Ethical Consumer Art Project

I’ll be back soon. Just working out some kinks in my life right now.

Still trying to embrace the good things, like American Eagle’s 10 thongs for $35 sale.

I am willing to share a lot about myself and of myself. I am willing to give a lot to make others happy. These characteristics are (stereo)typically feminine–acculturated traits of femaleness that are indicative of patriarchal power that naturalized within women and used in the maintenance of gendered societal and familial roles and expectations. While the way I express my emotions and care for others has roots in my upbringing and runs deeply through my thought processes (or is the foundation on which my thoughts are built) I also recognize that I perform a very typical (hetero)normative femininity at a conscious level. Part of the performance of my identity is the fact that, growing up very overweight, I never felt like a girl. Until I was about 17 and I dropped from 200+ pounds to about 175, I dressed in young mens clothes, which were, in my mind, much ‘cooler’ than the plus sized women’s clothing I had to wear to fit my 5’2″ size 18 body (yes, now we have more fashionable clothing in bigger sizes, but this was the late ’90s before the body affirmation movements).

 With my little brother, summer 1995, age 13.

 Fall 1997, age 15.

But after I lost that initial 30 pounds during my senior year of high school and was able to purchase the largest size available in the juniors’ department, I felt more girly. I started wearing flair leg jeans, skirts, and dresses, and, being a larger size girl in her late teens, I had developed an ample bosom (haha), so I purchased some low cut tops. This drew attention. Boys in high school don’t really like ‘chubby’ girls, but they do like boobs.

 Me and a friend, High School Senior Banquet, 2000, age 18.

And so, boobs became my defining trait. I was the chubby, smart, funny girl with the dry sense of humor who also had boobs. I never really saw myself as attractive, or felt that others thought I was, because I was still significantly overweight. Now, over my entire life I have had more male friends than most girls I knew. During high school my core group of friends was guys. Most never showed any interest in anything beyond friendship. A couple did. Their friends made fun of them. Because of my relationships with guys and my interpretation of my own body and attractiveness, I am, to this day, incapable of determining if guys are hitting on me or just think I’m interesting for a chat (even after my last two boyfriends telling me, flat out, that men don’t chat with women they don’t want to get with). I usually figure out a guy is interested in my after I end up with his number in my phone and he texts me asking when we’re gonna go out (or something more obscene and/or stalkerish).

Photos from my sister’s wedding, July 2009 when I was 27. Left: bachelorette party (I’m on the left); Right: Giving the poorly prepared maid-of-honor speech.

Wait, let’s go back a minute. Or a few years. When I started my PhD, I also took a close look at my life and realized the body I had was not only unhealthy, but also, and moreover, not the way I wanted to represent myself in the world. I began taking long walks in the mornings, doing exercise videos, and biking trails by my condo. I went down 2 clothing sizes during my first semester– from a 12 to a 8. At the time I was also in a long-term relationship (that should have never even gotten off the ground, but that’s another story), one that lasted 8.5 years and concluding during finals week of the first semester of my program when said individual informed me that he began seeing a therapist and she told him I was the root of his depression (or whatever fucking thing she decided he was afflicted with) and that, because of this, he wanted to break up (despite me telling him that a long distance relationship wasn’t going to work 4 months prior, before I moved away to begin school). This was December 2009. The ‘loss’ (there are good losses) of my long-term boyfriend only intensified my commitment to becoming the person I wanted to be. If I didn’t want to end up with another of him, I would need to become more comfortable in myself, to find the person I thought I deserved, to not settle. I intensified my workouts. I moved out of my condo to an apartment building that had a fitness center. For the first time in my life, I was working out. It started slow, but I knew I had to amp it up over time. By the end of the spring semester, I was down to a size 4. By the following fall I weighed 125–the same number I saw on the scale when I was in 5th grade and my pediatrician told my mother my weight was a problem and the school nurse began to monitor it with the logic that this would somehow motivate me to get in shape. Clearly, that didn’t work, as it took almost 20 years for me to convince myself I needed to change and that I could change.

