Trick-or-treat without slave-candy this Halloween

Source: Read This and Hack! A decade ago I screened the documentary, The Dark Side of Chocolate, which marked what I call my "official" entry into intentional activism and scholarship for social justice. The documentary was a follow up to the chocolate industry's fight against a "slave free" label requirement, promising instead to regulate itself...

“Save an animal, exploit a human”: The problem with one-track-minded, holier-than-thou Global North vegans

Eating animals is wrong, vegans say. But so is eating slave-made chocolate, or wearing sweatshop clothing. Guess which one vegans of the Global North care about? Not that one issue is more important than another, but it is more than frustrating when I see vegans (mostly vegans of the global north) say "this is cruelty-free"...

Don’t give the gift of slavery this Valentine’s Day

The issue of slavery in cocoa production has gained lots of awareness in recent years, but some people are still are not aware (or don't care) that children and slaves in West Africa are forced to harvest and process cocoa. You just might be giving your loved one a gift of slavery. Below are a...

Repost: Invisible Children – Pretty Dang Visible

Anyone who has been on Facebook and Twitter over the past 24 hours has probably seen impassioned pleas to watch a high-production video by Invisible Children, an American NGO (whose Board of Directors just happens to be entirely white American males). And anyone who is following many of the [International Relations] tweeters out there, you...

Hershey’s, West African child labor, and the promise of Brazil’s ‘cabruca’ system

This barrage of chocolate-related posts is me capitalizing on the increased traffic I'm getting because of Valentine's Day searches. By Tuesday of next week, Crunchy & Chic will go back to it's regularly scheduled programming. In the meantime, enjoy this post from the San Antonio Current: Valentine's Day is the chocolate industry's holiday season. With an...

Valentine’s Day should be about love, not slavery

Not that many people know about the child labor and human trafficking that's involved in chocolate production, or they wouldn't dare give a box of chocolate as a gift for Valentine's Day. Seems like my last post has garnered a few hits, but I didn't explain what slave-free chocolate was, only where you could find it....