Based on the commentary you posted, Tom, Mr. Goldberg's eyes doubtless scanned the text of the article-- thus the "endless profile" remark -- but his brain apparently never got past the man who told Adama that his job was "nasty".

Mr. Goldberg gathered that the reporter thought Adama should be ashamed of his job. I didn't get that sense at all. What I got was, we who are served by laborers like Adama should be ashamed of the way we treat hardworking people like him who clean up after our filthy behavior. Work has value, but jobs have dignity only insofar as people who are on the receiving end recognize the dignity of the individuals doing the work. Things need to be cleaned, always, but they wouldn't have to be "mucked out" if the patrons of public facilities didn't act like -- well, let's not insult barnyard animals.

There has always, always been conflict between native (I mean not indiginous Native, but born-here native) labor and immigrant labor, because immigrants have been willing to do or forced by circumstances to do what people born here are unwilling to do or are not allowed by custom or economic concerns to do. I'm thinking specifically of the Famine Irish immigrants to the antebellum Deep South who were routinely employed to do dangerous jobs such as canal-building in the disease-infested lowlands, because their lives were worth less, economically, than the black slaves, who were considered a valued investment. After the slaves' emancipation, blacks posed an economic threat which compounded the existing social conflict and set up what has been called one of the longest ethnic grudge matches in American history. There are, of course, other instances of this conflict.

Racism plays a part, as does bigotry of other types (such as the Bible Riots in Philadelphia, protesting the Popery of the Irish immigrants), but it's not the primary issue. Understanding of the nature of poverty is. To an American, even a poor American, poverty means something quite different than to an immigrant who has actually fled his or her home to escape some form of deprivation. The the willingness to do anything for a dollar is no different for the Africans today than it is for the Mexicans who elude border patrols to work for a pittance, or Chinese who are sealed into crates to work under appalling conditions, or the Jewish girls who labored in the sweatshops, or the Irish mill girls who were kept virtual prisoners in their dormatories. The story is the same: work until it kills you, and send money home. Where is the historical perspective in the critique? Mr. Goldberg may not have one to draw on.

I was amused that Mr. Goldberg was so impressed that the author of the Washington Post made a "big deal" over Adama being black. Duh. It's a story about African immigrants in Atlanta. Again: context. There is an American black community in Atlanta. There is a white community in Atlanta. There is an African (must we say "black"?) community in Atlanta. Is it too much to suppose that these communities might interact in the persons of their members? What I find most revealing is that Adama's contact with white America has been through upper management (the guy who thinks Mali is a town), customers, and Dynasty.

I'm surprised that Adama's religion was not mentioned by Mr. Goldberg at all, or by the Post reporter until well into the article. This fact has not been highlighted, either: [A]fter the terrorism of 9/11, the airport adopted tighter security measures, and anyone without the right documents couldn't get security badges. Many Latinos vanished. Africans are filling the void. I wonder how well the American blacks got on with the Latinos. I wonder what the Latinos are doing now. I wonder how they feel about the Africans. Would this be racism, or would it be economic antagonism? Or do they feed each other?

Last, the reference to rubber gloves, which I had been looking for, was a relief to me. Safety glasses as well would have been even better, but I will [wince] assume they were issued and used. This is not only hard but also dangerous work, and care needs to be taken of the workers exposed to what are biohazards if they are in a doctor's office, but are garbage if they are in public facilities. But hard-working immigrants are expected to drop like flies. Malaria, TB, brown lung, black lung, and now hepatitis, and TB making a comeback. Plus ça change, plus c'est la meme chose.

I wonder if he has health insurance.

Regards--
Mary Anne