Left: Day of sister’s wedding (July 2009), age 27; Right: Goal accomplished: fifth grade weight (September 2011), age 29.

Studies show that most people who go through a massive weight loss do not keep the weight off for more than a year. But I had maintained. I have maintained. This is commitment. However, what one does not know as a little fat kid is that, as you gain weight and your skin stretches, it doesn’t necessarily retract if/when you do eventually lose weight… or that the skins elasticity decreases when significantly stretched over time… or that fair skin (like that of your truly) has less elasticity to begin with. So, yeah, I lost 90 fucking pounds and was stuck with the skin of a 200 pound person draped over a 115 pound body. People would look and see me with this ‘perfect little body’, held in by compression pants, carefully tucked into waist bands, boosted up by the optimal shaping demi bra, and think I was athletic– a dancer, a gymnast, whatever… I was none of these (my sister got to take dance classes, I didn’t, once again, another story for another time)… The first gym I joined was Fitness First in Rockville, Maryland in November 2011, after I had already reached my goal weight. I was too embarrassed to even join a gym before this point. All the muscle in the world does not, however, help loose skin, nor does it help your deflated boobs (yes, boobs are made of fat, so when you lose weight, you lose boob). My boobs, my signifying bodily feature were gone. I was now the pretty, smart, athletic girl with beautiful eyes.

Summer 2015, age 33.

In all honesty, I didn’t mind having small boobs. They worked out well for running and yoga. No bouncing even in the cheapest low-support sports bra. But, without coverage, they looked like sad balloons. But my stomach was worse in my mind. The skin just hung. I couldn’t take a bath because the sight of my skin, buoyant in the water, made me depressed. I couldn’t look at myself naked unless I was laying flat on my back, in that position my skin would appear tight and I felt I looked ‘normal’.

Men have never complained, questioned, or expressed disgust with my body. My feelings about my body are all my own. I own them, while I also recognize they are based on cultural ideals of what an athletic, firm female body should look like. My desire to see myself as beautiful (or pretty)–the way that others had seen me–was the motivating factor in my decision to get cosmetic surgery. I wanted my body to fully reflect the goals I worked so hard to achieve–to remove the excess to bring my body inline with my mind and to help me realize that I was ‘ok’ that there was nothing more I had to do but maintain. And medical professionals agreed–there was nothing more I could do to ‘fix’ my body. In fact, most doctors, nurses, and even nutritionists are surprised when I tell them that I lost this weigh on my own without surgery and without even the help of a dietician or trainer. I did this myself. It was actually hard to admit that I couldn’t fix this one last thing.

At first, I thought I just wanted an abdominoplasty. I did research. I need to be certain that I wanted it and I found that, despite the invasiveness and intense healing process, the grey photos and youtube videos, I did. I also saw patients would undergo different levels of skin excision and often multiple surgeries at once–lipo with abdominoplasty with breast lifts/implants–this was all dependent on desired outcome and amount of weight lost (or sucked out). The more I looked at myself and the more I considered my struggles with my excess, the more I saw that I wanted to address the total issue, at once, to make it all match. However, the whole thing was extremely cost prohibitive; a pie in the sky dream. And, while I thought, in part based on cost, I would eventually get the tummy tuck, see how it went, and decide on the boobs later, when my boyfriend of two years saw my struggles with my image and offered to help me, obtaining the total package in one shot became a possibility.

I know, I know… this doesn’t help my case. A MAN BOUGHT ME COSMETIC SURGERY. I unnecessarily put myself at risk for vanity. Yet, this is a myopic view of my relationship to my body and my relationship to him.

I didn’t want big boobs I just had room and wanted to fill out what was missing (there was room for bigger implants, I choose the size I have–375cc–making my final bra size a 32c, up from a 32/34a). To be honest, my boyfriend wouldn’t have complained about larger. In fact, if it were his choice, he may have picked larger. However, I picked the size that I was comfortable with, and while, as a noted people pleaser, I looked to him for him input, he completely put the decision in my hands–it is my body, it was, therefore, my choice.

