Back to work, slimeball…
Jesus, when I am done with this "job" thing and start doing that "career" thing? I was supposed to end my vacation on Monday, but 9" of snow on Tuesday gave me that Bonus Day (yeah, I have a truck, but I gave it the ol' Ah Fuck It). So Wednesday I started back to work with a 5-hour manager's meeting. Joy. And then on to my store where the employees were standing in line to talk to me. "I can't work until 11 at night…" and "I couldn't get the safe open…" and "This customer asked for a refund on Monistat…" Cripes. Retail management is glorified babysitting with a nametag.
But that's enough of the bitching, folks. If it's that bad, I should get out, right? Right. So I'll spare you the tears. It's a job, I have pride, so I do it. There ya go.
So why can't chickens fly?
Okay, sorry sorry sorry. Actually I have something of relevance to say here besides asking inane questions about the goddamn airborne ability of heavily processed foul. There was an article in The Washington Post the other day that has been stuck in my head. Benetton, the ultra-hip clothing company, has announced a new campaign called "We, On Death Row." According to The Post and Benetton, this isn't an ad pitch for bright orange denim prison overalls, but rather a "communications campaign" in which Benetton aims to show "the reality of capital punishment." Nothing more, nothing less. Hmm.
Now I'll tell you right up front: I'm a fervent opponent of the death penalty (just ask anyone who brings up the subject after I've had a few beers), so I was obviously interested in this "campaign" of Benetton's. And it took me awhile to strip away all the crap and figure out how I felt about all this.
Okay, for starters, let's leave aside--for now--the whole moral issue of a clothing company being associated with death row prisoners. I checked out Benetton's web site and I was greeted with pictures of 3 somber death-rowvians. Clicking on an inmate took me to an interview with each of them by freelance writer Ken Shulman from Newsweek, in which he asked the usual What-Do-You-Dream-About-type questions. Hmm, again. I noticed that Shulman didn't ask them about their guilt or innocence, their crimes, or anything about the victims. So I clicked on the link to the introduction and press release to Benetton's "campaign" to try and find the rationale and morality of this bizarre combination of sweaters and injections.
According to the press release, the campaign is about the death penalty, in which any social, political, judicial, and moral considerations are not an issue. Supposedly, the campaign simply "aims at giving back a human face to the prisoners on death row." But a couple of paragraphs later, the press release states that "Benetton has once again chosen to look reality in the face by tackling a social issue." Does anyone else smell a contradiction here? Strike one, Benetton. And then at the very bottom of the press release is a footnote for a quote from an ex-inmate on death row (ex-, as in…..well, you know): "(1) Barbara Graham's words, as she was going into the gas chamber where she was executed, some say unjustly, on 3 June 1955."Some say unjustly? That's sounds like a moral
judgment to me. Strike two.
The introductory text to "We, On Death Row" muddies things further. Shulman rambles on about his own feelings and about how-even though he is against the death penalty-he "fantasized about doing them violence" when he was interviewing them. Nice. And then he tries to refute the morality of the death penalty by bringing up some of the weakest arguments against it, such as how some prisoners become penitent and the fact that many came from families of violence and abuse. Fortunately, the chairman of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers has his say at the end of the introduction. He sticks to the facts and writes about the 82 people who have been released from death row on proof of innocence and the 23 innocent people who were put to death in the 20th century. But it's not quite enough to save Shulman's sloppy emotional ramblings. Strike three, Benetton.
So what have we got after we peel off the layers? Benetton does not take an impartial stand despite what they may say, and the stand they do take is weak at best. If Benetton were to say, "We would give up every future sale in trade for the abolition of the death penalty," I would stand up and fucking cheer. True, I do welcome the opportunity to have the issue of the death penalty in the public eye, but not the way Benetton is doing it. The light they shed on the issue comes from a flickering 15-watt bulb. I hate to tell you this Benetton, but backlash is coming.
And the whole issue of morality of the Benetton-Death Penalty connection? Well, let me put it this way: On their website, a mere 2 inches from the link to "We, On Death Row" is the link to their online catalogue.
But hey, Benetton must know what they're doing. I just used their company's name 14 times on the internet.
