“Away in a sweatshop where no one can see, the immigrant seamstresses work constantly. Conditions are awful, the pay is absurd-the boss he will fire them if they say a word.” Our voices harmonized and we moved onto our second song: “God bless you wealthy men, good news I have to tell: The market’s up, you’re making more each time you buy and sell. With layoffs more, your profits soar, you’re living rather well. O tidings of capital gains-capital gains—O tidings of capital gains.”
It was a typical Christmas-shopping day when all six of us first set foot in the Springfield, Va. shopping mall. Devoid of any actual civilized social interaction, shoppers were hustling from shop to shop—communicating with only a few select hand signals, and when the occasion warranted it, grunting. Yet it seemed as if the entire population of Springfield was in this mall. Given this destitute state, we quickly organized ourselves and began singing.
Before we could even begin a third song, a young, clean-shaven man in a flawless uniform approached us—and it was not to ask for our autographs. In fact, he ordered us to leave. Not wanting to act in haste, one of our members stepped forward to discuss the situation. Unfazed by the loss of our best alto, we continued with a poignant rendition of “Winter Wonderland.”
Suddenly another man in uniform and beet-like red eyes arrived on the scene. “That’s it,” he gruffed. “Party’s over. You all are under arrest.” I looked down at my red and green striped stockings in disbelief. I knew I was insulting a system of capitalism and profits that uses oppression to exploit others’ sweat to afford some a Christmas full of nice things made in third-world nations, but I never imagined that singing about it would warrant my arrest. As we reluctantly followed the man with the scary red eyes, one shopper who had been listening to us asked him, “Excuse me sir, but what have they done wrong? They haven’t caused any disruptions.” He turned to her and replied, “They’re disrupting shopping.”
We were taken to a small room in the back of the mall where we were asked to hand over our IDs. “I’m sorry sir, but unless you can explain to me what we are under arrest for, I can’t show you my ID,” I said.
“Alright, ma’am, would you like for me to explain it to you?” I nodded yes. “Fine. This is private property. Now, let’s say you were having a party-to save the whales-at your house. Now, if I showed up and I wanted to kill all the whales, would you want to kick me out?” All of a sudden it hit me—the party is capitalism, and the whales are the profits. We had shown up to a mall in America (which is really just a huge party for capitalism) ready to kill profits, and now we were being kicked out.
Yet one of our more idealistic members still had not given up. “But I don’t understand!” he protested. “What about our rights? Whatever happened to Freedom of Speech?”
He flashed a teethy smile and said, “Not when it hurts business.”
He won. Our singing probably did cause some Americans to stop and reflect on the impacts of their purchases, and that will more than likely hurt businesses who use illegal and unethical methods to make more profits. “Fine, we’ll leave,” I said while exiting the small white room.
“Not so fast—if you leave now we’re calling the police.” Ignoring his threats, we all made our way to the exit through the monstrous department store. We were followed by two men with walkie talkies and cameras. “What are you doing?” I asked. “Making sure you never come back,” he replied. We decided to split up in order to avoid arrest. As we made our separate ways, one reported into his walkie-talkie, “They’re splitting up, deliberately.” One man actually followed me as I did tour after tour of the bra section. Finally we exited the parking lot, and they reported our location into their walkie-talkies.
Looking back on it, I find it unbelievable. But as I look around America today, I see examples everywhere. Today in America we have several conditional civil rights—as long as they don’t hurt business. Americans have been cornered into malls and television, both of which are commercial and controlled by business. We can exercise our freedom of speech in the streets, but because our messages usually threaten the control and power of business, the messages of demonstrations are always portrayed inaccurately in the media. Freedom of speech is a right in America, but not a reality.
The fact that we were not allowed to protest where the majority of Americans actually congregate in the 21st century is not just a loss for the anti-sweatshop movement; it’s a loss for each and every American who would like to consider his or her voice more important than the dollars in a few Americans’ pockets. We’ve been kicked out of the Capitalism party—but we’ll keep returning until it’s a party for everyone.
Mary Nagle is a sophomore in the College. You’ll be able to spot her at the next big demonstration in town as the curly-haired female sporting a spunky new red tutu and roller skates. And no, she never saw the chicken breast.
