What do you understand by dirty work?
That which society considers essential, on which it depends, but values as morally compromised and that it tacitly tolerates in order to continue functioning.
We accept it, but we hide it.
Exactly, it happens somewhere else, we don't see it, it is made invisible by walls and fences and legal barriers, such as confidentiality laws.
A violent job?
Causes considerable harm to other people, other animals and the environment; and people who do it feel stigmatized and despised or feel that they are betraying their values and ideals, some suffer from depression or post-traumatic stress.
For example?
The United States has the largest prison system in the world that has effectively become a mental health system. There are more mentally ill Americans in prisons than in hospitals or mental health facilities.
And so?
We don't have psychiatric hospitals; It is an inhumane situation and leads to disastrous results not only for those people who need medication instead of being locked up in a violent environment, but also for the guards, who are not qualified to deal with the mentally ill.
But do they treat them well?
I interviewed a psychiatric aide who worked in a Florida prison and discovered that prisoners in the mental health wing suffered graphic abuse, being denied food or going outside; and some were subjected to showers of burning water. A prisoner died like this.
And you didn't report it?
They need the job, they have no other options, they remain silent and suffer immense pressure because they feel complicit.
Why do the guards behave like this?
Real control lies with the officials of the prison system, the governor of Florida, and the voters who elect these authorities. It's not a bad apple, it's the basket that's rotten.
The guards who patrol the most violent wards in the US are very cruel.
Prisons are designed to make it very difficult to do anything other than treat prisoners with some brutality.
You don't need to abuse them.
“What you experience when you work in a prison,” a guard explained to me, “is a moral slide that gradually transforms you into someone who is cynical and hardened. You are in the minority, you have to teach the prisoners that if they cross the line they will find out.”
Are the guards the bad guys in the movie?
Every so often, terrible abuses committed in a US prison appear in the news and the guards who were involved are pointed out as guilty, but no one asks what conditions they work under.
Virtual soldiers carry out targeted assassinations with drones.
Yes, thousands of miles away from their target, and abuses are committed without anyone being held accountable, but there is no debate in the US about the drone program.
They are extrajudicial murders.
Who were born with Bush, a Republican, but grew up enormously with Obama, a Democrat. They are widely tolerated by society. There was debate about the atrocities committed at Abu Graib and Guantánamo, but the drone program receives no attention because no one sees those attacks except the worker in front of the screen.
And how does it affect them?
We think it's like playing a video game, but what I discovered in my research is that the level of trauma and upheaval is very high: they see how drones sometimes fall in a town, a wedding or a market.
Prisons and wars are financed by the taxpayer.
Dirty work is something accepted by decent people who prefer to look the other way.
Slaughterhouses, another difficult place.
In the US, a lot of meat is consumed, but the conditions of processing and production are invisible. It is very difficult for a journalist to get into a slaughterhouse, and that distances the system from society.
And what happens inside?
The Texas slaughterhouse workers I interviewed were unable to describe their experience without bursting into tears; They were mainly Mexican migrants without papers. The company wants to maximize profits, so during their work shift they are not allowed to go to the bathroom.
Is that a way of speaking?
No, they carry spare pants because that way they can do it on themselves.
If no one wants to face it, what do we do?
Ask ourselves what society I want to live in, and I believe that the only possible answer is collective dialogue. We citizens must recognize what is done in our name.
