 |
I BelieveGovernance and Philosophy in America A Top 10 Apple Philosophy Podcast Author: Joel K. Douglas
Governance and Philosophy in America A Top 10 Apple Philosophy Podcast joelkdouglas.substack.com Language: en Genres: Government, Philosophy, Society & Culture Contact email: Get it Feed URL: Get it iTunes ID: Get it |
Listen Now...
Blood & Fruit
Monday, 12 January, 2026
The banana cost forty-seven cents.I got it from the vending machine at work. I grab it on my way out to the parking lot. Fifteen minutes of freedom. The break room smells like microwaved fish. I just need to be outside for a minute.I lean against the wall by the loading dock. Trucks roll past on the 15. The sun’s already down, but the sky is still that burnt orange it gets out here. The smog holds onto the light.I peel the banana without looking at it. Four bites. I toss the peel in the trash on my way back in.I don’t think about where it came from. Nobody does. It’s a banana. Forty-seven cents.Later, I can’t stop thinking about it. Maybe there’s blood in the fruit.Act I. The Racket. Scene 1.My name is Elena. Twenty six. I work at a fulfillment center in Fontana. One of those massive warehouses off the 15 where the trucks run all night. You’ve ordered from us. Even if you don’t think you have. Everyone has.I’m good at my job. Fast. Reliable. Management likes me. I’ve been there four years now, since I dropped out of Cal State San Bernardino. Couldn’t afford to stay.I live with my parents in San Bernardino. A working class town on the outskirts of Los Angeles. Railroad, then steel, then military, now shipping. Hot and dry. The mountains trap the smog from LA, but on a clear winter morning, when the wind comes down the pass, you can see the snow on Mount San Gorgonio.My grandfather bought the house in 1971. He never talked about where he came from before that. None of us asked.He worked the railyards in Barstow. Saved everything. Bought the house outright. Three generations later, we’re still there. We don’t love it, but we own it. The only security that feels real.My parents are citizens. I’m a citizen. Born at St. Bernardine’s. San Bernardino County, California. Seven pounds six ounces. Birth certificate in the safe.But my mother won’t answer the door if she doesn’t recognize the car in the driveway. My father keeps a folder in the fireproof box by the bed. Birth certificates. Naturalization papers. Deed to the house. Just in case.I asked him once. Just in case of what?He didn’t answer.You know what I want. I want to stop living like we’re here on a pass that could get revoked. I want my mother to open the door without checking the driveway first. I want my father to throw that folder away. I want to feel like I belong in my own country, like the word citizen means what it says. I want to be able to drive down my street and not worry about being shot during one of the raids.Three generations. My grandfather built a life here. My parents built a life here. I was born here. I am an American.And still there’s a folder in the safe. Still my mother won’t answer the door. I was home when the news broke. Saturday, January 3rd, 2026. Half watching something, scrolling my phone.My mother had the TV on in the kitchen. Background noise. She doesn’t really watch. She likes the sound of voices.The news broadcast cut in. Urgent.“US special operations forces have successfully captured Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro in a predawn raid in Caracas. Maduro, who has been under federal indictment since 2020 on charges of narco terrorism and drug trafficking, was extracted by helicopter and is currently in US custody. President Trump addressed the nation from the White House…”My mother turned it off. Didn’t say anything. Started wiping down the counter. She cleans things that are already clean when she worries.My father was in his chair. I said, “Papá, what do you think?”He didn’t look at me. Pursed his lips. Glanced at my mother. He said, “I think it’s going to be a long year.” Then he went to get a tool from the garage.I could feel something in the room. Old. Something they weren’t saying.That night I can’t sleep. I have homework for my history class at Chaffey College. Latin America. Colonial Period to present. A speech by some old dead guy from the 1930s. I hadn’t started it.I made coffee. Sat at the kitchen table. Opened my laptop.Started reading.Act I. The Racket. Scene 2.Elena: 1935. A Marine Corps general named Smedley Butler. I keep