It was risky business. I have never had surgery, never been under anesthetics, never even admitted to a hospital. It was also expensive. It also, when construed through the lens of feminist scholarship, makes me appear as having given into the ‘male gaze’ or the patriarchy or social expectations. It really makes it seem like I hated my body and, perhaps, myself. I guess, in part, I was trying to get away from something, but I carry in me the culmination of my life’s experiences. There is no way for me to forget how I was ‘the fat friend’, ‘more cushin’ for the pushin”, or the ‘…but she has a cute face’.

Me (right) and my best friend, 1989, age 7. I was her “fat friend Allison” (see, it has a ring to it).

The person I am inside of the body I have now is what shapes my perspective of the world and the way in interact with and empathize with others in it. Because the choice to have this operation is part of me both inside and out, I don’t need people to not see it, but I do want them to understand it.

 July 2016, age 34.

Recently, I have become concerned about the risks associated with my choice to have breast augmentation in specific. But I have claimed, from the get-go, that if I just had small breasts, not deflated, sad breasts that made me feel unsexy, I would have never done this. The risks I have encountered were part vanity, part emotional/mental stability. There are a number of women who are unhappy with their choices, who have encountered severe complications, and who have gotten botched surgeries, and there is always the risk that something could go wrong with my implants down the line (and yes, they have a limited life and will have to be removed/replaced at some point over a decade from now), but cosmetic surgery, like all science, is constantly evolving and new developments make these procedures and materials involved in them safer. Yet, at present, worse than the potential for something to go wrong with my boobs is fact that my lower abdominal region is still tingly with numbness and feels tight as a rubber band (which makes for some awkward yoga backbends). The scars are still fading and will never be gone. I am not perfect. You can’t even buy perfect.

A scar that runs hip to hip–one that still swells when I do intense ab exercises and makes me feel a bit awkward in the locker room, but that I have decided to own and to talk about, should anyone ask.

But I made a choice and am happy with my appearance. I feel more confident in my skin. I also feel like I gave into the status quo, which I simply have to accept and own–hence this blog post.

Nothing in life is certain and there are very few things that are permanent. While the choices we make today have an impact on our tomorrows, making it though today as a confident person ensures our tomorrows, enables us to find happiness… whatever that may be, still not sure.

I have been vegan for over seven years now and I was vegetarian for 10 years prior to fully committing myself to veganism. My reasons for maintaining my commitment to veganism and my level of commitment have varied slightly over the years (full disclosure: it took me years to phase out my leather shoes and it was very hard for me to get rid of my docs, I have gone back and forth on the ethics of consuming honey and beeswax, I have recently knowingly used vitamins and skincare products containing animal-derived ingredients, and I sometimes assume free samples are vegan if it seems reasonably so). It is only with slight embarrassment that I admit the foundation for my veganism was the band Earth Crisis (my embarrassment may actually lie in the fact I do still like Earth Crisis and this embarrassment is only slight because even when I say this–nay, even when it comes on my iPod when people are in the car–most people believe that I am only being ironic). But the fact that Earth Crisis is at the heart of my veganism and my understanding of veganism as “more than a diet” is based in the total ideology of Earth Crisis. The notion of “earth crisis” or crises permeates each of the band’s songs and exceeds the basic, widely understood premise of veganism– the fact that animals suffer in the production of commodities for human consumption–calling attention to myriad problems that afflict the planet and its inhabitants–drug use, ecological degradation, sexual violence,  misuse of power, and so on.

For me, because of Earth Crisis, veganism has always been about more than saving animals. Even when I was vegetarian, I justified my actions as “kinder to the earth” and paid attention to my actions and their impact on my future and the world around me in ways that it seemed my peers were not. For instance, I remember as an undergrad lecturing my roommates about the importance of recycling and removing recyclables from the trash after they failed to internalize the ideology I so adamantly presented. To this day, I remove roommates’ recyclables from the trash, though I am less likely to present full on ideological bombardments, in part because I have realized the recycling system is so incredibly flawed (more to follow). But, once again, I can’t help but believe doing the “kinder” thing is ultimately better than doing what has been proven to have a more detrimental impact and that there are easy ways to take more steps towards a holistic form of compassion as extolled by Earth Crisis (as angry as they were/are about how F-ed the world is).

