Diamonds

I had almost never heard of conflict diamonds before seeing Blood Diamond. I feel bad that I had no idea of what was going on in Africa or the lives, as well as arms that were being lost to the mining of diamonds. When I was younger, diamonds mesmerized me. My grandma and mother always had them and I couldn't wait to get my own diamond engagement ring. The first time I realized how important they are to people was about seven years ago when I was in Florida on a family vacation. Me and my mother were sitting on the beach when she went to adjust her chair. Then pop, her great grandmothers diamond, which was passed down to her, popped out of the pieces of metal clasping it in, and flew into the sand. Upon searching for it in the sand for two days straight and filing a police report on a missing diamond, we gave up hope on ever finding it. Since then, I'm more informed on how special and important diamonds really are to people. Like every girl, I can't wait until a special someone pops the question and places a diamond ring on my finger. I'm not the type of person who likes flashy jewelry and such, but it's still nice to have something like that to cherish forever. Then again, after being informed on conflict diamonds, I definitely want to know if what's on my finger, ears or even nose cost a little boy or girl an appendage. I couldn't live knowing I own something that caused so much conflict. I know now that 99% of diamonds on the shelves are conflict free so I'm confident that by the time I get married, this number will just to 100. Blood Diamond and Kanye's song effectively stated this very important issue. Counter-storytelling is very effective because it shows that someone cares about an issue and they are fighting back to say what they believe in. Someone as good looking as Leonardo DiCaprio in Blood Diamond does a good job pulling in the young women audience to watch this movie.




brysonburke.com/mining_angola.html