reading.Then…I was there. A folding chair. Wood seat, cold metal frame. Room smells like cigarette smoke and wool coats. A banner on the wall. VFW Post something. American flags on either side of the stage.The man at the podium is old. Sixty, maybe. But he stands like he’s still in uniform. Proud. Shoulders back. Chin up. Two medals on his chest I don’t recognize.He’s looking out at the crowd. Starts to speak. His hands grip the podium. Knuckles, white. Holding on like he might fall if he lets go.Butler: “War is a racket…at the expense of the very many…a few people make huge fortunes…I spent thirty-three years and four months in active military service. And during that period I spent most of my time being a high-class muscle man for Big Business…I helped make Mexico safe for American oil interests in 1914…Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues...Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909 to 1912…The Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916…Honduras right for American fruit companies in 1903…There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes. And the other is the Bill of Rights.War for any other reason is simply a racket.”Elena: He stops. Quiet. Someone coughs. Butler looks at a man in the front row. Old. Maybe his age. Maybe they served together. He doesn’t look away.Marine Corps General Smedley Butler. The most highly decorated Marine in history. The only Marine to earn both the Brevet Medal and two Medals of Honor. A gangster, he said, for Wall Street.He didn’t say we should never fight. He said we shouldn’t lie about why we are fighting.Next morning I go to work. Same shift. Same trucks. Same routine.On my break I go outside. Banana in the vending machine. I stand there looking at it through the glass.Forty-seven cents.I don’t buy it.Act II. The Blood in the Fruit. Scene 1.Narrator: Chaffey College. Health Sciences Building. Anatomy lab.The room smells like formaldehyde and cold air. Fluorescent lights. Steel tables. A skeleton hanging in the corner like it’s waiting for someone to ask it a question.Valentina: My name is Valentina. I left Caracas, Venezuela in 2018 with two suitcases and a pharmacy degree.The suitcases are in my closet. Degree framed on my wall. Neither useful here.I work at CVS in Rancho Cucamonga. Shift supervisor. Not a pharmacist. I wear the red polo and the name tag. I answer questions about where the cough syrup is. Sometimes people ask me for medical advice. I give it because I know the answer, then I tell them to talk to the pharmacist. I’m not allowed to know the answer.Three years I’ve been trying to get my credentials transferred. Forms. Fees. Evaluations. More forms. They want me to retake classes. They want transcripts that don’t exist anymore because the university can’t keep the lights on. They want me to prove I am who I say I am, over and over, in a language that isn’t mine.The bureaucracy isn’t a wall. It’s a maze. It lets you keep walking so you don’t notice there’s no exit. So here I am. Chaffey College. Twenty-eight years old. Anatomy and Physiology. Sitting in a room full of nineteen-year-olds, learning the names of bones I learned six years ago in Spanish.Narrator: She’s at a lab table. Skeleton hand in front of her. Index cards.Valentina: Carpals. Metacarpals. Phalanges.I know this. I knew this before most of these kids had driver’s licenses. But the paper says I don’t know it, so I’m learning it again.My phone buzzes. I should ignore it. Lab policy. Professor’s a hardass about phones.But I see the notification. WhatsApp. Mamá.I grab my bag and walk out.Narrator: Hallway. Cinder block walls. The hum of vending machines.Valentina: I lean against the wall and press play.The connection is bad. Static. Her voice cutting in and out. But I can hear it underneath. Something I haven’t heard in a long time. Hope.She’s talking about the news. Maduro. The Americans. She’s saying maybe, maybe, maybe. Mijita, están diciendo que todo va a cambiar. Que por fin. Baby, they’re saying everything’s going to change. Finally.I play it again.Her voice sounds younger. That’s what hope does. Takes years off. I remember what she sounded like before. Before the lines for bread. Before my brother couldn’t find work. Before the hospitals ran out of everything and people started dying from things that shouldn’t kill anyone.She sounds like that again. Just for a minute. Just in a voice message from eight thousand miles away. I want to believe it. I