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My Family’s Slave

theatlantic.com

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Re: My Family’s Slave

#71

Post by anigbrowl »

lordnacho wrote: post #20

I had a terrible "Billy" moment a few years ago. I was travelling and a friend said I could use her house, because it was empty. This was perfect for me, since I had a wife and kid. It turns out there was a housekeeper. She did everything for us, made us feel very comfortable, cooked, served, helped with the kid, etc. Then one day I found out she didn't have her own room, despite the place being a multi storey mansio…

Maybe my friend didn't approve of it? Maybe he did? I'd never be able to talk to my friend again.

I've got to say that slavery as a moral ill outweighs social awkwardness, and rationalizing the situation by saying that maybe it gives slaves' life meaning is an abdication of moral responsibility.

I mean, yeah, you could find meaning in that. I'm pretty stoic, I can find meaning in things like dying of cancer or whatever. But that doesn't make it acceptable to put someone in that position, since there's an implicit assertion that their life would lack meaning without this structure.

I think you should swallow your anxiety about this and discuss the matter with your friend, who essentially coopted you into participating in an abusive relationship by not informing you of this in advance.

Re: My Family’s Slave

#72

Post by hitekker »

>The night ended when she declared that I would never understand her relationship with Lola. Never. Her voice was so guttural and pained that thinking of it even now, so many years later, feels like a punch to the stomach. It’s a terrible thing to hate your own mother, and that night I did. The look in her eyes made clear that she felt the same way about me.

The mother makes me wonder if losing your humanity means becoming an animal.

Re: My Family’s Slave

#73

Post by anigbrowl »

lordnacho wrote: post #49
bflesch wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you're trying to tell us that your feeling of uncomfortness is the only thing stopping you from growing a spine and standing up for such an inhumane treatment, that apart from you nobody else can witness? Have some decency and confront your so-called friend. How can people be rich and not have the decency to give the person feeding you and your family a freaking room. And I really had to constrain myself from usin…

> Have some decency and confront your so-called friend. Sounds like you haven't been in this situation. You know, there's often a gap between how good we think we are, and how good we are. I feel terrible about it, and the subject comes up now and again of whether we should say something, and my wife and I feel bad. It's easy to tell people what they should do, I do it all the time as well, even to myself.

You feel terrible about it because you haven't done anything about it even though you know its wrong. If you heard about it second or third hand then it would be better not to judge because you don't know the facts, but you've said that you do know this person doesn't even have a bed, sleeps on the floor, and gets a wake-up call every morning.

Re: My Family’s Slave

#74

Post by jlarocco »

lordnacho wrote: post #20

I had a terrible "Billy" moment a few years ago. I was travelling and a friend said I could use her house, because it was empty. This was perfect for me, since I had a wife and kid. It turns out there was a housekeeper. She did everything for us, made us feel very comfortable, cooked, served, helped with the kid, etc. Then one day I found out she didn't have her own room, despite the place being a multi storey mansio…

It's tough, but you really need to say something. It won't hurt to ask who she was. Maybe it's legit and there's a sensible explanation.

But if it's not, think if it were you or one of your family or friends in the housekeeper's position.

Re: My Family’s Slave

#75

Post by urbanj »

lordnacho wrote: post #59
urbanj wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You need to take a look at yourself in the mirror. It's still not too late to talk to your friend and express your utter disgust at how that lady is being treated. Why haven't you done that?

One reason is I almost never hear from this friend since his relocation to another part of the world. Another is they have enough issues going on, personal issues requiring a lot of work, and being told they are a slave owner would not help. Perhaps most importantly my friend is not the direct slave owner, if that is indeed the relationship. It's my friend's dad, a guy I've barely even met. Perhaps if he was around,…

> You also gotta ask yourself, if you owned a slave, why you would allow that slave to be the only attendant when a western family comes through town?

