February 2004
America's Covert and Demeaning Caste System
Robert L. Terrell
The income options available to those members of our society with few marketable skills are concentrated in low prestige occupations. Maids, janitors, gardeners, parking meter attendants, street sweepers and those who wash other people's cars by hand fall into this category.
Due primarily to their dangerously low incomes, tens of millions of them cluster near the lowest rungs of the nation's relatively rigid caste system. Located still lower are the near anonymous crews of temporary workers who performs tasks such as distributing handbills from door to door, or pick up garbage and trash in generally neglected public spaces such as parks, freeway medians and the cluttered paths and allies that snake through lower-class neighborhoods.
Workers who do jobs of this sort share low prestige, but not the lowest.
Lower still on the totem pole of employment prestige are those such as the stoic individuals who are paid to slosh dirty mops about in the soiled booths of porn emporiums, trying as best they can to obliterate the congealing semen splattered about by furtively departing customers.
Virtually all low prestive, lower caste jobs have highly unpleasant dimensions, and those who must accept them in order to survive frequently struggle mightily with issues associated with dignity, pride and self worth. Chronic, debilitating drug addiction, unstable living conditions, anti-social violence and numerous other forms of self destructive behavior are some of the most visible results of their pain and alienation.
Those of us who have the luck and good fortune to earn our daily bread in more prestigious, better paying jobs, should devote more attention to the individuals trapped in lower caste jobs. If for no other reason, we should do so because understanding the nature of such jobs, and their frequently destructive impact on the people who perform them, is critical to the maintenance of those aspects of society that used to be recognized as the fabric that holds civilizations together.
There was a time not so long ago that it was possible to believe that, here in the United States expanding wealth and prosperity were such that the worst low paying, low prestige jobs would be eliminated relatively soon. The corollary hope was that even if such jobs could not be eliminated, slow, steady social progress would ensure that those who had to do them would be provided opportunities to live and work in dignity.
Developments in the United States during the past couple decades have substantially laid most such dreams to rest. Thus, given the mean spirited, triumphalist, social darwinist ideologies which inspire the elites who currently dominate public life in the United States, it seems appropriate now to conclude that long suppressed liberal dreams and aspiration regarding the creation of a more just and egalitarian social order will not become manifest reality any time soon.
It seems reasonable to focus on shoeshine "boys" to embellish the point because they provide a good, representative example of the myriad forms of servile obeisance that we in this wealthy, leisure-oriented society require of those confined to the lowest rungs of our caste system. Shoeshine "boys" can also be used to glean important insights regarding the nature of our structurally cruel social order.
For those unfamiliar with the highly ritualized culture of domination and submission that shapes the social and economic experience of shoeshine "boys," is should suffice to provide the following pointers. Shoeshine "boys" are found in all parts of the United States. They perform their ritualized labor in airports, train stations, malls, country clubs and the men's rooms of elite hotels and restaurants. Those who work the toilet scene at elite establishments, are frequently required to do double duty by providing clean hand cloths to customers after they finish using the facilities. Extra tips are commonly provided for this particularly intimate service. Most commonly, however, shoeshine "boys" perform their service on the streets in business districts frequented by well off white people.
The first important thing to understand about shoeshine "boys" is that the overwhelming majority of them minimally competent people of color. Nonetheless, the vast majority of them are black. My best intuition suggests that racial prejudice has more to do with the continuing presence of black shoeshine "boys" in our society than any other factors. For example, shoeshine "boys" are virtually nonexistent in Europe or Asia. But they are commonly found in the sections of Africa where whites have settled in large numbers.
In any event, the second important thing to understand about shoeshine "boys" is that they are required to be good natured, and unfailingly subservient.
This requirement clearly indicate that the shoeshine "boy" is engaged in a ritual wherein he plays a role, in addition to providing a service. As far as the customer is concerned, the key point to be understood is that when he procures the services of a shoeshine "boy" he is attempting to purchase something more important than a shoeshine. By engaging in the public ritual of using another human being in such a blatantly oppressive manner, he is expressing a primitive urge to assert dominance and his assumed innate superiority.
In other words, the customer is in pursuit of the corrupt pleasure associated with having another human being serve him, however briefly, in the manner of a slave. For many people in our society, paying for such service is a form of addiction. Given this, it should come as no surprise that servility of the sort required from the shoeshine "boy" is imposed, one way of another, on virtually everyone relegated to the lowest rungs of the national caste system.
Shoeshine "boys" who understand these complicated psychodynamics play to stereotype. They grin, jive, talk smack and laugh on cue at unfunny jokes.