remember 2019. Guaidó standing in the plaza. Declaring himself president. The crowds. The speeches. The whole world recognizing him, saying this is it, this is the turn.And then. Nothing. Maduro stayed. More sanctions. Hospitals got worse. People kept leaving. People kept dying.I left.I press record. Te quiero, Mamá. Vamos a ver.I love you. We’ll see.I send it before I can say anything else.Narrator: Night. Studio apartment. Rancho Cucamonga.Small. Clean. A bed, a desk, a hot plate. The pharmacy degree on the wall, next to a calendar from a Venezuelan bakery in Panorama City.She’s in bed. Phone in her hand. The only light in the room.Valentina: I open WhatsApp. The family group chat. Familia Caracas.Seventeen members. I scroll through the icons. People I grew up with. People I left behind. My mother. Brother. Tía Rosa. Cousin Diego. Cousin Maria. The photos are old. Everyone frozen in time. My mother’s icon is from 2016. She’s wearing lipstick. Smiling. She doesn’t look like that anymore. I scroll back through the chat.It used to be different. Memes. Birthday messages. Photos of food. My brother posting terrible jokes. Diego sharing fútbol highlights.Now it’s logistics.Does anyone have power? The water’s been out for three days. Mamá found rice at the bodega on Avenida Sur. Expensive, but it’s there. Has anyone heard from Abuela? She’s not answering.When the news broke that the Americans grabbed Maduro, the chat exploded. Forty-seven messages in an hour. I watched them scroll past.Diego: SERA QUE POR FIN??? Maria: Dios mío, I can’t believe it. My brother: Don’t get your hopes up. Tía Rosa: Praying. Just praying.I didn’t respond. I didn’t know what to say. I still don’t.Everyone was so happy.I know what this is. I’m not stupid. The Americans aren’t doing this because they care about Venezuela. They’re not doing it for my mother. They’re doing it because there’s oil in the ground and someone’s getting paid.I know there are contracts being signed right now, in rooms I’ll never see, by people who couldn’t find Caracas on a map.I know.But my mother is sixty-three. She walked six hours last year to find bread. Six hours. And if the ships come and the shelves fill up and she can get her medication, I don’t care why they did it.Is that wrong? Probably. But I’m tired. Tired of being right about how broken everything is. I just want her to eat.Act II. The Blood in the Fruit. Scene 2.Narrator: Later that night. Valentina’s laptop, open to a PDF. Testimony from the Ciénaga massacre. Translated from Spanish.Valentina: I’m in this history class. Need the credits. Latin America, H108, Colonial Period to Present. Preparing a response paper. Two pages, double-spaced. Due Thursday.I’m reading testimony from a survivor. A woman. Age nineteen in 1928. Describing what she saw. Narrator: Ciénaga. Colombia. December 6, 1928. The banana zone.I can smell it. Salt. Rot. Gunpowder. I can feel the heat. I can see their faces. People everywhere. Thousands of them. Workers. Families. Children sitting on their fathers’ shoulders. Women holding babies. Old men in white shirts, sweating through the cotton.They’ve been on strike for weeks. Twenty-five thousand banana workers. They work for United Fruit, except they don’t. Not officially. The company uses subcontractors, so they don’t have to call anyone an employee. No contracts. No protections. No rights.They get paid in scrip. Company money. Only good at the company store, where the prices are whatever the company says they are.They’re asking for direct contracts. Cash wages. Toilets at work. The company said no. The US government sent a message to Colombia: Protect American property or we send Marines. Colombia didn’t want American boots on their soil. So they sent their own army instead.The soldiers arrive in the plaza. They form a line. Rifles ready.Valentina: I see a woman near the front. Young. About my age. Holding a little girl, maybe three years old. The girl is playing with a piece of ribbon. Red. She keeps winding it around her fingers.I want to yell at them to run. A general steps forward. Cortés Vargas. He reads from a piece of paper. His voice carries across the plaza. He says, “You have five minutes to disperse.”Nobody moves. Where would they go? They’ve been camped here for days. This is where they wait during the negotiations.Five minutes. The soldiers raise their rifles. The woman with the little girl. Looking around now. Confused. The girl, still playing with the ribbon.Then. The