Science is important to this claim, especially in regards to the importance of veganism to ecological sustainability. People who state that they are “eco-friendly” are essentially lying to themselves if they consume animal products that come from factory farms. Factory farms produce an exorbitant amount of waste, releasing toxins into the land, water, and air, and consume more resources than they produce. These farms also contribute to a variety of maladies in the humans working within and living close by. Trees and vegetation have been razed in setting new sites for massive poultry and cattle rearing and slaying facilities, and nearby homes have been vacated due to the insufferable stench of production (this is of course when residents can afford to do so, which is not the case in majority of instances). Vegan consciousness rising organizations, the most notable of course being People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, assert the importance of “going vegan!” for the wellbeing of the earth, but leave the ecological question at that–the “kinder” thing is really enough to save the planet (and, as expressed in PETA’s promotional materials, make you thinner, clear up your acne, give you a longer life, and increase your sexual and athletic endurance).

This isn’t to slam PETA, nor any other vegan organization or establishment, like Loving Hut, where I eat on a fairly regular basis despite my reservations about patronizing a business that still uses styrofoam takeout packaging. Instead, I want to question how it is that a moderate ethical stance or, dare I say, illusion regarding the ultimate moral uprightness of veganism has overwritten a need to consider the environmental sustainability of veganism in itself?

As vegan consumer goods become increasingly popular we are confronted with things like this:

This is a bottle of SO Delicious Almond Coconut Milk, which retails for over $4 for a 48oz bottle at Whole Foods. SO Delicious–formerly SOY Delicious before the majority of people decided soy was taboo and went apeshit about almonds and coconuts, which have zero protein, but are no doubt delicious–was one of the first companies to remove carrageenan from their products due to consumer concern over the aquatic coagulant and to quickly ensure all their products met non-GMO and GMO-transparency standards. The company promotes its commitment to sustainability on its website, ensuring consumers that products are “responsibly grown, ethically procured, and safely manufactured.” The company, conceived nearly 30 years ago, places the broad sweeping countercultural ethics of the 1970s at the foundation of its business model, as evidenced on the “About” section of their website, which states:

Our philosophy of doing business is based on our firm commitment to treating everyone and everything—animals, the environment, each other, our partners, and our community—with unwavering respect.

But where does the environment fall in the form of compassion expressed by SO Delicious on this bottle of Almond Coconut milk I am holding above?

Well, my answer is, it really doesn’t, except in the form of an ethical illusion served to the consumer via holistic packaging ideology and a sustainability mission on the company’s website. It is this type of commitment to compassion, however, that placates consumers into believing they are doing good by doing better, alleviating them of the work of interrogating the detriments relating to the production of the convenient, safe, aesthetically pleasing packaging of the products they consume and the wastes that result from them. Consumers fail to see outside of the ethical tunnel vision of their compassion as constrained by contemporary consumer capitalism, recognizing that SO’s commitment to compassion and passionate people is middling at best when (1) coconut almond milk has a fairly large carbon footprint in the sourcing of its ingredients (with most almonds grown in rough ridden California and coconuts grown god-knows-where since I couldn’t find any info on their website though I am sure as shit they aren’t grown in Oregon where SO is headquartered) of almonds and coconuts, but in their ability to simply walk into a Whole Foods and pickup a convenient, durable bottle

Unlike the majority of 1/2 gallon milk (any variety) containers, which are packaged in cartons that are primarily composed of paper (80%) that is then coated on both sides with in polyethylene (plastic, 20%), SO’s packaging is 100% polypropylene plastic, which, though scientifically proven as the safest plastic for humans and the most durable and reusable, is the most difficult to breakdown in the recycling process, meaning it requires the most energy (heat) to repurpose into new products.