As far as the shoe shining is concerned, customers familiar with the ritual's traditions tend to prefer that the "boy" follow a set procedure. After the customer takes a seat on the stand, which is usually constructed such that he looms over the kneeling "boy," his shoes are brushed to remove dust, dirt and other debris.
During this phase of the ritual, pleasantries are exchanged. Customers frequently volunteer their names, and ask the name of the "boy" attending to their shoes.
If the "boy" has a name or handle associated with lower-caste people of color, many customers perk up and become particularly talkative and friendly. Nonetheless, each participant in the ritual understands that the "boy" is required to demonstrate complete deference throughout, never questioning or challenging the assumed superiority of the customer regarding all things important.
The key point to be understood is that the "boy" is expected to be submissive. Those who do so most effectively become favorites, and they earn considerably more than less demonstratively submissive cohorts who risk being considered too cool, if not inappropriately arrogant.
As the ritual proceeds, customers frequently share startlingly frank personal stories with the kneeling shoeshine "boy," in much the same manner as they commonly do with cab drivers, bartenders and prostitutes.
The "boy" is expected to listen respectfully, and to grunt or groan in ways that convey empathy for the customer.
Shoeshine "boys" who are unable or unwilling to participate in repartee that enhances the customer's sense of importance and superiority receive smaller tips.
Customers who develop fondness for a particularly subservient "boy" return again and again. It is not unusual to hear such customers brag that they have used the same "boy" to shine their shoes for decades. After introductions, the "boy" begins to briskly brush the customer's shoes in order to remove dust and dirt.
When this short procedure is completed, the "boy proceeds to clean the customer's shoes. Soap and water is commonly used to initiate the process, which frequently includes the application of lanolin-based creams that soften the leather and make it more pliable.
During this phase of the ritual, "boy" commonly compliments the customer on the quality of his shoes. Subsequent compliments are bestowed on the customer regarding his overall good tastes in attire, women, liquor and any other items to which his sense of vanity might be attached.
By doing so, the "boy" demonstrates that he is committed to faithfully fulfilling the customer's expectations regarding his role in the highly stylized ritual performance in which the two of them are engaged.
The next step in the scenario involves the "boy" applying polish that must precisely match the customer's shoe color. This is preferably done by hand in a familiar and somewhat intimate fashion that involves casual squeezing of the customer's feet. Such touching engenders a sense of deep satisfaction in many customers, which is apparent from the soft grunts of appreciation they utter as the "boys" hands flutter back and forth between their feet.
After the polish dries, it is removed via brisk brushing. Minimally skilled "boys" perform this procedure with one brush. But their more skilled counterparts use two brushes, embellishing their brush strokes with rhythmic, and somewhat dramatic, flourishes that involve casually flipping the brushes in the air in ways that never break the rhythm of their application to the pleased customer's shoes. The ritual moves towards its highly anticipated climax shortly after the "boy" finishes brushing the customer's shoes. It begins with the "boy" pulling his shoeshine rag from its resting place, which is traditionally stashed in one of his back pockets. Customers almost always perk up when the rag is produced, focusing intently in order not to miss any nuance of the coming performance. Casual commentary ceases as the "boy" dramatically applies the rag to the customer's shoes. Holding the soft textured rag just so in his tightly clasped hands, the "boy" pulls the rag with increasing speed over and around the shining shoes. Finally, the "boy" begins to pop the rag in a pleasant, rhythmic fashion that produces sounds similar to those made by a drummer of bassist laying down a steady back beat.
Customers typically smile broadly as the "boy's" hands flutter up and down so quickly that they are little more than a blur.
Finally, the "boy" gives the rag a few especially hard yanks that elicit the sharp, loud, rhythmic pops which signify the ritual's impending conclusion. The final flutters and pops of the rag are followed by a light, intimate tap on the side of one of the customer's shoes.
The "boy steps back, usually showering the customer with a broad smile, which will hopefully elicit a particularly generous tip.
The convoluted, socially encoded nature of the ritualized exchanges between shoeshine "boys" and their customers is exposed by the fact that the tip frequently exceeds the cost of the shoeshine. If nothing else, this fact proves that the shoeshine is less important to the customer than the boy's kneeling, servile behavior.
Much needs to change before we can begin to hope again that the nation's major social problems will be eliminated.
Unfortunately, almost all of the attention currently being focused social problems associated with those who inhabit the sectors of society that include shoeshine "boys" and their numerous cohorts in other similarly degrading jobs, systematically avoids the decisive role exercised in the perpetuation of those problems by the atavistic addictions exercised by the nation's corrupt ruling elites.
We have a long way to go.