Robot Slaves

The first time I ever had a slave is when I lived in Dubai, where slavery is normal, socially accepted, and usually desired by anyone who is not a slave. She came by once a week. Because my not being Royalty-Class meant I could only rent a slave, rather than have one of those fancy live-in models that you could abuse. Like feed to alligators if you were displeased, bored, or you accidentally impregnated them and needed to get rid of the evidence of your sin, like in Saudi Arabia* — as the rumors went.

*Don’t believe rumors. No such horrors ever happen there.

Having a rent-a-slave was like having a dish washing machine. Luxur-ish. Hell, before Dubai I never even had a dish washing machine. Oh the joy of having my very own robot! I was moving up in the world! In fact, now I had lots of robots to help my slave’s slaving feel less like slavery. And more like overseeing.

For example, my rent-a-slave transported my dishes one foot from the sink to the mechanical mouth of my dish cleaning robot, which washed them for her.

She used my floor dust sucking robot to suck dust off the floor for her.

She used my clothes washing robot to wash my clothes, so she wouldn’t have to do so by hand.

She used my clothes drying robot to dry my clothes, so she wouldn’t have to use her super slave strength to wring them out by hand and hang them.

So my slave really only had two duties: 1.) Be the overseer of my cleaning robots. And 2.) wipe stuff my robots couldn’t clean. Good thing for her robots have not learned to do that yet.

At the end of her slave assisted slavery, I paid her a slave wage. Which is a kind of an oxymoron. Or a paradox at best. But it’s better than a robot’s wage, which is nothing.

To lessen my subtle guilt, I always gave a HUGE tip to show her I didn’t really accept slavery, punctuated with a knowing look that she must acknowledge and accept. Yes, my bribe to change her assumed feelings about me. Because in my arrogance, I assumed she MUST feel something about ME. The Black American, who created hip hop and Will Smith and Jay-Z and Beyoncé. A bribe to make her feel less like a slave, and perhaps more like the overseer of my robot slaves, rather than a slave herself. Or like charity. Yes, now with the “look” she knew and was certainly joyful we have something in common — I desperately needed her calm thankfulness to mean that she knew — That I knew where she came from. Because I know what it’s like to be poor. So the huge tip meant in my mind that she wouldn’t judge me as … one of those slave owners. The ones who had never been poor before. I understood her, right?

But I didn’t know where she came from. Or what she had been through. Or what brought her here. My state of former poverty, even as a Black American, is not the same as being a slave. And not having her work for a “slave wage” would mean she could not send money home to her family — which I always assumed she had and was the reason for her being here. A family I never once asked her about, along with ANY other aspect of her life. I didn’t even know her name. Yes, I was probably helping her help her family. That’s why she was here. Not because I was too lazy to take two minutes to move dishes, place clothes in a machine or wipe a goddam counter.

But I didn’t treat her like a slave. I treated her like something worse – a robot. An automaton that didn’t really live, except in my mind, and whose thoughts could be reprogrammed with a helpful bribe. To make myself feel better, like less of slave, and simultaneously less of a master. And have an impressively clean home to the other rent-a-slave masters who visited, and tell me which rent-a-slaves did the best slaving.

The quasi-paradox here is that the etymology of the word robot is the Czech word “robota,” which means slave. Except they are not the same. One is a human being with heart, mind and a story. A story I can never tell. Because I never once treated her like a real human being. And I am ashamed of myself.

New programming code to self:
01000100 01101111 00100000 01101110 01101111 01110100 00100000 01100010 01100101 01100011 01101111 01101101 01100101 00100000 01100001 00100000 01110000 01101001 01100101 01100011 01100101 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01110011 01101000 01101001 01110100 00101110

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