Alone; is how they want us;

“They” being the corporate interests, the big bankers, the financial stake holders and politicians who are profiting from our suffering and struggles

“They” being the ones who continuously make false promises to get us to leave the premises when we are advocating for our rights, hiding behind proto and para military units, and yet they claim to be on our side, but won’t even take the time to shake our hands and look us in our eyes when we have grievances

“They” being the ones who attempt to turn us against one another, dangling cheap carrots in front of us because they believe we are so hungry that we will bite the hands that actually feed us, and not the ones that feed us just enough to keep us alive enough to slave away while they are living like fats-cats, getting rich off our demise

“They” being the ones who mandate unrealistic quotas and punish us for not being able to complete them on their time-tables, on their schedules, constricting our work forces, doubling our work-loads, skimping our benefits, depleting our retirement funds, exhausting our world

“They” being the ones who only know as much about us as the number they reference on their accounting sheets, before submitting profit & loss statements to their corporate headquarters in some other state or country, so far away that I bet most of us have never even met “they”

And it begs the question; how could they ever know much more, or even care for, any of us if they do not know how we live, where we return home to at night, how hard we actually work for them, or even something as simple as our names?

Yeah, “they” are the ones who want us; ALONE

They want us alone because they believe we are easier targets, easier to manipulate, easier to pressure and to coerce into questionable and fragile positions from which we have no alternative but to consent to inequitable conditions and treatments

They want us alone because it is easier to deny promises made, harms done and stratified wage rates that often run the lines of gender and race;

Women are earning 75 cents to every man’s Dollar in this grand country of ours, the glass ceiling is a carrot revealing future that is impossible to reach, tantalizing leeches, exasperating and crushing the dreams of even the best of our sisters and brothers, believe this

Because when they have us alone, backed into a corner with all their college educated professional coercers, “they” will have us believing it is our fault that we did not get that raise or that promotion we had worked so long and so hard for

And when one of our brothers and sisters ingests this type of rhetoric, there is no medicine that will offset the grief and dissatisfaction with our selves that is set in, it latches itself to our bones and erodes our hopes, crumbling our dreams before us like castles built in the sand before the rain comes to wash them away

Migrants and Minorities get stuck on the sticky floors that deny almost all upward social mobility; start as a janitor, die as a janitor… And there is nothing inferior about being a custodial worker, it is a very estimable position and vitally necessary to the function of any and every institution; so, it is not a humbling decision for a person to choose to be a career custodian, so long as it is their choice to make.

However, that is not how the Sticky Floor works.

People are barred access to occupations other than entry level positions because of some numerical calculations the bean pushers reckon to be a safe and acceptable risk factor of investment; taking into account a person’s historical record and often times criminal or documented status as a citizen; which supersedes that  person’s choice for meritous recognition

That means they are not being judged by the contents of their characters, but rather by the covers of their books and this is why they want us alone, because only when we stand alone can they act with the impunity requisite to humiliate our people in this manner

They want us alone because when the whim comes to downsize and layoff hard-working and devoted employees who have invested our entire lives into a company comes about, there is no collective bargaining, there is no unity among the people to stand against the usurpations, humiliations and destructiveness of the decisions of the few over the many; and there is no one to hold them accountable to their word

But it is our sweat, our blood, our tears that went into those foundations, into those products being sold on the shelves, flying in those air planes, that kept those patients safe and comfortable while they were in our hospitals, and kept our buildings clean and healthy; We have invested far more collectively, even when they want us alone, than they ever could have because these are our communities and we have more claim and right to them than anyone does

Which brings us to both the beauty and the reality; we are not alone! We stand together! We Work Together! We Sustain our Communities Together! And what affects one of us, affects us all!

And we all know what happens when a people united stand against an oppressive regime, that regime resorts to political and character assassinations, reduced wages, pink slips, and threats of eliminations.

An when that does not work, they resort to cages and State Sanctioned Violence against the people they have had locked in enslavement because they believe they are the ones who own our communities, as if to say they are the ones who have invest blood, sweat and tears to raising and protecting our children

They are not riots, but rebellions! May Day and the Hay Market Bombing during the formative years of the Unions was an uprising in response to a continuous cycle of usurpations and degradations; But they are so quick to label Baltimore and Ferguson as riotous behavior as an attempt to discredit the very real concerns that reach back generations through out-sourcing, red-lining, Jim Crow, and slavery;

The rise of the prison industrial complex, and the militarization of the police institution designed to keep the people in so-called ‘order’ which is just another code word for enslavement; behave and don’t make waves or your and all your people will either be dead or locked in cages

And yet, even though they control the military and have for centuries, each generation and throughout the planet the people have continued to rise up and to stand together against their oppressors, it’s amazing!

What that tells me, is that even with all of their tactics, all their power and money and propaganda they cannot stop us so long as we do not stand alone, but stand together and that is why they breed dissention, create stratification and promote the relegation of particular groups of people; because “they” want us to be and to feel alone.

United We Stand! United We Win!