay, or worse, as bonded laborers?

I’ve posted before about slave labor and chocolate, but the practice of child slave labor reaches far past that one food product.

Coffee is the second most traded commodity world-wide after oil, and much of the world’s coffee is harvested by forced labor, often by children, some as young as five years old. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, child labor is part of coffee production in Colombia, Côte D’Ivoire, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Guinea, Honduras, El Salvador, Kenya, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, and Uganda.

When global coffee buyers push prices lower, small growers find themselves looking for ways to cut their costs, and forced child labor is a common strategy.

“In the past decade, the proportion of value added to coffee in the industrialized world has increased significantly. The share of producing countries’ earnings in the retail market decreased drastically by the early 2000s, to between 6% and 8% of the value of a coffee packet sold in a supermarket” (UNCTAD 2004). One of the root causes of forced and child labor in coffee is the low prices and lack of price stability for farmers.”

Amos, in his indictment of wealthy consumers, is rarely polite:

“Hear this word, you cows of Bashan on Mount Samaria,
You women who oppress the poor and crush the needy
And say to your husbands, “bring us some drinks!”  (4:1)

Surely the women of Bashan knew little of the conditions of the poor supplying those drinks, just as we know little of the conditions of the poor growing and harvesting our coffee.

Apparently, for Amos at least, that was no excuse.

But what would it cost us to ensure a living wage?

“Farmers who participate in the Fair Trade program receive, as of 2012, a $0.20/lb premium on Fair Trade Coffee (Fair Trade USA). In return for this premium price, Fair Trade cooperatives adhere to a number of labor standards, including the prohibition of forced and child labor.” (Verité Fair Labor Worldwide)

Simple math: insistence on Fair Trade coffee should cost just 20 cents more per pound. Although, looking at the grocery shelf, the premium may be a little higher. And maybe a few minutes extra to look for the Fair Trade certification.  

But coffee and chocolate, grown in developing countries, are not the only food products where unfair labor practices abound.

Look closer to home: the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, begun in 1993 in Florida, has been working to raise awareness of bonded labor and unjust practices throughout the southeastern states, primarily in the harvesting of tomatoes. Their antislavery campaign has helped gain freedom for over 1200 workers held against their will in Florida. Kidnapped or tricked into captivity, many of them were locked at night in box trucks or sheds, sometimes chained, beaten if they tried to escape.

For thirty years, the wages of tomato workers held constant: 50 cents a bucket.  Buckets hold about 32 pounds, and until recently, workers were forced to pile the buckets high. The best the fastest pickers could earn was $75 a day.

The Coalition of Immokalee Workers has been promoting a Fair Food Campaign, attempting to raise tomato workers wages by one penny a pound, and instituting rules about fair measures, fair hours, and other worker protections.

Some corporations have signed on in support of the campaign.  Others refuse to pay the penny a pound difference. This summer, the CIW is asking help in convincing Giant, Stop and Shop, Kroger and Wendy’s that a penny a pound isn’t too much to ask in support of justice for workers.

A penny a pound.

Surely we can afford it?

But this issue of justice goes deeper still.

Not long ago I heard Wenonah Hauter, director of Food and Water Watch, speak about her new book Foodopoly. Concentration in the food industry puts pressure on small and midsize farmers, forcing many to sign contracts that increase their debt and decrease their profits, dictate conditions, narrow choice.

Just four companies (Kelloggs, ConAgras, Kraft and General Mills) control 80 percent of the cereal industry. Four companies control 83 percent of the beef packing industry, 85 percent of soybean processing, 66 percent of pork.  As of 2008, three companies (Archer Daniels Midland, Cargill, and Bunge) controlled 90 percent of the global grain trade.

