Modern day Slavery in the contemporary World

Globalization

In our class lecture, we defined Globalization as the process of social change that involves transnational interactions in all aspects of social, economic, and technological relationships. After intensively exploring globalization from a holistic perspective, specifically from societal movements such as migration, international trade, and mass media, we concluded that Globalization has a vital influence on shaping how our global community functions. Globalization is an ever-changing phenomenon that immensely impacts our inter-connectivity across social, political, and economic bounds. One of the topics that resonated with me from our class discussion posed the question, "what does it mean to be a global citizen"?

This question challenged me to think critically on how I see myself as a citizen not just living in my community, or my country, but furthermore, living in our world. Being a global citizen to me means having a cultural consciousness of contemporary global dynamics occurring across various social, political, and economic horizons. Expanding further from this, being a Global citizen to me, means striving to enforce a positive change in our worlds community.

Globalization influences our world culture in a sense that the dispersal of sociological ideas, political power, and economic activity, determine what are global spectrum looks like. It is important to note however, that globalization can affect various international regions across the globe in positive and negative ways. In our readings, when looking particularly into Cultural Globalization, a positive example can bee seen through Japanese hip-hop. In this example, ideas flowing from American contemporary hip-hop sparked a new age evolution of hip hop in Japan. Japanese hip hop in essence, is a benevolent aspect of globalization. It shares popular cultural practices of American society, but also adds a bit of Japanese flavor and touch to it, thus making it less hegemonic and more-so, unique and original.

 Globalization can also damage our world's cultural landscape and produce drastic effects to citizens navigating though our world's society. An example of the fatal repercussions ensued from globalization can be seen among the acceptance of people identifying to a specific race/ethnicity. In the article, Yearning for lightness, by Eveyln Nakano Glenn, the author states that skin lightening has become a billion dollar industry. Glenn sheds light on how skin lightening is derived from a dominating Western Global system that promulgates a, "white is right" ideology, while also stimulating the desire of Western culture and products. Here, the Globalization of western ideals of beauty and intelligence propels drastic effects to the cultural dynamics taking place in many geological regions, and even-so, the world as a whole.

An article written by Thomas L. Friedman titled, "The World is Flat", makes a claim that the world is evolving into an equal playing field. Friedman describes Globalization as evolving our worlds society into a positive direction towards equity. Friedman mentions that in the future, globalization will affect the world in sense that our global society is going to be more and more driven by individuals, but also by a much more diverse non-Western, non white-group of individuals".  He expands further on this claim and states, "Individuals from every corner of the flat world are being empowered". 

After reading Friedman words, this prompted me to investigate the contemporary economic dynamics currently across the world, and research economic inequality as a result of globalization. 

So let's talk numbers....

- The richest 1% of the world have access to 56% of the worlds wealth (class lecture)

- 82% of the new wealth created in the world has gone to the top 1%, while 0% has gone to the world’s poorest 50%. (Oxfam.org)

- Around 56% of the global population lives on between $2 and $10 a day. (www.Oxfam.org)

- More than 70 percent of the world’s millionaires reside in Europe or North America (www.inequality.org)

- 62 billionaires own the same amount of wealth as 3.5 billion people who make up the poorest half of the world’s population (www.weform.org)

Comparing these statistics to Friedman's account on global equity, it would be delusional to discount for the issue of how a minuscule percentage of the world dominates global economics.

When looking at the numbers, it's evident that we shift our focus now, to how globalization plays a major role in perpetuating global inequality. This leads me to unpacking a vital problem today in South America, in which globalization is causing economic rifts along our interchanging, global landscape.

In the food industry, Argentina is one of the world’s biggest exporters of food, yet its indigenous communities are often blighted by malnutrition. Neighboring Bolivia is facing a crisis sparked by international demand for quinoa, Bolivia's staple crop. The grain’s popularity abroad, particularly in the US, has caused the price of the crop to soar to the point that poorer Bolivians can no longer afford it (listverse.com). In this dilemma, Globalization is detrimentally affecting foreign countries like Argentina and Bolivia for the reason that first world countries such as the United States, are taking advantage of their extravagant goods.

This is just a snapshot of how Globalization causes change across the world. More examples such as worker consumption, waste Management, and the exportation of obesity can be found here : https://listverse.com/2014/02/14/10-shocking-ways-the-west-abuses-developing-countries/

Finalizing our journey along the everlasting road of Globalization, it is essential that we end our trip with examining recent political views on Globalization, specifically through a Eurocentric and conservative lens. The U.S department of state delivered a press release on October of 2017 that announced the U.S's withdrawal of UNESCO. The press release stated that on December 31st of 2018, the United States will officially be a non-member of UNESCO (wwwstate.gov). Now you might ask, what is UNESCO? UNESCO is the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization that is responsible for coordinating international cooperation in education, science, culture, and communication (unesco.org). UNESCO promotes scientific advancement, access to education, gender equality, cultural preservation, and freedom of expression (unesco.org). The U.S provided over 80 million dollars a year donating funds to UNESCO... not to mention, the U.S was the organizations largest contributor (www.jta.org).

What's ironic to me, is that 3 months after the U.S makes this controversial decision and monumentally alters the dynamics of the global world, President Trump speaks out at a Conservative Political Action Conference and states the following: "This is the United States of America...I'm not representing the Globe..I'm representing your country".

The rest of the interview can be seen here:

As a nation, if our leaders are broadcasting  divisiveness and separation from the world, what does that show to our brothers and sisters across the globe? Are the dynamics in America becoming nationalistic if we are releasing funds and support to the rest of the world? And ending on a final note, is seeing ourselves as global citizens becoming a lost identity in America?

Just this morning I saw a flyer that had the caption, Do we live in a hypersensitive society? I stopped for a moment and thought about this question. I recollected on the recent political shifts in America and revisited the unequal numbers of equity across the world, and I realized that it is with the upmost importance that when questions like these are asked, we must challenge back and ask the contrary... Do we live in an insensitive world?