AL-Jathiya Williams 1-24-08 Editorial Salaam
Conflict Diamonds

Since the great find of diamonds in 1867, this once rare mineral is admired all over the world. (1)In Europe, Africa, South America, and even North America, diamonds have been a constant demand.(1) What they fail to realize the hardships that Africans go through in order to supply the demands of voracious people.
Here in America African Americans have fought for the rights they enjoy today. Though back in Africa, they have distant relatives who work for them everyday. Their occupation: mining diamonds. To those who are unaware of the hardships they suffer everyday. And it’s mostly because today’s industry desire diamonds so much. Rapper Kanye west wrote a song called “diamonds”. This song speaks about how we are hurting our people in Africa. In stanza says “I thought my Jesus piece was so harmless until I seen this picture of a shorty armless and here’s the conflict: it’s in a black person soul to rock that gold, you spend ya whole life tryna get that ice.” This refers to how blacks are contributing to the system of conflict diamonds. This also relates to the relationship between the field slave and the house slave. The African-Americans who live in America are the house slaves. While the native Africans are the fields salve. The House slaves would contribute to the trouble and torment of the field slave. Today blacks do not bother to investigate the history of the diamonds they buy and their supplying companies.
The industry spends their life trying to live up to the standards of whites. Little do they know that they add to distress of those men, women, and children who are killed everyday for not finding enough diamonds for that day. They also fail to realize that by spending their money on diamonds they are actually adding wealth to whites industry. Think about it: how any black owned diamonds industries to do know that are making money.
This is similar to the relationship with field and house slaves. The house slaves would go out of their way to please their master while being comfortable with living in the “big house”. They would spy and tell on any field slaves who were trying to escape. The Black Americans make it impossible for Africans to be free from their dangerous jobs. If they would stop buying conflicts diamonds then the need for them would die. In places like guinea, the Republic of Congo, and Sierra Leone, diamond mining would not be as popular of a job as it is now. (2)
After reading various articles such as Diamondfacts.org, and Combating conflict diamonds, I have learned even more about the issue of blood diamonds. The start of blood diamonds came from rebel groups who use the system to fuel conflict with the unjust government.(2) In the media, rebel groups are portrayed as unruly people. This also relates back to slavery. The field slaves were always thought of as the bad slave, this may be partially the reason why the house slaves paid no attention to the field slaves. Most African-Americans don’t fight to end the horrors that West Africans live.(2) Though the truth is that the rebels and the victims are the same people and in the end the British colonies want to kill them all. Just as the field slave and the house slaves were of same importance in the masters eyes. Although many minorities are unaware of the dreadfulness that take place in West Africa, that does no excuse them of not making change.
THE TIME IS NOW.
Simple things like writing letters and editorials to websites that take charge on such issues are simple. Instead of wasting time just hanging around with your friends, tell them about the cause and convince them to join you in writing these papers to concerned sites. If we ignore the fact that thousands of people die everyday, the population in Africa will die, not even counting the AIDS epidemic. There isn’t much time left too many tragedies are occurring in Africa. They are all a plan that the white politicians have to destroy the African-American race. The question that I want you to ask yourself is; when will you make the change.