Cleaners The Down-Trodden Class

We sweep cleaners under the carpet because they are not important, ‘influential.’ The pandemic was a reality check. The government classified them as part of essential workers, but there is no hashtag in their honour. Hashtags seem to be pointing in one direction, Twitter is for the bourgeoisie. Why?

Because there are hashtags for everything, from hamburgers to ketchup but none for sanitation workers, cleaners, street sweepers, garbage collectors and other people that make it safe to walk on streets because they are clean. We comfortably lie sick in hospitals because they are sanitized and check in hotel rooms because they are clean.

Cleaners are the silent majority that prefers to be anonymous, not like life coaches, writers, book cover designers, poets, musicians, finance experts, wannabee chefs, wannabee actors, movie producers, actors, librarians, royal watchers, politician haters, pushers of diet fads of the rich and famous and other folks that are proud of what they do for a living or leisure.

All of the above can only function in a clean environment and human bodies make that possible. I don’t know about Japan because they are very good with creating robots. Do they have robo-cleaners? There are no hashtags for people who handle dirt with their hands so that the bourgeoisie can enjoy their places of work and play.

Bourgeois folks that create hashtags are not the only culprits. Prime Ministers and Presidents take to the microphone to pledge their support during Veterans’ Day, Cancer Month or Women’s Day, but none during international cleaners’ day because such a day does not exist. No dedicated day, no hashtag.

We, of the bourgeois persuasion, will never create a public toilet cleaners’ hashtag but we are the first to notice if they haven’t been cleaned for one day.

Nonqaba waka Msimang

Blogger Without Borders