guns. Loud. Sharp. The sound hits your chest before it reaches your ears. The screaming. And then. Silence. And then screaming again.Trains. Waiting at the edge of town. They load the bodies onto the trains. Hundreds of them. Nobody counts. The trains go to the coast. The bodies, into the sea.The official report will say forty-seven dead. Survivors will say hundreds. Some three thousand. Nobody knows. The company reopened the plantations within a week. The strike, broken. The workers who survived went back to the fields. Company scrip. No toilets. Nothing changed.The government called it restoring order.Narrator: Years later, Gabriel García Márquez will write about this. One Hundred Years of Solitude. A chapter. The massacre. Thousands dead. Then the town forgets. Everyone forgets. The rain comes and washes the blood away, and the streets look like they always looked, and life goes on, and nobody remembers.Valentina closes her laptop. Opens WhatsApp. Plays her mother’s message again.Act III. Butler. Márquez. The Question.Narrator: Chaffey College. The courtyard. Concrete table. January sun, cool air. The hum of the freeway.Elena: Valentina’s already there. Bag of Takis and a Monster Energy. I sit down. Pull out my tupperware. Rice and beans. I tell her she’s eating a breakfast of champions.Valentina: You know your mom’s food makes my Takis taste like depression.Elena: (I push her the Tupperware.) You want some? She made too much. It’s better than that red dust.Valentina: The red dust has caffeine. I need to be awake for my shift.Elena: Suit yourself. Hey, did you read the Butler speech? For Thursday?Valentina: I skimmed it.Elena: You skimmed it? Val, it’s the whole thing. “I helped make Mexico safe for oil.” “Honduras for the fruit companies.”Valentina: Yeah. I saw it.Elena: And then Ciénaga. The strike. They killed them because they wanted toilets. And the US threatened to invade, so the Colombian army did the dirty work. Valentina: History repeats itself. I know.Elena: And now Maduro. They’re saying it’s for “democracy.” It’s not. It’s the Racket. The oil. The contracts. It’s a setup. You should be furious.Valentina: I am furious!Elena: You don’t look furious. You look like you’re doing homework.Valentina: Because I am doing homework. I have an Anatomy quiz in ten minutes.Elena: How can you care about Anatomy when they’re invading your home?Valentina: Elena, stop. If I fail Anatomy, I don’t get the degree. If I don’t get the degree, I don’t get the raise. If I don’t get the raise, I can’t send money home. You think I don’t know it’s a racket? I know exactly what it is. I know they’re stealing the oil. I know they don’t care about us. But my mother called me yesterday. And for the first time in three years, she wasn’t crying about the blackout. She was talking about bread. You get to write a paper about the “racket.” You get an ‘A.’ You go home to your parents’ house. I don’t have that luxury. I don’t care if the bread is stolen. I just need her to eat.Narrator: (Silence. The campus noise fades away. The air feels heavy. Elena pulls her Tupperware back slightly. Neither woman moves.)Elena’s grandfather never talked about Guatemala. She used to think that meant it didn’t matter. Old news. History. Now she thinks he carried it the whole time. Like weight you don’t name because naming it doesn’t make it lighter. Valentina looks at her phone, but doesn’t unlock it. The message is still there. Her mother’s voice, full of hope. Valentina will play it again later, alone, like she’s checking that hope is still real. They sit at the concrete table. The campus noise moves around them. The freeway hum doesn’t stop. Elena slides the Tupperware a few inches farther away from Valentina. Valentina folds the Takis bag down flat, presses the crease with her thumb. Red dust on her fingers.Neither of them speaks.Then Valentina stands. “I have to go.” Elena nods. “Yeah.”Valentina walks toward the lab. Elena stays seated, watching her go, like she’s watching a door close slowly. A minute later, Elena gets up and heads for the parking lot. She passes the vending machines by the student center without meaning to.Bright glass. Rows of salt and sugar. The banana.Forty-seven cents.She stops. Stares at it. Her hand hovers near the button like it has its own memory.She turns and keeps walking.At home. Her father’s folder. Still in the safe.Music byArtist: rakeySong: Limelight Get full access to I Believe at joelkdouglas.substack.com/subscribe
