Whenever I’m in one I think of some punitive elementary school. There’s an entire galaxy of largely symbolic rules, and everything associated with us is measured, weighed and timed. And as you stand in line you find yourself worrying about whether you remembered to bring your phone charger. Or your cool sneakers. Or your medicine. And so it goes, and never for a second do you forget that what you are about to do may be the last thing you ever do in your life.

Flying is something of a miracle, and we’re all, at least partially, expecting it to fail. And who can blame us for this suppressed expectation? Any time a plane crashes it’s international news. When the story breaks, people all over the world, those doing dishes or clicking “like,” are wondering just how they would have behaved in their last terrified moments as fire, cloud and sky sped by.

And please don’t forget the terrorists.

They might materialize at any moment. If you forget this, there is a terror alert, like a goal-thermometer on a fundraising marathon, warning you that today, the day you’re to give your first professional speech, the terror alert is ORANGE.

So air transit, even in a best case scenario, is a tense thing.

I imagine that Dr. Dao, the man who was dragged bleeding off a United flight earlier this week, was feeling some of this tension and uncertainty as he waited for his plane to fly him home to Kentucky.

Now we’ve all seen the video, and everybody knows that what took place was wrong.

However, the corporate face of United used the word “re-accommodation” to describe what happened. This is the kind of soft evil that creeps into our lives each day, and then stays there, existing beneath our skin like some sort of bacteria. We know all about over-booking now, and it all reduces to the airline valuing profit over people. This is the corporate way upon which our society functions. What seems to have shocked the microsystem in this case was that nobody would take a material inducement to give up their seat.

And what’s the corporate ethos in such a situation?

And so they dragged him screaming and bleeding from his seat. The law, of course, is behind United. Trapped in this culture where being busy is seen as a sign of status, we’re all so desperate to escape the heaviness of our lives and get to the beach in Veradaro,

that we accept that we might be “re-accommodated” when we buy our tickets. We sign-off on the fact that although we’ve bought a ticket and made all sorts of arrangements contingent on the timing of that flight, we might still lose our seat.

It’s kind of insane. The law allows a corporation to hedge on their services in order for them to maximize profits, even if it’s a ruinous policy for individual consumers. That the law favours corporate growth over human security is nothing new, but this is a particularly vivid example of the amoral structure that pins over our lives.

In the aftermath, Dr. Dao’s was vilified– a tactic minority communities know all too intimately—and the saga, now diffused through late night talk shows, social media and PR flak, is about to replaced by the next meme-worthy event. And still, the corporations will preside over us like gods, and because we believe we need what they offer, we will ignore our own intuition and continue to be subordinate to them, regardless the cost to human dignity and instinct.

However, I was curious to see how it might actually unfold in the real world and so I went out to a bunch of Starbuck’s in the Toronto area and tried to engage the staff in conversations about race.

Starbucks

10 Dundas Street East

8:30 pm

Me: Hi.

Barista: Hi.

Me: Are you a fan of the TV show Empire?

Barista: Don’t think I know that one.

Me: Oh. Well, it has an all black cast. Not a single white person on it. After a few episodes you don’t even notice how weird that is. It says a lot about race, I think, and the gritty world of Hip Hop. Very topical considering Ferguson and everything.

Barista: You seem very authentically informed.

Me: Well, I’m a part of Black Twitter, so I feel pretty plugged in.

Barista: I see. What can I get you?

Me: Decaf green tea. Grande.

Barista: I bet you like being white, don’t you?

Me: I don’t really see race.

Starbucks

407 Yonge Street

11:30 am

Me: Hey, anyone interested in rapping about race?

Barista: (foams milk)

Me: (Turning around and facing the customers in the lineup behind me) Anyone?

Guy with an eye patch: This might not be “politically correct” or anything, but I hate the Irish.

Me: Really, the Irish? But they have Leprechauns!

Guy with an eye patch: Exactly, Leprechauns are just about the creepiest thing in the world.

Me: What happened, did you lose your eye to a Leprechaun?

Guy with an eye patch: No, I lost it in a fire. The Irish also cheat at cards, and on their husbands.

Girl in denim jacket: And I have to add that the Muzzies got no business taking over this country, if they want to live here, they should damn well dress like everyone else, am I right?

Me: Hey, this is great, now we’re really starting to get into the hard stuff! How about you, (pointing at a woman on her phone) what do you think?

Woman on her phone: (Gives me the finger)

Me: (To Barista) People are still very uncomfortable talking about race. It’s a real shame, because as painful as it is, we really have so much to learn from one another. We need to be brave.

Barista: You do know that the campaign isn’t taking place in Canada, right?

Starbucks

585 University Avenue

2:00 pm

Me: (To Barista) So, who is your favourite black actor or actress? Supermodels count.

Barista: Why are you asking me this?

Me: I’m trying to start a dialogue about race. I want to find out about your lived experience. Have you ever written a letter to a black celebrity, and if so, was it a hate letter or a love letter?

