Yesterday Husband and I saw a really touching, heart-warming, soul-gutting movie: Blood Diamond. I recommend everyone sees it, especially because the subject is so sensitive and the imagery is so soul-wrenching. I think people need to be exposed to what goes on halfway around the world. While I’m not generally a fan of Leonardo DiCrapio, I find that a lot of his movies are really well-done. He’s not just another pretty face.

Throughout this whole movie, I kept asking Dave, near tears, “How could people do this to each other..? I don’t understand..”

How could we shoot children and women needlessly? How could we kill innocent people? How could we dance for joy around bloody, maimed, lifeless bodies in pools of red, red blood? I don’t understand. I refuse to look at it as human nature. Rather, it is something that has seriously wrong with the human race, that would allow us to hurt each other in such a horrid way.

When Dave and I first got engaged, and while we were looking for my perfect engagement ring and our perfect wedding bands together, Dave insisted that we get non-conflict diamond rings. I didn’t even know what that meant. I didn’t realize there was even such a thing as “blood diamonds.” I started reading more into it, and I realized that most of the world’s diamond industries hold all the wealth of all the diamonds coming in, and most of the diamonds coming in are from 3rd world countries where child slaves and innocent laborers were forced to mine for diamonds in poor, ugly conditions. Most of them are killed off, or separated from their families, or made to live in cages. These are smuggled, dirty diamonds. These are diamonds with blood souls. These are rotten, bad diamonds.

When we started looking for diamonds for my rings, we realized that Canadian diamonds (which are non-conflict diamonds — which means they were mined legally, ethically, and safely: no one had to bloody die for my finger to freakin’ shine) cost even less than conflict diamonds did. In the U.S., to get diamonds imported — whether with conflict diamonds or non-conflict diamonds — they all cost pretty much the same. The only difference is that those ignorant buy blood diamonds because they are more common. Most of us don’t know where diamonds come from. Most of us don’t realize that the first hands who touched our little sparkling stones was a starved, whipped, beaten, bloody, brainwashed, little boy in South Africa. Most of us don’t realize the lives that were lost to get that little piece of fucking rock on our finger. Most of us are too fucking stupid to know the price we have to pay in order to look pretty.

I’m fucking proud that I don’t have conflict diamonds gracing my fingers. I told Dave that if we couldn’t find non-conflict diamonds, then I don’t want any diamonds at all. I could very well wear a stone made of sand on my finger and I’d be happy. Please, please, for the love of Buddha and God and Allah and the good part of your soul, don’t buy blood diamonds. Insist, simply insist, that the next diamond you buy, for your girlfriend, or your fiancee, or your mother, or even your pet or yourself, not be a blood diamond. Please.