America is the land of inequality. Exploitation and are the best ways to climb your way up the ladder that the American Dream is. In theory, American Dream has always been to start from the bottom, and through hard, honest work, end up successful. In practice, however, it's much more common to see the exploitation of those who are less fortunate. In Between the World and Me, African American writer Ta-Nehisi Coates described the racial inequality in America as the [White man’s] right to break the black body”(104), which was true in 1776, and has been true since.
The inequalities that African Americans face today is a result of slavery, and the unwillingness for white white supremacists to allow an end to their racist and apathetic power trips. Modern white supremacists did not, and will never do anything so extraordinary such that it would justify the mistreatment of African Americans in America. Coates also alludes to the idea that disparity in America is formed the way a valley gives a mountain its height. Coates’ idea that the mountain of white superiority cannot stand without the valley to contrast it stands true in the realm of the general public taking advantage of prison workers for cheap products. Another modern example of the exploitation of the less fortunate is the US’s flawed prison system. Look at New York for example. According to the 2016 New York State Department of Corrections Report and the 2010 U.S. Census, the state’s black population is roughly 20% and the white population is roughly 60%. However, the prison population is flipped, with roughly 20% of inmates being white and close to 60% being black (Times Union). This, coupled with government tolerance of private prisons that do not care about justified incarceration, but rather only profit from labor akin to slavery. In New York prisons, inmates in private prisons print license plates for wages hovering around 1 dollar per hour (Gothamist). The article discusses ethical controversy surrounding prison labor in New York. Prisoners who work for wages ranging from 16 cents/hour to just over one dollar an hour. The prison labor system is not at all concerned with proper punishment and reintegration, rather the profit for a few owners that can be made through exploitation. The prison owners sit upon a mountain of wealth supported by the prisoners, who are the “below” that Coates describes to his son. Likewise, this exploitation happens across classes as well, with the rich getting richer by breaking down the poor. In the novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, numerous examples of the rich exploiting and separating themselves from the poor can be found. Early in the book, when Nick visits Tom and Daisy for dinner, Daisy and Jordan jokingly tell Nick that the demand of the butler’s previous silver polishing businesses. “[The Butler] used to be the silver polisher for some people in New York that had a silver service for two hundred people. He had to polish it from morning till night, until finally it began to affect his nose” (13). The butler’s job and health were ruined because he happened to be a worker for the rich, who got exploited and broken by the rich and their demands. Another detail from The Great Gatsby to take into consideration is the idea that Tom and Daisy were born into the upper class, and are a breed of so-called “old wealth”. They distance themselves from the poor and their problems. In chapter 8, Fitzgerald describes Daisy as “gleaming like silver, safe and proud above the hot struggles of the poor” (151). We are told of three lives that were ruined by Daisy’s toying with people surrounding her. She killed Myrtle in order to force Tom to fully commit to her, and didn’t fess up about her crime, leading to Gatsby, and eventually Wilson’s Death. The idea of Daisy gleaming like silver is ironic, especially since she technically has the blood of several people on her hands. The idea that even after all that she has done, she still remains above and separate from the poor people in West Egg, goes to show how untouchable the upper class are. Additionally, Gatsby is exempt from all felonies in New York, since he was able to do the police commissioner a favor in the past. While Gatsby’s wealth was merely a facade in order to make him attractive to Daisy, his new wealth also allowed him to reap some extra benefits. The short story The Rich Brother centers around two brothers Pete and Donald. Pete is the older one, and represents the idea of the American Dream: working hard for his money and living a comfortable life. Donald, on the other hand, is often broke and jobless, but has a kind heart and wants to be successful like Pete. Pete feels that he is superior to Donald and in a separate world from Donald just because he has had more success (by American Societal standards). On the trip back to Pete’s house from the gas station, he berates Donald over several inconsequential actions. When they meet a hitchhiker who claims to have a stake in a South American Gold Mine, Donald, hoping to invest in this gold mine and get himself back on his feet, gives a hundred dollars to the man. Pete then gets angry that Donald was so willing to let Pete’s money go, especially since Pete says that he “worked for that money” (88). America has, from the beginning, been a classist society, with the rich taking from the poor and allowing them to grow richer, of course at the expense of the poor.