Barista: It’s never occurred to me to write a celebrity a letter.

Me: Any celebrity, or just black celebrities in particular?

Barista: Any celebrity.

Me: Weird. Not even Pam Grier??

Barista: Look, I got to keep the line moving here, are you going to take that cookie or not?

For years there’s been an obdurate, official position that there is to be no negotiating with terrorists. Negotiation, or worse, capitulation would lead to utter catastrophe and societal ruination.

It was a mantra that echoed, even boomed in our heads, and to so much as question it was to let the terrorists win. It’s all a little bit counter-intuitive, because on an personal level, we all know that if somebody we loved were taken hostage, we would negotiate, doing whatever we could to bring that light safely back into our lives. When the stakes are intimate and truly meaningful to us, we only care about the results, not the precedent we’re setting in achieving that result.

In acquiescing to the Guardians of Peace demands and agreeing not to release the movie The Interview, Sony was acting in self-interest.

They were not concerned with freedom of speech or following the US government’s rulebook on dealing with terrorists, or even protecting the vulnerable part-time employees who’d be working in the threatened cinemas over Christmas, or anything else that wasn’t a part of their bottom line.

A corporation is not a moral agency, and it exists for the singular purpose of making money, and whatever serves that interest, whether it’s long-term or short-term, serves the corporation. In tatters and reeling, their internal system almost destroyed, Sony made a rational, tactical decision. Put the movie on the shelf for now and see how it all played out.

What’s interesting is that when money, when the unencumbered progress of private enterprise was put in peril, objectives were met. Now, all sorts of smoke and mirrors surround this, but it reduces to the valuation of corporations over actual humans.

One could argue that the dominant species on the planet are actually corporations. Single-minded and constantly feeding, they’re boundless, traversing and devouring landscapes and cultures like a predatory science fiction behemoth. They must feed, and in so doing behave in a very reptilian, even predictable (if strategic) fashion. Although they may, very weirdly, have some of the same rights and responsibilities as human beings, they’re not human beings and don’t serve the broad interests of the species—they’re just seeking to metastasize, and any concessions that are made to modernity, social progress or environmental stewardship, for instance, are done purely to ensure they’re continuing to maximize profit within an evoloving host.

The lesson to learn here is that when an economic system is disordered, as was Sony’s, then a meaningful tactical response was achieved. Our hearts might break to see hostages taken in a coffee shop in Sydney or journalists executed in a faraway desert, but the terrorist’s goals are not achieved until what really matters is threatened, and that is the free market. Corporations, massive, powerful and ubiquitous, perhaps more powerful than nations, remind me of dinosaurs, and the cyber attacks now threatening them are a virus to which they might be vulnerable, and could ultimately cripple the entire species.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5w7FjW3QeiQ

“Only in America,” I’d mutter to myself. The greed, the sales-drunk shoppers camping out in parking lots and then pouring through the front doors of Walmart like some sort of flesh tsunami, all stampeding and thundering down the aisles ripping discounted toasters and Xboxes from one another as if on some demented, nightmare game show, seemed parodic, a bit of cinema constructed for a dystopian movie and not a regular, predictable part of American life. It was the sort of theatre that always made me feel morally superior, cozy and safe in the knowledge that I would never behave in such a desperate, quasi-apocalyptic manner.

Of course, all I was really doing was sneering at poor people. Feasting on a genre of poverty porn, I would pat myself on the back, fashioning some sort of moral virtue out of what was actually snobbery and a glaring lack of empathy.

These videos that are so roundly circulated and mocked, may depict the results of greed, but not as personified by the unmediated appetite of the mob on the floor. No, the greed is taking place off-camera, up in the offices and towers of Walmart (which as a corporation makes about 16 billion a year in profit and pays it’s typical full-time employee less than $25,000 a year). The scrabbling peasants rioting beneath, their behaviour is the product of exclusion, of living in an aggressively consumer culture where material ascension must never yield.

Lacking sufficient funds to live the mythic “American Dream,” people who are working really hard just to survive, must wake up each day feeling like they’re missing out. In a nation where it’s said that the average child can identify 1,000 corporate logos and people are constantly bombarded, concussed, really, with messages that the good life is a narrative expressed largely through class, what hope do we truly have of feeling satisfied with what we have? If we get more stuff, we’ll be better off, is the message, and if you’re poor you’re relegated to live in an acutely felt state of deprivation while an inaccessible and teasing world glitters all around.

It’s nothing to laugh at, and as a culture we’re finally starting to understand that.

Now, in the 21^st century, forward thinking Klan members are looking at ways to financially exploit this successful brand, giving the organization a more corporate sheen and putting the defining racist principles that govern the organization on the backburner. In an effort to accomplish this goal, they’ve put out a broad call to agencies and individuals across the globe to help in a rebrand, and I was one of the people lucky enough to be contacted.

