Slavery

I went to a very interesting speaker on Nike corporations today. McDaniel has a group that organizes speakers on campus and they brought someone to talk about sweatshop labor. It was an extra credit assignment for class and on top of that I was interested in the issue, so I killed two birds with one stone.

The information was very insightful. The man had traveled to Indonesia to explore factories and lived there for several moths. He also had experience working with talking to corporate officials. Overall he was an educated speaker.

The thing that really hit home was when he shared the fact that McDaniel endorses Nike product. I had never thought of this as an issue in the past, or considered what type of clothing McDaniel stores sell. I have always happily shopped at the school bookstore (where they also sell clothing) without considering where the things I was purchasing come from. Is it right for a school to use Nike products when they are made in unfair conditions? This is definitely something to consider.

The man who gave the talk offered ways for our college to easily become involved. He also criticized current practices of the school in an intriguing and polite way. I usually enjoy speakers here, but it was particularly nice to see McDaniel acknowledging they had a problem by inviting this person to critique our schools practices.