Sometimes a Backbone Needs a Spine

You don’t need whips

To be a despicable boss,

Slavery doesn’t need chains

To be reprehensible,

You don’t need to forcibly import the labor

To have a workforce that needs to be freed.

It’s not good enough to say,

“Well, no one else wants to do it.”

If you create the conditions 

Where that’s even possible,

Intentionally or otherwise,

Of course that’ll be the result.

But you need voices

Willing to point this out.

The unspoken,

The thing

So easily taken for granted,

Is wrong

Regardless,

And will always need

Correcting.

On this soil

Or elsewhere,

Dignity is a language

That must always be 

Defended.