More than 60 percent of all poultry in the U.S. is now raised by growers locked into one-sided contracts that force the famers to take on risk and capital investment while leaving the distributors (Pilgrim’s Pride, Tyson, Purdue, Sanderson Farms) free to dictate terms, walk away from contracts at will, and dodge liability for pollution or disease. The farmer’s share of the price of chicken has been stuck at under 5 cents a pound for the last twenty-five years, while the distributors’ profits soar into the millions.

If growers in the U.S. are pressured and squeezed, forced into contracts that leave little room to move, how much greater is the pressure on small farmers in other parts of the world? How much greater the incentive to underpay workers, fall back on slave labor, ignore safety precautions, “sell the sweepings with the wheat”?

We live in a complicated world.

And we love easy.

But sometimes the cost of easy is too great.

Amos warned of the dangers of commodification, treating all of life as something for sale: land, time, justice, even people:

They sell the righeous for silver,
And the needy for a pair of sandals.
They tramploe on the heads of the poor
As upon the dust of the ground
And deny justice to the oppressed
(2:6-7)

He warned against worship of the idol of profit and the resultant disregard for compassion, mercy, wisdom, justice:

you have turned justice into poisonand the fruit of righteousness into bitterness (6:12)

Mistreatment of farmers and farm workers goes hand in hand with mistreatment of animals, of soil, of water. If the profit motive is the greatest good, then human health, environmental health, health of rural communities all become expendable.

What would it take to change this? What would it take to bring justice for farmers and farm workers, and along with that, better treatment of land, animals, human health?

Prayer.

Knowledge.

Pennies on the dollar.

Expenditure of time.

Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation, asked:

“What single thing could change the U.S. food system, practically overnight? Widespread public awareness – of how this system operates and whom it benefits, how it harms consumers, how it mistreats animals and pollutes the land, how it corrupts public officials and intimidates the press, and most of all, how its power ultimately depends on a series of cheerful and ingenious lies.”

It’s time we understood, and spoke against, those “cheerful and ingenious lies.”

Here are some places to start:

Buy Fair Trade

Support the Coalition of Immokalee Workers’Fair Food Campaign: Take Action 

Support US farmers: Buy Fresh, Buy Local, Farm and Ranch Freedom

Learn more about food and justice: Harvesting Justice (a downloadable book about global food issues)

This is the third in a series on food and farming, Jesus' nature parables, and the intermingling of justice, sabbath, shalom, and the sweet, shared hope of God's green equity:

God's Green Equity: August 4, 2013

Seed Parables: August 11, 2013 

Miracle Seeds of Sorrow's Kingdom: August 25, 2013   

Lenten Sweetness: Tasting Towb

Grape Harvest, Joaquin Sorolla,
1986, Valencia, Spain

I drank at every vine.

The last was like the first.

I came upon no wine

So wonderful as thirst.

(from Thirst, Edna St. Vincent Millay)

Our culture is addicted to sugar. Global sugar consumption has tripled in the last fifty years, with Americans leading the way. Current US sugar intake is up to 20 teaspoons of sweetener per day – hidden in everything from fruit drinks to ketchup.

Recent studies show what I’ve found in my own experience: sugar is addictive. The more we have, the more we want, and the more difficult it becomes to say no. And sugar is closely interlinked with our emotional histories in ways that fuel our cravings. In my own family history, sugar is closely linked with nurture, belonging, fun. It’s the approved mode of dealing with stress, the accepted ingredient of any party, the secret reward for any sacrifice.

Which is why, every Lent, I give up sugar and artifical sweeteners, completely. Which has come to mean I give up most processed foods as well, anything with sugar/fructose/dextrose/sucrose or that ubiquitious corn syrup in the top three ingredients. So no ketchup. (Sugar is ingredient # 2). No Honey Nut Os. (#2 again). No barbeque sauce.

Since I can’t drink coffee without sugar, I also give up coffee. The caffeine withdrawal headache lasts a day or two. The sugar withdrawal takes longer.

