White Lie

Bermudian abolitionist and author Mary Prince remarked, “I am often much vexed, and I feel great sorrow when I hear some people in this country say, that the slaves do not need better usage, and do not want to be free. They believe the foreign people, who deceive them, and say slaves are happy. I say, Not so.

Since I have been here, I have often wondered how English people can go out into the West Indies and act in such a beastly manner. But when they go to the West Indies, they forget God and all feeling of shame… and yet they come home and say, and make some good people believe, that slaves don’t want to get out of slavery. But they put a clock about the truth. It is not so.

All slaves want to be free.  I have been a slave myself. I know what slaves feel. I can tell by myself what other slaves feel and by what they have told me. The man that says slaves be quite happy in slavery, that they don’t want to be free – that man is either ignorant or a lying person. I never heard  a slave say so. I never heard a Buckra man say so, till I heard tell of it in England.”

These paragraphs are on the last two pages of her autobiography, The History of Mary Prince.  The previous 30 pages detail the horrors she survived as an enslaved woman in Bermuda, Antigua and Turks Island, so here, Mary is speaking of her utter shock at discovering that there were white people in England who believed that enslaved African people in the colonies were being treated A-OK and didn’t want to be emancipated. This was due to a propaganda campaign, led by the orchestrators of the slave trade, who thought that if their fellow Englishmen knew that their beloved salt and sugar and tobacco came with a heaping side of rape and genocide – well, that might impact business a bit. (Would it though?) So the plantation-owning enslavers and their incestuous crown-wearing business partners told white lies or stayed silent about the atrocities entirely. (Side note: this post is embracing the real meaning of ‘white lie’, cuz white people’s lies ain’t never been little or harmless.)

If you’re thinking that folks who believed slavery was benign must have had an extreme case of cognitive dissonance, you’re not wrong. They basically pretended not to the taste the blood-stained soil in their cup of morning tea.   There’s no excuse for the complacency of the English who either ignored or celebrated the violent savagery that went along with building an ’empire’.

What’s mug (Bermudian for effed-up/not awesome) is that there are parallels with how we live our lives today.  We have way more information at our fingertips than the average 18th century citizen.  We are well aware that our consumer choices are negatively impacting people around the world, contributing to modern-day slavery practices, and even leading to planetary destruction.

So today, Fashion Revolution Day, let’s acknowledge the massive white lies we tell ourselves about fashion.

The clothing industry has a disastrous impact on the environment. In fact, it is the second largest polluter in the world, just after oil.  Water pollution, resource over-consumption, and textile waste are hallmarks of this sector, yet we continue to fill our closets as if there is a second Earth.

And, on this day in 2013, the collapse of the Rana Plaza in Bangladesh killed and injured thousands of people who were being paid pennies to make clothing for some of the worlds top fashion brands, in extremely unsafe and inhumane conditions.  This disaster shone a light on what we already knew but loved to ignore – human exploitation is sewn into the garments we love. Fast fashion – mass-production of cheap, disposable clothing – is the biggest culprit of all, propped up by influencer culture that ‘hauls’ in the latest Fashion Nova and Boohoo every month. If you can buy a skirt for $10, how much do you think the garment-worker made? (These brands also love to steal from Black and marginalised designers but that’s a story for another day.)

There’s also no guarantee that an eco-friendly brand is also kind to the humans they employ or vice versa. So…I know. It’s a lot to digest and it’s a complex issue because, at the end of the day, we are living in a fucked up world of white supremacy and capitalism where it often seems as if there’s no way forward. (Oops – I started off trying to make you feel a bit better, but this paragraph got away from me.) Seriously though, the current system has to go.

It starts with each of us critiquing our own buying practices and pressuring brands to do better – not only on Fashion Revolution Day, but every day of the year.  For me, that means buying less. When I do buy, I seek out better quality items, sustainable brands, or I thrift. My clothes are worn multiple times.

I know that having the bandwidth to think about this issue, the money to have choices, and being  a size that can find sustainable clothing is a privilege.  And, for Black and Brown people living their dream of working in the oh-so-inequitable fashion industry, where they are already clawing tooth and nail for a tiny piece of the pie, upending a system they do not own must also seem impossible.

But I also know that the time for simply talking about this is long gone.

Follow these two dope Black women that have been a trove of information as I learn more on my sustainable fashion journey.  

Aja Barber  Twitter | Instagram | Website

“I am a writer, stylist and consultant whose work deals with the intersections of sustainability and the fashion landscape.  My work builds heavily on ideas behind privilege, wealth inequality, racism, feminism, colonialism and how to fix the fashion industry with all these things in mind. What does a sustainable wardrobe look like to me? It looks like a mixture of things. It’s not buying all the sustainable brands and replacing everything you have with sustainable brands. It’s wearing what you already have and when you need something new going with a more ethical and sustainable option or second hand.”

Brittany Sierra, founder and CEO of The Sustainable Fashion Forum

YouTube | Instagram | Website
“The moral of this story is YOU can make a difference. A beginner today, an expert tomorrow, your voice matters. YOU have the power to influence change. At SFF we love having FUN and asking tough questions and truly believe that everyone has something to add to the conversation — no matter where you are on your journey. More than just an event, SFF is a community of curiously passionate humans that believe that together, WE can create change.”