Fan Mail for Cat Power
Dear Chan,
WTF were you thinking? When DeBeers is still refusing to make a sincere good-faith effort to enforce the rules that would help end the conflict diamond trade, refusing to effectively police itself, after having fought government regulation, you decide it's a good time to shill some product for them? Do you really need that money?
Here's what Global Witness says:
Conflict diamonds, also known as blood diamonds, have contributed to wars in Africa that have killed millions of people, destroying lives and wrecking countries. Since 2000, the diamond industry has not done enough to fulfil the pledges it has made to eradicate blood diamonds from international trade. In response to pressure from Global Witness, Partnership Africa Canada, and other civil society groups, the key trade bodies representing the global diamond industry agreed to a voluntary system of self-regulation aimed at helping to prevent the trade in blood diamonds and in supporting the government-run Kimberley Process Certification Scheme (Kimberley Process). The polished and retail sectors of the diamond industry opposed stringent government regulation when the Kimberley Process was being negotiated, and the industry was left to police itself.Six years after the blood diamond issue came to international attention, the industry has failed to change its practices. International diamond trade bodies have issued countless press releases and statements claiming that the problem has been solved, but have provided little information on what they have actually done to fix it and fulfil their promises. Despite vast profits made by many in the diamond industry—in 2005 diamond jewelery sales were over US$60 billion—little has been invested to ensure that blood diamonds will not be able to enter the legitimate trade.
Your music has always been profoundly humane. On your best album, You Are Free, you sang about kids whose lives were wrecked by violence and abuse, and we all wept our eyes out. Are the lives of the millions of Africans not also worth your consideration? And okay, there's not a lot of young indie kids in the market for tennis bracelets, but is it not obvious that the ad agencies are trying to placate and neutralize the generation of young progressive people who would otherwise be making a scene and protesting DeBeers, so that we grow up into nice obedient consumers?
Seriously, are you back on the sauce or something???
xo,
Kevin
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That is purely unreal.
A whole bunch of swear words are coming to my mouth.
Fuck celebrity. It turns people into figures that we expect so much from, and then we get heartbroken when they make a mess.
I am so bummed.
that is horrible! I hate diamonds and the filthy industry that surrounds them.
I spent some time in Sierra Leone. Cinematicly it's depicted neer the end of the film Lord of War, the film Blood Diamond will be released Friday a week in the US. The diamond industry is gearing up for a huge backlash from the film, and at the same time reaching out to a new group of potential consumers.
Really what happened there is too horrible to contemplate. Sierra Leone has the worst standard of living in the world by UN statistics and the world's richest deposits of gem quality diamonds.
Wow, I am so disappointed in Chan Marshall. Apparently, Karl Lagerfeld handpicked her to be the face of Chanel jewelry. While that's not nearly as bad as lending your music to a symbol of Western imperialism, oppression, and greed, it does suggest the direction her career is taking.