Thursday, August 7, 2008

DeBeers: Adding insult to exploitation


From DeBeers, the company that funds murderous African paramilitaries, juntas, civil wars, worker exploitation, slave labor, deadly working conditions, and illegal price fixing comes: diamond tribal masks. Y'know for all those Africans who want to bling out a generically exploited form of their culture. That is if they're able to save up the pennies a day they get paid for a thousand years, aren't drafted into a militia to go fight a civil war, and if DeBeers hasn't illegally thrown them off their tribal lands.

Those are all pretty likely, so I guess rich white women will have to pick up the slack and buy them. They can wear them to a inner city schools benefit.

Sadly this necklace was DeBeers second design choice. They were going to go with a blinged up migrant worker, a kid with his arm hacked off, and a diamond pit, but they couldn't work out how to represent abject poverty, shameless exploitation, or excessive human rights violations. Maybe the Monopoly guy sitting on a worker, lighting a cigar with a burning map of Africa. But then we get into likeness rights issues with Parker Brothers. The masks were the right way to go. At least the money will go to help improve conditions in Africa a kickass yacht party.

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