While the process that separates polyethylene from paper is intensive and polyethylene does not have the structural integrity of polypropylene, the costs associated with polyethylene, including the energy required in its production and recycling, are less than polypropylene. Moreover, polypropylene is still not accepted in all community recycling programs and smaller polypropylene items, like yogurt cups and the large, bulbous caps of SO’s almond milk, physically fall out of the recycling stream, which serves better a filtering large items, like bottles and tubs. Problematically, as with all plastics, the purity and structure of polypropylene disintegrates over each trip through the recycling stream and to ensure that plastics used by humans meet FDA purity guidelines, virgin plastic is often added in the mix with the recycled plastic pellets in the composition of new packaging materials. AND, based on the fact that certain products require fine, thin, malleable, pure plastics  (things like toothbrush bristles, lip balm tubes, infant bottles and bottle liners), no matter how much plastic circulates in society or how much of it is recycled, recycled plastic will never fully meet the needs of new product composition.

Considering the degraded quality of plastics after recycling in relation to the cost of these reclaim materials, there is, in fact, little pay off for employing recycled plastic aside from a sustainability perspective. Then there is the fact that recycling plastic results in the release of toxic gas into the atmosphere, in the same way the production of new plastic does… oh, and the fact that most people don’t even bother recycling, or at least not recycling everything, all the time, nor are they guaranteed that when they put something in a recycle bin that it will end up at a recycling facility (I am looking at you VIDA Fitness and your farce of a $2 a month “eco-fee”).

Of course SO isn’t the only brand of mass produced vegan delectables that we see taking a dubious stance on environmentalism. We have Califia Farms, a company that uses the same form of plastic bottling with the excessively large cap for all of its ‘milks’, Beyond Meat, with their meant-to-look-like-meat plastic tray and cellophane packaging inside of a cardboard sleeve, and Hampton Creek, whose Just Mayo is packaged in a plastic jar instead of glass. All of these companies have a stated commitment to the earth via veganism and the reduction of animal product consumption and, somehow, that, with at most some lip service to recycling, is enough. As these convenience products flood the marketplace, more consumers are willing to try reducing their meat and dairy consumption, but only in that these products are tasty and convenient. This is better than eating meat and dairy, especially sourced from distant factory farms. However, eating locally grown, in-season produce and bulk nuts, seeds, and grains would be best. But that is a lot of fucking work.

In the end, compassion demonstrated through the purchase of a mass produced commodity is a conditional compassion–one that makes the purchaser feel like the $4+ dollars they have spent on their almond milk is a “better,” “kinder” purchase than the money they have spent on dairy milk because the dairy milk contains something (even if only one thing) that makes it less compassionate. And when taken according to the words of the SO Delicious bottle, this is true. Nothing on the bottle itself is a LIE. But not lying and complete transparency to an overall ethical “commitment” are not the same. When there is money to be made, ethics are modified and negotiated. When convenience is at stake, ethics are also modified and negotiated. We can say this is an effect of the contemporary condition, but this negotiation must be seen as what it truly is–a series of deceptions we allow ourselves to believe (or consent to) in order to make our own circumstances easier at the expense of what is ultimately compassionate.

Trending on Facebook this morning is news of the warning sent to Whole Foods by the FDA after the agency found ‘Serious Violations’ in the company’s North Atlantic Kitchen in Everett, MA during inspections taking place this past February. The potential risks to human health resulting from the consumption of foods produced in the conditions present in the North Atlantic Kitchen are exceedingly high considering the facility provides prepared foods to Whole Foods Stores across the Northeast. The FDA’s letter to Whole Foods Market North Atlantic Kitchen (6/8/16), addressed to the company’s co-CEOs, John Mackey and Walter Robb, details the violations and the concern the agency has regarding Whole Foods’ claims “to take all the necessary measures to correct all the deficiencies,” as the company has not provided evidence that these violations have been or are being remedied. Mackey and Robb have been given 15 days to notify the FDA, in writing, of “the specific things that you are doing to correct the violations… [and that this] response should include each step that has been taken or will be taken to correct the violations and prevent their recurrence.” The FDA has requested documentation showing corrections and an explanation of any corrective action being taken that cannot be completed within the 15-day window.