So is the point to punish myself? It feels that way for a week or two. Then something wonderful happens. I start to taste food in a new way. I find myself appreciating the subtler sweetness of real flavors: carrots, walnuts, bananas, red peppers. Raisins are almost too sweet. A single date is a delicious dessert. A cold glass of water has flavors I’d forgotten.

Sugar, in the quantities we normally eat, clouds our palates, shifts our blood chemistry, puts our energy levels on a roller coaster, and contributes to illness and emotional instability. Yet we consume more and more, searching for that happy high the soda and energy drink ads lure us toward.

Vineyards with a View of Auvers, Vincent Van Gogh, 1890, France

I find myself thinking of Isaiah 5, a beautiful, troubling song of accusation. It starts this way:

I will sing for the one I love a song about his vineyard: My loved one had a vineyard on a fertile hillside. He dug it up and cleared it of stones and planted it with the choicest vines. He built a watchtower in it and cut out a winepress as well. Then he looked for a crop of good grapes, but it yielded only bad fruit. 

The prophet recounts God’s provision on Israel’s behalf, and Israel’s insistence on twisting the good gifts given, craving more and more, wanting things that are neither healthy nor wise, manipulating people and abusing the earth to fulfill desires that yield nothing but sorrow.   

Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.
Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and clever in their own sight. 

Looking at old Hebrew words for “sweet,” I came across this word: towb. Occasionally translated “sweet,” it’s more often translated as good, pleasing, right. As with some of the other ancient Hebrew words I’ve come across lately, we have no word that stretches as wide as this one. Towb is good in the broadest sense: beautiful, agreeable to the senses, morally right, pleasing, pure, splendid, sweet, happy, delightful, precious, gracious, full of grace.

The “good” of Genesis 1 is towb: not just good as we understand it, but beautiful, sweet, delightful, harmonious, full of grace. Woe, says Isaiah, to those who lose their taste for towb, who substitute other things for the real sweetness we’ve been given.

This goes far beyond sugar. I recently spent the day with several preteen children who had decided that “good” and “fun” were defined in entirety by video screens. As we headed out of their house for the day, I suggested they leave laptop and handheld video game behind. They objected, strongly, and I cheerfully insisted: they were going to experience a screen-free day. And they would survive.

Summer Afternoon, Edward Dufner, 1916, New York

After a short stare-down, they grudgingly complied, and off we went, to a day that included some very different games, time at a local farm greeting goats and sheep, and a happy hour on a sunny spot of land between a pond and stream. I could see in them something like the process in me as sugar leaves my system and I learn again how to taste real food. They raced around the pond, looking for fish and frogs, foraged along the stream for smooth, round stones, then practiced skipping them across the open water. In the unseasonably warm weather, we all soaked up the sun, ending our time by the pond sitting and talking together on a bench, enjoying each others' company and the sweetness of the day. For a few minutes, we tasted towb together.

I tasted towb again just a few days ago when my husband and I sat together at the end of a long hard day, talking quietly before dinner over a small glass of chardonnay. He had been catching up from a week of travel, preparing for another season of travel and speaking in the weeks ahead, with some difficult complications thrown into the mix. I had spent the day registering voters at a nearby high school, then helping a friend in the middle of a challenging move.

Tired as we were, we were thankful for the grace to engage in the world in real and significant ways, for the chance to sit and reflect at the end of a busy day, for the sweetness of wine before a simple dinner. For towb: shared glimpses into God’s gifts of harmony, beauty and goodness.

We are masters at deception, lying to each other, but most often to ourselves. We tell ourselves we can have it all: sweet with no calories, non-stop video with no loss of life skills or real relationships, all the goods and services we want, with no impact on the globe, no harm to our own inner selves. We spend our time reaching for more: more food, more fun, more stuff, more money, telling ourselves just a little more will give us that sense of satisfaction we’ve been hungry for.

