Clint Smith’s com­plete piece in the film They Go to Die

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Do you know what it feels like
to have a machete taken to your lungs?
To hold a drill in your hand for so long
you for­get it’s not a part of your body?
To work in a place where light
at the end of the tun­nel,
is more than just a fig­ure of speech?

Wel­come to the mines

Where men work so far under­ground
that sun­light is man­u­fac­tured
from head­lamps and golden soot.

Where the sounds of break­ing bod­ies
are drowned beneath a cacoph­ony
of hal­lowed coughs and hammers.

Where dis­ease, fes­ters in the air
as if the earth
were hold­ing a grudge
against mankind for fail­ing to keep her secrets.

In the South African gold mines,
the real­ity of tuber­cu­lo­sis
can make every breath feel like a death sen­tence.
The toxic dust from mil­lion year-old rocks
like a swarm of danc­ing land­mines
along the walls of your ribcage.
A bom­bard­ment of bac­te­ria
crawl­ing through your throat.

Tsunamis of sil­i­co­sis and sweat
crash­ing against shores of black backs
like a crys­talline whip—

So these men,
with cob­ble­stone skin, jack­ham­mer hearts
and jaw­bones clenched like redemp­tion—
Expose them­selves
to a world of dis­ease and degra­da­tion
unlike any­where else on earth.

How ironic,
that the indus­try respon­si­ble
for the suc­cess of South Africa’s econ­omy,
is also cul­pa­ble for a pan­demic
wip­ing out thou­sands of its people.

These are the con­se­quences of cor­po­rate indif­fer­ence.
Where exec­u­tives unwill­ing to part ways
with a pocket change per­cent­age of their prof­its,
enable ill­ness to run ram­pant
in a com­mu­nity they’re sup­posed to pro­tect.
With golden clocks hang­ing in their offices like stolen halos
they refuse to pro­vide real care
for the very peo­ple who cre­ated their wealth.

So why would any­one sub­ject them­selves to this?
But what choice does a man have
when he has to feed his fam­ily?
When jobs are as scarce as roses
on a crum­bling bat­tle­field.
When he knows his wife and chil­dren can’t sur­vive
off of unful­filled promises.

So he puts on his hard hat,
turns on his light,
and marches miles beneath the earth
amongst flocks of brown faces.
With no choice but to pum­mel
his heart against the walls of this mine
as if he were search­ing for his dignity.

And when the min­ers are deemed too sick to work,
they are sim­ply sent home,
Like dis­pos­able human tools
that have lost the sharp­ness of their edges.
With HIV and tuber­cu­lo­sis cas­cad­ing
in a spiral-bound pirou­ette through their blood­stream.
Fathers falling into the eyes of their chil­dren,
pray­ing they wont suc­cumb to the same fate.
Lying on deathbeds made of debris and lost hope
Scream­ing, at the top of their lac­er­ated lungs.
Ngiya gula!
Ngi khatele!
Ngiya fa!
I am sick!
I am tired!
I am dying!

Imag­ine your father, chok­ing on the inevitabil­i­ties of his past.
Your mother, wid­owed by the mis­for­tune of other people’s apa­thy.
Your broth­ers and sis­ters, set­tling for a future that seems all but inescapable.

How much longer can we watch
while gen­er­a­tions of black men are cycled
through a sys­tem that treats them like dirt.
How much longer,
can we sim­ply watch them,
sent home
to die.