I am watching the Discovery Channel and am seeing the documentary titled Diamond Road for the fourth or fifth time. The diamond entrepreneur Martin Rapaport impresses me every time. He has been inspired to create a fair trade system for diamonds from war-torn Sierra Leone. In one of his talks, he points out that if you buy your loved one a diamond and are able to say that this purchase not only results in you having a beautiful diamond, but also has made someone’s life better. He says “You can sell the HELL outta that!” Doing the right thing CAN work!
I am so happy to see someone who is so driven to make a difference. With a baby on the way, I personally am not in the market for a diamond. But if when I am again looking to buy a diamond, I will surely ask for a fair-trade diamond. If we all do this down in the Diamond District of NYC and walk out when they say that they have no such things, maybe we can help make Rapaport’s dream come true and help the diamond diggers of Sierra Leone and elsewhere in Africa, or the world for that matter.
On a jewelry blog Rapaport is criticised for giving an interview from his $2500+ a night suite in a LasVegas resort. Frankly, I don’t see that as hypocritical. Yes, he did make a lot of money off of the diamond industry. But he is now using that wealth to make things better. Giving it all away would really do no good. And how much better is he than all those who made all that money and didn’t do anything good with it. This is not a valid criticism in my opinion, and in fact highlights just how important his efforts are.
Of course, as the blog mentions, fair-trade arrangements would be difficult to police and enforce. This is probably true, but its a step in the right direction. The status-quo is unacceptable.
Last, I am always struck by the woman in the DeBeer’s sequence who says that she would leave her fiancee’ if he bought her a lab-grown diamond. First, she refers to it as ‘glass’, which is inaccurate at best. But more importantly, she says that if he loved her enough he would buy her the ‘real thing’. Ummm… glass is real. Its sad to see someone so clueless. Someone who mistakes a lump of carbon for love… or a flag for one’s nation. Symbols hold a special place in our brains; sometimes too special.
Kevin Knuth
Albany NY
Posted under Entrepreneurship, Philosophy, Social Justice
This post was written by drknuth on October 7, 2007
All true words.
Also, it was sad to see so many people giving excuses for why the people that ruin their health digging diamonds can’t be paid more than $3 a day.