I'm pretty sure that my family and most of my friends see me as the person who fights against injustice, because it's the "Christian" thing to do. But allow me to show you my heart, so that maybe you'll understand why it's something i'm not willing to back down on.
I remember in middle school learning about slavery or how the Jews were treated in Germany, and being so convinced that I would have not been that person. I would have been the person who stood up against innocent people being tortured or killed. As I've grown up, I've realized that injustice is not a thing of the past, and that truth has hit me hard. I found out about a year and a half ago that almost all chocolate brands use slaves to process their cocoa beans. Maybe that doesn't mean anything to you, but once I heard that fact, my decision was simple: no more chocolate for me. By purchasing that chocolate while knowing the truth, I'm not only not standing up for the innocent, i'm enabling their slavery. I'm telling Hershey's, "Hey! I know what you guys are up to, and I don't care!" And for a piece of chocolate? This idea makes me what to vomit a little bit.
I'm not writing this with any sort of agenda. What i've learned is that you can send as many pictures of abused 7-year old Africans and make all the depressing youtube videos you want and nothing will change until people begin to look inside themselves, and see that the problem begins there. I guess I'm writing this for me. I need to remember that even though I feel humiliated about how i'm perceived for my decisions to choose fair trade chocolate or coffee or whatever it is, that i'm absolutely doing the right thing. I am not going to back down on this, i refuse to become apathetic to these truths.