Okay, so this isn’t just Whole Foods not living up to its promise of the most healthy food, but a serious concern about the safety of the food being offered. However, what zero commenters on my perusal of Facebook noticed is that these violations took place in FEBRUARY–4 months ago–and there have been ZERO illnesses attributed specifically to the consumption of prepared foods sourced from the North Atlantic Kitchen. This, of course, is not to say no one has gotten sick; it is to say that there has not been a mass plague caused by dirty couscous, which is good, relatively. But if these violations are left unaddressed, as the FDA suggests they have been since no evidence has been provided to show otherwise, conditions at the facility are not getting better and can, in fact, get worse (bacteria is a living organism).

What is compelling to me is not Whole Foods’ alleged dismissal of the FDA’s “serious concerns,” but the FDA’s seeming lack of ability or inclination to ensure these violations are remedied in a timely manner, with the enforcement of health code held in a state of suspended animation while the agency waits for a written summation of the company’s efforts. Once again, FOUR months where, potentially, nothing has been done. FOUR months during which people COULD BE getting sick from funky pesto. But, as far as I know, no one has, and this is important when we think about what this news actually means for the company and the people who shop its stores.

Market economists and journalists have been predicting the demise of Whole Foods for about 5 years now. And while this claim is substantiated by falling stock prices and declining sales (growth), the company continues to open more Whole Foods stores, expanding the corporation with the introduction of its new, lower price-point, “365” stores. Clearly, there is still demand for Whole Foods and what it offers.

But the gloom and doom regarding the fallings of Whole Foods prevail. In his June 15 report on the violations, CNN’s Paul R. LaMonica states, “Shares of Whole Foods fell more than 2.5% Tuesday. The stock is now in the red for the year. And Whole Foods plunged nearly 35% last year following accusations that it overcharged customers and other health scares. The company has found it difficult to shake off that Whole Paycheck reputation — the perception that its products are way overpriced. Whole Foods may have helped create the organic food revolution. But it no longer has the natural market to itself. It faces tough competition from mass merchandise retailers Walmart, Target and Costco as well as supermarket chain Kroger. Whole Foods also has to contend with organic rivals like Trader Joe’s, Sprouts and Fresh Market. Whole Foods may have been in better position to deal with these competitive challenges if not for a slew of negative publicity about its prices.”

Problematically, as I have argued in the past, the problem for Whole Foods is not their price-point or their exclusive reputation. The problem lies in the company’s desire to hold higher standards and compete at the level of price. Capitalism demands we cut corners, and what is more evidentiary of corner cutting than egregious health and safety violations and lack of labor oversight?

Whole Foods’ mission and values–the company’s ideological underpinning–simple does not PERMIT it to compete with the likes of Walmart, Kroger, or even Trader Joes. These companies were  all built on economies of scale as a means to offer consumers the cheapest commodities. It is price and variety that bring shoppers to the big box store. At the corporate level, from the get-go Whole Foods did not function in this manner. Whole Foods aim was to “satisfy and delight” its shoppers by offering the “highest quality natural and organic products,” something that cannot realistically be done while minimizing both consumer cost and the exploitation of resources (human and ecological) and maximizing profit (surplus value). The problems with quality, safety, and ethics of production have taken place SINCE the company has attempted to compete with larger, more efficient, corporate retailers. Whole Foods inability to address the concerns held by the FDA are in effect a result of the bind it has created in attempting to show American consumers they can in fact have it all–health, convenience, and abundance at a cheap price. And, I would argue, the FDA knows this, as it has given the company time to amend their practices before bringing them to the attention of the American public. Due diligence on the part of the FDA is necessary to ensure that a corporation’s name isn’t unnecessarily dragged through the mud. This delayed release of information is, however, a disservice to American citizens in the preservation of capital. This is the constant tension that exists within public agencies that protect both the interests of consumers and the interests of business.