1. KKK’s Fried Chicken Shack

A fast food franchise throughout the rural south would serve as an excellent transition business, moving the KKK from violent hate group to an affordable, family-friendly eatery in no time. Competing with KFC, but with a more authentic, regional flavour, a Klansman with smiling face exposed–but still wearing the distinctive white hood– would be the corporate logo, much like Colonel Sanders for KFC. KKK’s Fried Chicken Shack would be racially inclusive, thus combating any negative connotations that might linger about the past of this emerging corporate titan.

The signature dish would be fried chicken skin crisps, and like MacDonald’s Happy Meal, KKK’s would serve The Hooded Order, which would be two pieces of chicken, an order of fries and a bottomless Coke, as well as a KKK action figure for the kids.

2. KKKSN   Klu Klux Klan Sport’s Network

There’s nothing, excluding beauty pageants and guns, that’s’ more American than sports, and the marriage between the KKK and sports entertainment is a no-brainer. The network should focus on competitive eating (cross-marketing with KKK’s Fried Chicken Shack), crossbow hunting, street fighting and various rural soldier type programming. Over time, the network could expand to include more conventional sports, but to start it must specialize in that which it’s core audience loves best.

3. KKK: Guardians of the Earth

In the era of Global Warming, nothing could be more important to the public than the appearance of trying to save the environment. The KKK, showcasing their defining uniforms, could roam the land as a kind of cross between Forest Rangers and Guardian Angels, policing the public and making sure that people are not polluting, using too much hot water or otherwise disrespecting the land. One of the bonuses of this is that the KKK could still position itself as anti-government.

4. KKK Dog Walking and Pet Care

This would essentially be a corporate shell, existing primarily to keep members of the KKK in the public eye and achieving the positive association of being caretakers of the pets that American’s so love.

Me: You coming to Barbados for the big surf competition, Soup Bowl?

Man who looked like Chomsky: What?

Me: Barbados. The surf competition. It’s like their version of the Super Bowl, only in water.

Man who looked like Chomsky: No, I have other business, although I do like the beach.

Me: I’d like to surf but I’m scared. I used to be scared of sharks when I was a boy but now I’m scared of jellyfish. They’re taking over the oceans.

Man who looked like Chomsky: (Said nothing)

Me: Are you Noam Chomsky?

Man who looked like Chomsky: Yes.

Me: WOW!! I thought so!

Chomsky: (Nods)

Me: So, what’s up with Occupy Wall Street?

Rachelle: (In a whisper-hiss) Pickle, be quiet, for the love of God!

Chomsky: I don’t know what you mean.

Me: I hear they’re buying up debt from collection agencies and then forgiving it. I would LOVE it if they bought some of my debt. Do you have any sway in that?

Chomsky: No, I don’t.

Me: You know, you’ve really shaped a lot of minds over the decades. I bet a lot of college kids name their pets after you. Thousands of dogs and cats named Chomsky.

Rachelle: I’m sorry, my husband is dehydrated and only slept for an hour last night. Please forgive us.

Chomsky: I see.

Me: If I was an anarchist like you I wouldn’t wait in line. I’d just charge right through, upset the system and start a revolution by hitting the beach!

Chomsky: You do like the sound of your own voice, don’t you?

Me: I’m just social and maybe a little nervous meeting you, I guess.

Chomsky: I’m sorry, I just need to be alone with my thoughts, okay?

(Several minutes pass)

Me: You’re going to be really hot wearing that corduroy jacket on the island, you know.

Chomksy: (Ignores me)

Me: (Whispering to Rachelle) I can’t believe he has a corporate logo on his laptop bag. Adidas? Really? They must have paid for his trip.

Rachelle: (Whisper-hiss) Just find your passport and shut-up, okay?

(Awkward silence for the rest of our wait to customs)

Cuba, I guess, was a bitter pill. Our frail efforts at visiting the “Real Cuba” as opposed to the “Tourist Cuba” only served to prove that we don’t like the real Cuba, and neither, of course, do most Cubans. We stayed in three different cities, two of which (Havana and Varaderos) are tourist centres, so the crippled, interior poverty of the country was  absent from our experience but only hinted at as we took a cab from city to city, passing by thatched roof homes with working donkeys living on the front porch. Our time there was one guided by hustlers, zombies and dead-eyed bureaucrats. Of course they would hate us, seeing in us only a mythic, superhuman capacity– one that was randomly dealt– to change their circumstances without damaging our own in the least. There’s an obscenity to wanting to have a fine lobster dinner in such a context, a very obvious one, and that tension was everywhere, invisible yet humming. We were billboards from the west– white, covered in corporate logos and sufficiently arrogant as to not know a word of Spanish. You know, I wanted to feel some sense of gratitude for my “charity” but what I felt was resentment and entitlement, which is probably the way that it should be. But in each small moment when we encountered what we hoped was the milk of human kindness or just a native curiosity about another human, it quickly revealed itself to be a prosaic, economic transaction.

The world is unfair in many, many ways.