“Seek towb,” God tells us through his prophets: be still, slow down, deny yourself. That craving can’t be filled by sugar, or by anything else bought or sold on the market. We’re hungry for the gifts already given: goodness, harmony, graciousness, beauty, a sweetness that lingers, with no bitter aftertaste.

But we can’t taste it until our palates are clear, our hearts alert and quiet. Fasting is a good way to get there: fasting from sugar or tv, from wanting our own way, from the full closets, cupboards, schedules that dull our senses and scatter our attention. Slow down, be still, then taste and see. 

Taste and see that the Lord is towb: 

sweet, good, pleasing, gracious.

Blessed is the one who takes refuge in him.

Fear the Lord, you his saints, 

for those who fear him lack nothing.

The lions may grow weak and hungry,

but those who seek the Lord 

will not be lacking in towb:                                                                                                sweetness, harmony, grace, goodness, beauty. (Psalm 34)

This is the fourth in a Lenten series: 

     Looking toward Lent, 

     Lenten Sorrow : Lament and Nacham.  

     Lenten Silence: Charash, be Still

As always, your thoughts and comments are welcome. Click on the  _commentslink below to open the comment box.

Paying Attention Part 2: Amos and Aluminum

In thinking about spiritual practices and daily disciplines, it’s occurred to me that if a practice is purely personal it somehow misses the point. That is, our practices in some way need to reach beyond us, or they become more about us than a means to engage with God and the world around us.

I find I go back to Jesus when I’m trying to evaluate an idea; his practices always brought him right back into the heart of God’s work in the world. He withdrew for fasting and prayer, only to face head-on assault and temptation. His daily times of solitude and prayer were preparation for the teaching, miracles, and confrontations ahead.

In talking about the practice of paying attention, in An Altar in the World, Barbara Brown Taylor talks about paying attention to food, where it comes from, the conditions that bring it to our table. She talks as well about the paper in catalogs, the realities behind the goods in those catalogs, and the need to approach even catalogs, or chicken dinners, with reverence:

“I understand why people snort at thoughts like these. I have laughed the same kind of laugh when people start talking earnestly about things I would rather not talk about. Reverence can be a pain. It is a lot easier to make chicken salad if you have never been stuck behind a chicken truck. It is easier to order a cashmere sweater if you do not know about the Chinese goats. And yet, these doors open onto the divine as surely as showers of falling stars do.”

I wonder, though, if there isn’t more to this idea of paying attention than bringing us to a place of reverence. It seems it should also bring us to a place of action.

In other words – if the things in our lives are brought there through processes that desecrate God’s creation, or that harm and abuse workers along the way, it may be that paying attention should be the first step toward change.

I was re-reading the book of Amos this week, as part of my Martin Luther King observance, and was challenged, as always, by the phrase King quoted again and again: "Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever flowing stream." Streams start small, but gather strength. Righteousness starts as a trickle, then becomes an ever flowing stream.

Interesting that Amos was a shepherd and “dresser of sycamore figs,” his income clearly tied to the land and its proper use. In warning of God’s judgment against His people, he seems to be speaking to those who have stopped paying attention to the conditions that created their comfort:

"I will strike the winter house along with the summer house, and the houses of ivory shall perish, and the great houses shall come to an end,” declares the Lord. “Hear this word, you cows of Bashan . .  who oppress the poor, who crush the needy, who say to your husbands, bring, that we may drink.” (Amos 3:15-4:2)

The words are harsh, and I would guess the women of Bashan, so unkindly called “cows,” would object that they had nothing to do with the poor or needy, hadn’t hurt anyone, and were simply minding their business, enjoying the good things God gave them.

Yet as I read and think about Amos’ words, I can’t help concluding that God holds us accountable for the source of the things we enjoy, even if we don’t really know where they come from, what they cost, who has paid in what way. "Hear this, you who trample on the needy and bring the poor of the land to an end.” He speaks to those who “buy the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals and sell the chaff of the wheat.” (Amos 8:4, 6). There’s exploitation here, of both people and land, and God is calling his people to give an account.

