The lawyer we were fighting against, he basically told us, “You all cost too much money.” But you want to keep us though, right? Are we not valuable to you? Don’t you think we should have proper health care? Don’t you want us to be healthy in your facility?

When someone gets hurt, they go, “Oh man, oh, he’s down, he’s hurt now. Oh well, guess he’s not going to be working for us anymore. He’s out of commission. Let’s just hire another person.” They don’t understand the value of life. That’s what they do. That’s what capitalism is. It’s “we don’t care because we’re still going to make our money with or without you.”

My role is being able to speak about my experience, and bring to light the issues that are oppressing us — not just white people, not just black people, but as human beings. It doesn’t matter what the situation is or how people got there, corporations always say, “They did it to themselves.” But people deserve better.