Examining Exploitation

Ours is not a pristine history by any stretch of the imagination. The United States was founded on the heads of Native Americans and built, in part, by the hands of slave labor. This makes me think of my third-grade teacher, Ms. Book. She was pretty and kind and patient. I looked up to her. When I approached her desk with a math frustration she gently smoothed my furrowed brow with the pad of her thumb. Then she calmly retraced the basics of multiplication. She taught me about my Founding Fathers. But years later, my country's beginnings emerged counter to her lesson plan. I felt betrayed by Ms. Book. She had mentioned the feasts and the good tidings but failed to say anything about the massacres. She only gave me brown construction paper to trace my hand and showed me how to make a Thanksgiving turkey out of it.

I have found the word 'exploitation' at the fore in my mind. What does it mean to exploit someone or something? By definition per the Oxford dictionary, it is "to make use of a situation to gain an unfair advantage for oneself." Exploitation is a two-part equation. The exploiter has no power of action without the exploitable. There is no child labor without unethical employers. There is no genocide without ill political, economic or religious agendas. There is no rape without rapists. Broadly spoken, exploitation exists when the more powerful aim to prey on the less powerful.

I imagine exploitation oozing over bodies and minds so that it overtakes its victim's natural state of being. It asphyxiates those things innately part of gender, culture, and religion. It can have a motive as seemingly simple as hate. When causing suffering the results necessarily blur. Such acts are often shifted to the back of consciousness where they get muddled in justification and excuse and denial. So long as the exploiter is awash in his own gain, a sort of mental macular-degeneration prevails. He can only see warped truth through the fog of greed.

Humans have enslaved others since biblical times. Perhaps there have been 'equitable' arrangements in some cases. Generally, freedom is at a resonate, desperate premium for those from whom it has been taken. Genocides, child labor, sex trafficking, anti-LGBTQ violence, wars between countries over land and resources, and myriad ill-encounters behind closed doors are all byproducts of exploitative actions. It seems we are savages in suits. Though it is comforting to attribute such atrocities to others or to a time long ago, they are taking place as I speak. Boy Scouts, Catholic altar boys, women and girls, refugees and untold others world-wide know this all too well. Exploiters rarely volunteer their identities. Instead, they shelter behind a title such as politician, religious leader, manufacturer, family member, and even lover.

* Note - As a courtesy, I offer that the next two paragraphs lack no sugar-coating. I implore you to do the rather easy part of running your eyes over the words. The truth is not always pleasant.

Exploitation often lies in plain sight without being seen. If this is hard to fathom, I recommend a field trip to a slaughterhouse. Such a trip can easily be accessed via YouTube. Slaughterhouses provide visceral, wicked nightmares of which those experiencing them can not awaken. Animals are forced into a maniacally sinister end on the kill-floor. They contend with electrical prods, bolt guns, vats of boiling water, and gas chambers. I presume these animals would much prefer lounging in nests of hay and grazing in open pastures and raising their young. Instead, they are punched, kicked and electrocuted when they don't obey the orders to kindly submit themselves to death for our consumption.

These animals live 'lives' as unnatural to their species as could be imagined. They are held in concrete gestation crates from birth to slaughter. The space they occupy is so tight they can't even turn around; try squeezing into a dog house and never leaving for your entire life. They are impregnated and their babies are taken from them. They live in cages in warehouses and never see the light of day. Pumped with hormones that cause rapid growth to their bodies they collapse under their own weight. Massive amounts of antibiotics are required to counter the filthy, unsanitary conditions of overcrowding. Tails are lopped, beaks are ground down and testicles are removed all without anesthetic.

It is said, 'They are just stupid animals, and besides, they taste good.' They are not stupid. They are sentient beings who deserve to live a peaceful life in accordance with their own species, just as we do. If I were a scientist-dog and acquired you to be tested on your olfactory sense in my laboratory, you would indeed be deemed an imbecile. Analyzing smells for a dog is 40 times better than that of a human. In this instance, dogs would be nasal super-heroes and humans nasally-inept. We are notorious for testing others per our own human barometer of intelligence. What if a creature is less intelligent than a human? How sad it is to assume that because they are less intelligent we have a right to exploit them. What of the mentally challenged in our society? Is it not our responsibility as those possessing a moral compass to protect them?

Animals in factory farms are in a perpetual state of brutal exploitation by humans. Their bodies make money and satisfy our taste buds. This may be counter to what we want to think about as we grill our chicken breasts, drive through Jack in the Box for a Bacon Ultimate Cheeseburger, or for that matter take pride in our grass-fed purchases. All of these meals see their last day in a slaughterhouse. Barbaric behaviors take place behind closed doors to not upset our civilized sensibilities, though the simplest google search can reveal them. Once the seed has been planted, not knowing the truth is a choice. I have to question how long we can plead oblivion with each purchase of the meat we put on our plates.

Human beings delve into many types of exploitation. Here is why I mention, in particular, animal exploitation:

1. The voiceless deserve and need someone to speak on their behalf.

2. It illustrates exploitation on a massive, ongoing scale.

3. It calls into question where we draw the line for 'acceptable' exploitation.

As long as they are stupid animals, we can just enjoy our meals. After all, the stupid can't possibly understand what is being done to them. By extension, it's easier to turn a cheek to the 6-year-old in India who works for pennies a day to produce our designer handbags, fast fashions, and electronics...so long as we look awesome on Instagram.

