I didn’t want to direct this question to Americans specifically because, at this point, other countries have shown support to Israel in one or the other way. If my country was financing this, I would be taking the streets. Shit, I’m right now in the hospital but all I can think about is protesting anyway just to feel I did something to stop this madness.
Are you doing something about this? Are you feeling unsettled? How do you feel about all this mess?
EDIT: So, buying Chinese stuff takes the USS Gerald Ford to Gaza’s coast. Also, TIL that that chocolate my cousin gave me when she was 20 and I was 5, (delicious stuff!) made me a slavist-ish. The fact remains, this genocide is being paid and supported by taxpayers money; of course, I was hoping that most of us didn’t pay taxes wishing for this. Thank you all for your responses, some of them were hard to swallow.
China meets the manufacturing needs for most of the world, it’s economically not realistic to boycott them
That said, we still should boycott them, at least in principle.
It’s really not that hard to boycott China, people just don’t do it because they’re selfish and would rather support an authoritarian regime than stand for what’s right
I haven’t eaten any cooked hot food since the HK protests because every appliance is made or parts majority made in China
I will eat sliced bread and beans the rest of my life to own the Chinese
Beans is one thing, but cold beans??? That’s a step too far, I now uncritically support Xi.
Psh. You posuer. I’ve converted my life savings to yuan notes and am now keeping them under the bed to reduce the circulation of cash in the Chinese economy.
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We paid them slave wages to make things for us but they didn’t play fair and learned how to make things for themselves
In general I agree with you, but reality is also more nuanced. A blanket boycott can often harm the people you want to protect. A common question in the debate about Palestine and Uyghurstan and boycotts is what to do about companies that give equal opportunities to people from the targeted communities - i.e. companies that give jobs in the same terms to both Israelis and Palestinians or the Han Chinese and Uyghur people.
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Tell me you haven’t read any serious report about the situation in Uyghurstan (can we please drop the chinese “new territory” colonial designation? I don’t think it helps anyone, including the Chinese position) without telling me you never read a serious report about the situation in Uyghurstan. There are several identified cases of the use of slave labor, but there are also lots of companies that had credible audits to show that at least on a superficial level they treat everyone fairly - and a huge chunk of places where the situation is as clear as mud.
Personally, I would choose to focus on things I ostensibly have some amount of control over. As an American, I have no effect whatsoever on Chinese laws or policy. However, I allegedly have power over my own country’s laws and policies, so I choose to expend my energy trying to end slave labor in America, which is legal if the person has been convicted of a crime.
Why would I spend the precious little free time and energy I have (between making enough money to pay rent and eat food) on something out of my control?