Maybe it's the heat. The radio is full of dire predictions, record
temperatures and no sign of rain-- drought savaging this part of the country
for two years running-- and all I get at work is dirty looks-- bosses staring
at me like whites used to stare at blacks in the south, as unequal partners in
this labor relationship. They like to think themselves superior beings,
like the Germans in the thirties, industry owners seeing us as problem
children, as gypsies, as Jews, as radical elements whose survival somehow
threatens their profits-- as if to pay us decently meant some sort of
degradation for themselves. If they didn't need us they'd turn us into
lampshades, too-- wearing that same, brutal mentality in their eyes each time they
see us. A few years ago, I stood on their side of the
line, a night manager for a small cosmetic company in Fairfield, and was told
outright by my superiors that I had to separate myself from my employees, that
it wasn't a good practice to let the men think we were equals. It is an amazing load of crap they sell us
when they make us crawl for our pay checks, as if they were doing us a favor by
using our bodies and minds for their profits-- as if there was something
inherently superior in their inability to get their hands dirty or bend their
backs. There used to be a time when people could be
proud of their labors, before the machines took over and made life an endless
repetition of the same idiotic habits, our skills more and more closely defined
till we have become part of the machine. We break down, we are replaced. We are
rarely considered human. We are taught to think the next step down from
where we are is the gutter, that there are others on the welfare lines waiting
to take our jobs-- and secretly we envy the welfare people. Their indignity
comes twice a month at the welfare office. They don't have the boss over their
shoulder or on their back. They don't have the back-breaking bullshit to
justify their checks.
But its the same slavery. We hate them for
laziness. They hate us because we have their jobs. And the people above us both
breed that contempt, stoking the hate between us so we don't learn the truth,
so we don't turn on the rich and steal back enough for us both to survive.
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