I haven't unearthed all the ways in which I unknowingly or indirectly exploit others. But, I try to remain open and willing to question my norms. I try to stay open to change. I only know what I know until I know more. I Possess a moral compass by choice. I consider this one of the greatest gifts I have been given. Here is the Golden Rule of such a gift: I do what pleases me unless it hurts others. Empathy can not subsist in an atmosphere of oblivion.

*

It has now been 8 days since I went into isolation. The COVID-19 epidemic has seized our lives worldwide and sent us into hiding behind closed doors. It took hold in patient zero and spread across the globe like a windswept grass fire. We have little in the way of controlling its spread save border closures, social isolation, and hand washing. Mankind has been hijacked and taken hostage with brutal precision.

COVID-19 enters the body through droplets from coughs or sneezes from an infected person. It then spreads in this manner, leaping to any adjacent human it can find less than 6 feet away. Once it has breached the respiratory tract the virus attaches itself to healthy cells with its crown-like spikes. These healthy cells become a pawn to the virus and do its bidding. Prone to seek its place deep in the lungs it can cause pneumonia and acute respiratory distress syndrome. The outcome can be very grim for those it inhabits.

Humans are only second to viruses and bacteria in their penchant for exploiting others. I am in awe of this virus' stealth and dexterity. To be clear, I am not negating my fear of it's crushing capabilities. Nor am I flippant towards the psychological, economic and mortal impacts it is imposing. I am expressing, as an observer, how swiftly we have lost control of what we felt was impenetrable: our security. As of this morning, cases of infection have been over 800,000 worldwide. Over 39,000 have died. Economic global fallout is on the horizon, unemployment is rising at an alarming rate, hospitals and doctors are slammed and unprepared, we are sorely under-supplied with tests, masks, gowns, and ventilators and much of humanity are in isolation in their homes.

This virus systematically further disassembles our lives from one day to the next. It is a microscopic despot that has invaded our lands and is now calling the shots, having sequestered our freedom. This has prompted me to wonder what exploitation we ourselves have been taking part in. No one chooses to be on the receiving end of the stick, but let's face it -- nothing focuses the mind faster than one's own pain.

In America, the shallowest of concerns abut the most grave. We dine lavishly, complain when we have to wait in line and expect the world to bend to our will. We immerse in TikTok, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, reality TV and give celebrities god-like status. The accomplishments of others are demeaned, plights are a laughing matter and suffering is easily stepped over on the way to Starbucks. Generally, we have become spoiled and take the amazing life we are allotted in the United States for granted. Rome too thought it could never fall.

Of course, good has steadily stayed the course all along. In the midst of this pandemic, there is an opportunity to bolster that good. We are now forced to slow down. We have time to think and cook and get creative and spend time with our families, even if from afar. We have time to be caring and loving and grateful. We have time to be introspective and take stock of how we have been living. Perhaps most importantly, we have time to examine how we may emerge better than before.

Unlike so many of the exploited, we still have the ability to speak up for ourselves, share our experiences, our thoughts, and connect with loved ones. We have our dignity. We still have food in our stores, entertainment on Netflix, Amazon delivering what we need to our doors and Face Time to visit with others. I have seen more love in the last week than I can fully comprehend. We care about each other. It's easy to love those we know and understand. Though it is harder to accept those we don't know and understand, we need each other globally now more than ever. Working together as a planet will move us past this pandemic. In this case, we are only as strong as our neighbors.

It is speculated the COVID-19 virus leapt from an animal, put up for purchase in a meat market, to a human seeking its consumption. The animal in that cage had recently been going about its life before its freedoms were unceremoniously seized for another's advantage. I ask again: Is it acceptable to exploit just because we can? Presumably, the exploited don't think so. 'This is just the way the world works,' we say. 'Survival of the fittest,' we remind. That may be true for lions on the Serengeti, but we are critical thinkers with empathy and moral obligation as human beings. May we use these things to regain our freedom and improve our value as a species in the world.

I am an optimist, albeit a stoic one. I hope for the best but understand it may not happen. This is unequivocally a time of uncertainty. Maybe we will cauterize all the ways in which this virus has taken advantage of us. I can't speak for its toll, but I can hope for its outcome. Let it give birth to a time of change. Mankind has been exploiting throughout history and periodically we find ourselves exploited. We do not deserve to be infected by COVID-19 any more than Native Americans Indians deserved to be driven from their lands or animals deserve to be bred for our consumption. This is not a punishment for humanity. It is an opportunity. It seems this is an invaluable moment for mankind. I hope we use it to our advantage.

* Ms. Book, I forgive you. Thank you for doing the best you could with the curriculum you were given and for showing me kindness.

* It took 4 days to write and edit this essay. Nothing was more humbling than updating the number of cases and deaths caused by COVID-19 each morning. At first writing, I recorded 600,000 cases and 30,000 deaths worldwide per the site Worldometer. In just four days, the cases of infection have risen over 200,000 more and over 9000 more have died from this pandemic. The effects of COVID-19 will reverberate for some time to come and its total collateral is yet to be known.

* In light of immeasurable global impact, future sanctions on meat markets such as the one where this virus may have begun its rampage should be up for discussion.