If you want to see the difference between how justice works at different levels of society, consider the comparative cases of Eric Garner and Hillary Clinton, both of whom underwent investigations at the hands of law enforcement and had vastly different outcomes. Garner was suspected of selling cigarettes that he had bought and then was selling individually at a profit. The police grabbed him on the street without any probable cause and placed him in a chokehold that ended up killing him. Clinton was suspected of mishandling classified information on a personal server. Despite the fact that she and her lawyers deleted tens of thousands of emails, and that, according to the FBI director, she sent and received classified information that she said never passed through her server, she was not even indicted and is still the presumptive Democratic nominee for president in the 2016 election. It is disparity like this that informs the anger of many who feel that they are far below the level of economic and political power that could provide them with security, and so they are willing to push ethical boundaries in order to survive, because subsistence is much more important than the abstract of right and wrong. This is the case in the story of “Treading Grapes,” in which the author questions whether there is any distinction between honest and dishonest work by highlighting a corrupt economic system.
It has not been that long since Rebeca Fuerte and her young son, Fernando, lived together in a house with Rebeca’s husband and Fernando’s father, Ramon. However, Ramon was gunned down while picking up a fare in his taxi. This happened in the most random of ways; he was honking from the street for his customer to come down to the street, and he attracted the ire of a young man parked in front of him, who was using his automobile for “necking with his girlfriend” (Stiles, p. 37) when the honking irritated him. So he got out of the car, walked back to Ramon, and shot him. This was one instance of an uncaring world.
This continued when the taxi company “reminded Sra. Fuerte that her late husband’s lease required him to keep their taxi clean and in good repair. Rebeca had tried to wash Ramon’s blood off the seat, but the stain had already set. Replacing the upholsterywould use up all that Ramon would have had coming back on his unexpired lease” (Stiles, p. 38). So not only was Ramon’s employer unsympathetic, they also bilked Rebeca out of the money Ramon had put down. The tone of this response from the company makes awful events like this sound commonplace, more of an annoyance than a tragedy.
This caused the small family significant financial turmoil, so when Rebeca has a chance to make money for her son, beyond what she would make from selling cigarettes out of her sweater, so that she can afford to live in a house “made of packing cases, beaten-out petrol-cans, even cardboard” (Stiles, p. 38)., she does it. Small wonder, then, that when Rebeca hears about a young woman’s awful death, she heads to the mortuary and pretends to be the victim’s sister so that she can sit on the street and beg for funds to pay for a funeral that she has no intention of attending, let alone buying.
This method is just how Rebeca has to get by in an unfair world. If her husband’s employer can use death to profit (stealing the remainder of the lease to cover upholstery for a taxi seat), then why should she do any differently? The corruption inherent in her society makes her action not only thinkable, but (in her way of thinking) ethical. She clearly finds meaningless, so feeding Fernando becomes her sole concern in the world.
Works Cited
Stiles, Martha Bennett. “Treading Grapes.” Course reading.
Stiles,
