The Road to Hell Is Paved with By-gone Attitudes and Turkey Feathers

by Dora Raymaker

categories: employment, Housing, social justice

Published June 18, 2009 @ 10:55AM PT

The exploitation of developmentally disabled men at a turkey farm was blogged earlier this year at autism, human trafficking, and animal rights. Developmentally disabled men were paid as little as 44 cents an hour and lived in a bunk house that was shut down by the fire marshal. There is no part of this that is not clearly exploitative.

And yet--the man who ran the operation, Kenneth Henry, continues to insist the operation was philanthropic despite ongoing, serious investigations. Some quotes, "These boys cannot take care of themselves...The constant care is the part that nobody wants to talk about." and "The boys take pride in their work. They don't think they're being exploited." and "It was a lot better than letting them rot in a state institution."

So what did "the boys" (who are, in fact, grown adult men) think? For a change their opinions were actually included. The men miss their friends, but none of them miss the work. If given a choice, "turkey slaughterhouse" would probably not be a top item.

Is there a limit to what should be considered an acceptable price for "constant care?"

Is exploitation only an issue when a person knows they are being exploited?

What is it that separates an institution from community living?

From within the social context Kenneth Henry grew up in, he may well be convinced that he did well for "his boys." But it would be nice to think that our culture's attitudes toward human rights has evolved just a little in the last 50+ years since Henry and Johnson first conceived their turkey farm arrangement. The fact is:

There is no acceptable price for one's humanity.

There is no excuse for exploitation.

What separates an institution from community living isn't what the building looks like or what it is called or who administrates it or how clean the rooms are. What separates an institution from community living is a person's right to choose where they live, where they work, and how their needs are managed. What separates an institution from community living is self-determination.

Time to start putting both the daily operations of Henry and Johnson's turkey farm and the sociocultural attitudes that such arrangements grew out of to rest.