I’ve been conscious, for some time, of the exploitation that takes place in some of our daily products. Coffee, for instance, is often harvested by forced labor, sometimes by children, in conditions physically harmful to the workers and the environment. Am I responsible for paying attention to the journey from bean to cup? I believe I am, and buy my own daily Equal Exchange coffee at Ten Thousand Villages, a fair trade supplier committed to improving the quality of life of small cooperatives throughout the world. A recent Christianity Today article describes ways churches can be involved in seeking justice in this area. My own church, I’m glad to say, sells coffee supplied directly from church partners in Kenya.

So yes, I pay attention to coffee. But what about all the other things I eat and drink in a day? Cocoa is another product deeply implicated in child labor. How do I find cocoa that hasn’t been harvested and sold through exploitation of the poor? ? And chocolate? As much as I can, I buy those at Ten Thousand Villages from the same company, Equal Exchange.

And what about all the other goods that find their way into my home?

I had never heard of bauxite until a few months ago. As far as I know, I have none in my house. But I have plenty of the primary product of bauxite mines: aluminum. Bauxite is strip mined from the surface of the earth, or mined in open pits, then processed with heat, electricity, chemical catalysts, and large amounts of water. The environmental implications are huge: polluted water, acid rain, toxic air-borne dust, destruction of habitat, loss of topsoil, and a heavily metallic red sludge that is left when the process is over.

One account I read offered these numbers: for every ton of aluminum gained, 35 tons of bauxite ore need to be mined, and after introduction of clean water, the process yields 40 tons of red sludge and polluted dust.

I don’t understand the science behind it. What I do understand is that our inexpensive aluminum chairs, aluminum foil, pie plates, roasting pans and other products are bought at the cost of the health, environment, and long-standing way of life of poor people around the globe.

One other thing worth noting: aluminum is 100% recyclable. It’s incredibly costly to produce, but relatively easy to re-use.

So what does it mean to pay attention on this issue? An environmental blog discussing this in detail suggests:

 “Consider becoming an 'aluminum Scrooge' by using as little aluminum as you can, while recycling or re-using what you must use.... Find a lid for that yam pan! Give the leftovers to friends in re-usable containers! 

Recycling really changes the sustainability equation for aluminum. Despite its high recycling potential, however, just half of aluminum cans are recycled. Each one that is thrown away is like throwing away a full can of gasoline in wasted energy. And it’s not just about putting the cans in the bin; it’s about using less, and reusing what you can. It’s also possible to buy aluminum foil made of recycled metal. And, of course, to drink fewer sodas in cans.

 Think of it as a gift to the world’s rivers.”

I love rivers, and would love to save them. But the world is more complicated than that, right? And my recycling efforts won’t change the steady march of multinational business across the globe. Yet I need to start somewhere.

Two resources to help in paying attention, to this and other issues:

The Better World Shopping Guide. Book, iphoned app and website all offer advise on spending money in ways that honor workers, protect the environment, and care for communities. Our family has made changes based on what we’ve learned, and we've discovered some great new companies and products in the process.

My Recycle List  Website and downloadable iphone app give specific locations and ways to recycle almost anything.

Am I responsible for the whole world? No, just my footprint in it, and the footprints of those who walk with me. Which demands I pay attention.

          “Stubborn Ounces”

            (To One Who Doubts the Worth of Doing Anything If You Can’t Do Everything)

             You say the little efforts that I make
             will do no good: they never will prevail
             to tip the hovering scale
             where Justice hangs in balance.

             I don’t think
             I ever thought they would.
             But I am prejudiced beyond debate
             in favor of my right to choose which side
             shall feel the stubborn ounces of my weight. (Bonaro Overstreet)


Please join the conversation. Your thoughts and experiences in this are welcome. Look for the "__ comments" link below to leave your comments.