Glamour. Wealth. Status. Prestige. Romance. These are all words that come to mind when most people think of the word 'diamond'. I always used to think of diamonds in that way as well. Diamonds are beautiful symbols of love, status, wealth, fame, ect. That is the stereotype that we receive about diamonds growing up. You see celebrities wearing lots of "bling", your mom wearing a diamond ring, queens wearing diamond and jewel encrusted crowns. You are bombarded with advertisements portraying men giving diamonds to their girlfriends/wives and told that the perfect way to show someone you love them is to buy them a diamond. "Every kiss begins with Kay". "A diamond is forever". Girls, we know we’ve all dreamt of our dream guy giving us a diamond. The fact is that the advertising of the diamond market has become embedded into our culture and we grow up with the view of diamonds being glamorous, as portrayed in Shirley Bassey’s song, “Diamonds are Forever”. My view changed, however, when I learned about “conflict diamonds”. This new discovery added words like blood, war, death and child soldiers to come to mind when I think of diamonds. It certainly is a different outlook. It saddens me to think that wars are being funded and many civilians are being killed because wealthy Americans buy conflict diamonds without a second thought. So many people have no idea what is going on in Africa and where their diamonds come from. Luckily, various aspects of the media, such as the film Blood Diamond and Kanye West’s song “Diamonds from Sierra Leone”, have tried to communicate the issue to the ignorant public. Although it helps to have popular artists and actors back the issue, the media can only do so much. I think that the popular media was helpful in raising awareness about the issue, but there are still a lot of people who haven’t seen the movie or heard Kanye’s song. I know I probably wouldn’t have seen Blood Diamond or listened to the lyrics of “Diamonds from Sierra Leone” if I had not already been aware of the issue. The practice of counter-storytelling, therefore, can only be effective to a certain extent. It can help raise awareness of the issue and it can even motivate people because there is actually one thing we can do about it. We can make sure that if we buy diamonds, they are not from conflict areas. Hopefully the movie and song helped people to begin monitoring the diamonds they buy. Although I still think diamonds are beautiful and glamorous, I will still remember the pain and strife it takes to mine many diamonds and I will never buy I diamond unless I am sure it is not a blood diamond.
1 comment:
Good Post I agree that people need to be more aware of the issue and the diamonds need to be monitored.
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