Getting Off the Target Tit  by Melissa Halvorson    

My business partner (owners of The Year of the Goat yarn and knitting shop) and I recently made a pact that when the new corporate taco place opens up in the Ariel space, effectively destroying any dignity that may have been left on that corner, we will commence to eat all three meals of every day at Mexicali Blue in peaceful protest.  Even if I didn’t think that the food was excellent (which it is), I would undertake this feat out of kinship with a fellow downtown small business that has been placed in peril.  Although I have not spoken with them, I imagine the folks who make my thrice weekly steak burritos feel a lot like I would if Kon-Tiki sold out to Michael’s Arts & Crafts.

I’m reminded of all of the countless boycotts, moratoriums and other acts of non-cooperation that I’ve engaged in over the years.  There always seems to be some creature comfort I’m going without in the vain hope that my absence will be noticed by the monolithic force of economic imperialism.  Often, I’m ashamed to say, I give up and stand, defeated and ashamed behind everyone else in line for my exorbitantly priced coffee, indistinguishable from the rest of the crowd, knowing I’ve lost another battle.  I’ve been able to rationalize my eating and material habits by claiming that I’m not wealthy enough for my absence to be noticed.  Always buying second-hand and “slightly irregular” clothing, bruised fruit and dumpster-derived furniture had been more of a financial necessity, rather than a political statement. Make it or find it unless you absolutely positively need it right now, then it’s okay to buy it retail.

This is the type of relationship I’ve always had with consumer goods until about a year ago, when I developed a negative physical reaction to retail.  A response characterized by nausea, dizziness and guilt-induced sweating.  Just before opening my business last summer, I went to Target for the last time. Target—the big store that has somehow established itself as an ally to the everyman by offering cheap stuff that is also attractive.  Often mistaken for populism, Target markets good design to the masses.   Not that they actually give a shit about the masses, or what their shoddily constructed, poorly insulate homes look like.  What happened to me was that while browsing the clearance racks I found a blouse that I really liked.  It was a fine cotton jersey tunic with a scarf-tie neckline, full sleeves and delicate pleats at the wrist.  This was a shirt that was very well constructed—a ¼ inch bias running the perimeter of the cuff punctuated by a tiny hand-stitched button.  Thanks to the Bangaledeshi 5 year old whose tiny hand stitched it, the garment would cost only $4.98.  This was to be the threshold of an entirely new freedom—getting off the Target tit. 

Looking back, I’m ashamed that my views of exploitative labor practices were completely academic and my ethics so fluid that I was never really prevented from patronizing shops that sold affordable goods. Now, the outsourcing of all American textile manufacturing to third-world toddlers, easily imported due, for example, to the lifting of the Chinese import quotas in January 2005, feels like a personal assault on my livelihood.  Not just my livelihood either, but the tradition of material culture, the future of craft, and the ability of skilled artisans to support themselves.  The average lifespan of a contemporary American garment is 3 years with normal use.  Contrast that with the knowledge that ancient textiles from as early as the Paleolithic Era have been discovered, intact, by the thousands and provide some of the only clues about life at that time. What better than a person’s garment to describe their lifestyle, labor and cultural traditions? Many revolutionaries have found that there is no better instrument than a person’s garment to express rebellion against the oppression and exploitation exacted upon them by imperial powers, both globally and locally. 

With that I suggest, very simply, a new American “homespun” movement.   Call it DIY, call it re-construction; we need to call it whatever we have to in order to stop buying so much shit.  If you hate driving down Ulster Avenue in Kingston, if you can’t stand to see the erection of another storage facility in a country meadow, if you don’t want an Old Navy on Main Street in New Paltz, if you would rather not contribute to the destabilization of developing governments via this country’s fascistic global trade initiatives—stop buying so much shit. 

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