I wondered

I watched the most depressing music video the other day. I was sitting alone at Foy Student Union and eating my lunch. I was sitting behind a flat screen television on the wall and watching music videos while I ate. The Foy employees usually put on something like Fox News, CNN, or ESPN for the students to watch, but on this day MTVU was on. Contrary to popular belief, MTV was actually showing music videos. It is noteworthy to say that it was not the main branch of MTV. The usual artists, such as Kanye West and 50 Cent, were rolling around in a sea of narcissism in their music videos. Then one video came on that really got me thinking. It was a special Radiohead video for their new song "All I Need." Throughout the entire video, it has a split screen between a Chinese boy and an American boy. While the American boy goes off to school and eats a healthy lunch, the Chinese boy is working in a sweatshop making shoes. It's pretty obvious that he's living in poverty. At the end of the video, the American boy takes off his shoes and it so happens that it was the same kind of shoes that the boy in China was making.

Man, talk about hitting you between the eyes. It got me thinking what other kind of objects do we, as Americans, take for granted. What other kind of items were produced from a sweatshop overseas? I looked at my own shoes. It read: Made in China.

I don't think I'm naive enough to think that all products that come from overseas are from the work of a child in a sweatshop. However, I continue to wonder what I do possess that is made from child labor overseas. It's very humbling to know that these things happen, and I wish there was something more that I could do to prevent them from happening.

We are dealt a lucky hand. Unfortunately, I feel like most Americans are ignorant of that fact and take their lives for granted.