If Whole Foods stuck with its original model, allowing each store to produce and source its own products, it is possible an instance like this could have been avoided. In addition to the greater oversight possible in a smaller production space, labor studies have show that, given more autonomy, workers feel empowered and take greater ownership of their work and care more about the place they work. Several current and former Whole Foods employees have told me that as the company expands, becoming more like other supermarkets, they feel more robotic and less valued. As “team member happiness” plays a role in Whole Foods’ Core Values, diminishing the importance of this value has wider ramifications. When team members feel unheard or unvalued they are less likely to ‘care’ and more likely to ignore, permit, or engage in practices they may disagree with or know are wrong. Smaller scale operations do not equate team member happiness and this does not ensure safe food, and I do not mean to imply a simple equation, but the cold, industrial, heartless and faceless, nature of contemporary food sourcing and production has resulted in myriad food scares, suggesting that Whole Foods’ larger scale production model can only follow the same sad fate, and this is the problem with the FDA’s intervention–it lacks recognition of a larger socially and economically embedded problem with our food system. A problem that is actually feed by American consumers.

I hear stories of people getting tummy rumbles and the like from the Whole Foods hot bar and salad bar on the regular, but this doesn’t even stop those individuals from purchasing those foods in the future. I cannot connect these stories to the current violations at the North Atlantic Kitchen, as I have been hearing them for six years now and as I know much of the food offered on Whole Foods’ hot/salad bar is prepared in house. What I can assert is that consumers value the preparedness of prepared foods, believing in the ‘good’ of producers to provide safe food, as supported by health codes that keep them in check. When we take for granted that our food system is safe, simply because we ‘pay good money’ for things and that we as consumers are entitled to ‘protection’, we fail to see the trappings of the capitalist production within a capitalist democracy.

The purpose of this site, which will largely function in typical blog fashion, is to address the creative act of ethical consumption in contemporary American society. It is my claim that ethical consumption and its subject, the ethical consumer, are an art projects: they are attempts to represent an idea and how it materializes in the world. They are an intervention, though incomplete and aestheticized. At their best, they can be socially and politically fruitful sites, but most often serve only as inefficient, ineffective critique, relegated to ‘fashion’ or ‘kitsch’. And, at their worst, they are detrimental to progress, taking attention away from underlying structural issues by aestheticizing the material conditions that have facilitated the ability for some to be recognized (through their voice, their choice, their art) and others to be ignored, unrecognized, or misunderstood.

Having that said, I fully recognize and take responsibility for my role in the reproduction of the status quo, as a scholar, a consumer, and a citizen of the global North, specifically of the US. I am ambivalent about my consumer choices and my day-to-day activities, often finding myself resigning to the ‘fact’ that ‘this is just the way it is’.

To be completely transparent, I shop at Whole Foods. Not only do I shop there, I go to the store nearest to my home and work nearly every day, sometimes twice a day. I own a number of garments from lululemon and their website is one of the most frequented on my browser. Also, while there are a number of great independent coffee shops in the District of Columbia, I most often go to Starbucks. I have had a ‘Gold Card’ since 2010 and like the idea of collecting ‘stars’ for free drinks. I own a car (well, I almost own a car, I have 14 more monthly payments before it’s 100% mine) and I sometimes drive it the 2 miles to work simply because I don’t feel like riding my bike. I loathe public transportation. I don’t always buy organic foods, with the exception of strawberries because I am allergic to the pesticides they use in conventional cultivation. I also leave the sink running while I brush my teeth… and so on and so forth (as Zizek would say).

I am stuck in a debate that largely takes place within my own head as to whether ethical consumption is in fact the best we can do and if an alternative is even possible. At the same time, I am struck by the fact that ethical consumption is simply an artifice for deepening crises–social, political, and economic–world over. I fear that believing we can make capitalism better will actually lead to an overall demise in the quality of life for many, as it serves as a pleasant valance to the reality of continuing and expanding injustice through the globalization of commodity chains (you know lululemon is no longer made in Canada, right? But, instead, under ‘fair’ conditions in Sri Lanka).

At the same time, as an American I know that I have to look out for me first. Personally, with my esoteric PhD that has resulted in a $200k+ debt (yes, my choice, my ‘fault’) and my current income being only my $12/hour service industry job (which I don’t hate, don’t get me wrong), I can’t help but celebrate when Whole Foods has zucchini on sale for 79 cents a pound.