corporate cotton

"The genius of any slave system is found in the dynamics which isolate slaves from each other, obscure the reality of a common condition, and make united rebellion against the oppressor inconceivable."
- andrea dworkin

Aren't we all just share croppers, on a corporate plantation? I know, the analogy may seem a bit extreme to some, mainly because the terminology brings to mind the painful images of the black holocaust that happened right here in this country. But, there is something to be said about the relationship between you and I, corporate worker, and the corporate giant that employs us. In many ways, the dependent nature of that relationship is very much like the share cropper and the plantation owner. In the beginning, our labor earns us very small amounts of money. Just enough money to make us dependent on the existing system of things. And every day, while on the plantation, we see workers who have been working there longer than us, who are making MORE money than us. This plants the seed in our heads that if we KEEP working there, over a period of time, we too will make MORE money, maybe to the point where we can live comfortably. Meanwhile, we make a little money. So to live the life we really want to live, we use credit cards. This puts us in debt. Our debt makes us even MORE dependent on the plantation. So we invest years of our lives on the plantation, trying to gain seniority, busting our asses to be NOTICED, in hopes of being rewarded monetarily. And often times we are. According to the current standard of things, you have it going on if you make 100 grand and over, own a big foreign luxury car, a house in the suburbs, and are able to take a trip afar once or twice a year. This is the American dream, so to speak. Let's say you finally reach that American dream status where you're making plenty of money on the plantation. Enough money that you're finally able to pay off all your bills, and you're living more comfortably than you've ever lived in your life. The skinny of it all is, you're STILL more dependent than ever on the plantation. You need the plantation to maintain your NEWFOUND lifestyle. And although you're making good money, you are far from being SET for life. Not to mention, although you have put in enough time and learned the system well enough to possibly be able to run your own plantation, you don't have enough MONEY to walk away from your current plantation, to start your own. This my friends, is why way too many American are putting in 40 plus years on a job, picking corporate cotton for the man, without ever putting themselves in a position to BE the man.

America is a place where we define ourselves and each other by what we do. Status even moreso than money, becomes the determining factor that keeps us dependent on the plantation system. Think about it, there are far more people who'd love to be a top notch executive for say, a Microsoft, than there are people who'd like to be the CEO of their own really small business. Here in lies what makes the corporate plantation system so powerful. The mentality of the people! We not only love the plantation owners, we have bought into how powerful they are, and we take pride in saying we work for them. We are sold these notions at univerisities, which are really just training grounds for the plantations I speak of. Hopefully, all of you will get fed up to the point where you're willing to take a chance, or you're financially secure enough to stop picking the man's cotton, and go out, get your own field, and start picking your own. Until then, we're all nothing more than a bunch of yassuh boss'n cotton pickers. *tips hat, smiles, and shuffles along* Peace.