Because you're rich, you know that the local system is so heavily weighed in your favour that you could literally kill the housekeeper and get away with a fine. Because you feel that you own that woman and she has no more rights than a dog. There are many reasons. What does that have to do with anything?

Re: My Family’s Slave

#76

Post by ksenzee »

dbg31415 wrote: post #58

When I was in elementary school in the 80s one of my friends has a "nanny" who slept on a cot in the laundry room in the basement. I didn't think much of it, a few of us had housekeepers and I just imagined a few other people had live-in help too, like on TV shows... A year or two into our friendship, I was over at their house after school and around dinner time I asked if I could stay. The parents said, "Sure, no pr…

> we probably all know a Lola

Not sure what your value of "we" is. I've never met anyone like Lola, and I've never heard a story like this from anyone I know. Then again, I didn't have a housekeeper or know anyone who did. People in my social class were glad to keep the electric bill paid and have a working car to drive.

Re: My Family’s Slave

#77

Post by sgt101 »

hitekker wrote: post #72

>The night ended when she declared that I would never understand her relationship with Lola. Never. Her voice was so guttural and pained that thinking of it even now, so many years later, feels like a punch to the stomach. It’s a terrible thing to hate your own mother, and that night I did. The look in her eyes made clear that she felt the same way about me. The mother makes me wonder if losing your humanity means be…

I guess that being human means being part of a human society, and the acts of someone who loses their humanity means that they are excluded from human society.

Re: My Family’s Slave

#78

Post by Chaebixi »

bflesch wrote: post #26
lordnacho wrote: post #20

I had a terrible "Billy" moment a few years ago. I was travelling and a friend said I could use her house, because it was empty. This was perfect for me, since I had a wife and kid. It turns out there was a housekeeper. She did everything for us, made us feel very comfortable, cooked, served, helped with the kid, etc. Then one day I found out she didn't have her own room, despite the place being a multi storey mansio…

So you're trying to tell us that your feeling of uncomfortness is the only thing stopping you from growing a spine and standing up for such an inhumane treatment, that apart from you nobody else can witness? Have some decency and confront your so-called friend. How can people be rich and not have the decency to give the person feeding you and your family a freaking room. And I really had to constrain myself from usin…

> your feeling of uncomfortness is the only thing stopping you from growing a spine and standing up for such an inhumane treatment

> Have some decency and confront your so-called friend.

I think your advice falls into the "much easier to say (from a great distance) than do" category.

The people who unfailingly and immediately know and do the moral thing, regardless of personal cost or expectation of results, are often literally saints. The rest of us muddle through; being uncertain, un-confident, and only occasionally recognizing and mustering the strength to act against an injustice.

Re: My Family’s Slave

#79

Post by anigbrowl »

merpnderp wrote: post #53
balls187 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So, What did your mom say? "Paid house keeper plus all supplies and food. Helped her family also." While I have no proof, I'm inclined to believe her. It's hard to imagine my parents owning a slave AND the US Military allowing it's personnel to keep slaves AND word of that not making it back to the US Mainland.

Knowing how base authorities handle off-base housing, I'd say the chances of this are next to zero. I doubt there's a military officer who isn't fully aware that the US's war with the most casualties was the one to end slavery.

I hope you're right, but it's also worth looking into the history of the Philippine-American war, which like many smaller wars seems to have been largely forgotten by history. I wasn't even aware of it until I came upon a gruesome picture of US soldiers posing in front of a pile of thousands of skulls in one of my history books.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippine%E2%80%93American_Wa...

Re: My Family’s Slave

#80

Post by Symbiote »

BrandoElFollito wrote: post #50

I watched a few years ago a French movie about a Parisian family owning a quasi-slave, a young woman from (IIRC) Africa. The son of the family finally sent an anonymous mail to an organization which had it taken care of. The interesting character was the grandmother who was vehemently supporting her son (the father of the boy who sent an email) until she realized how the slave-girl was treated. The movie was average…

What's the name of the film?
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