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My Family’s Slave

theatlantic.com

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Re: My Family’s Slave

#131

Post by MaxfordAndSons »

bmmayer1 wrote: post #107
southphillyman wrote: post #100

Interesting that the author and his siblings had empathy for the servant. In most American Slavery stories the entire household, including young children, are portrayed as being evil and unforgiving towards the slaves. In these situations I wonder if there is any sort of innate feeling of compassion and decency and how that manifest itself in a culture where slavery and cruelty is the norm.

Yes, except as a full grown adult, the author never reported the situation to the authorities, took this 'secret' to the grave and even 'inherited' his slave from his parents. He said he paid her an allowance (which didn't sound like much) and also didn't make her work after she lived with them, but that's a token effort to right the injustice of decades of work without pay.

Are you an American? If so: America has never paid reparations to former slaves or their descendants. He may have only paid her a token sum, but it's better than the rest of us have done, so don't act holier than thou about it.

Also, he clearly didn't plan to take his secret to the grave, it's on the cover of the Atlantic.

Re: My Family’s Slave

#132

Post by Chaebixi »

obstinate wrote: post #97
Chaebixi wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 ofte…

> I think your advice falls into the "much easier to say (from a great distance) than do" category. What of it? You still don't allow people to remain in a state of slavery when it is within your power to free them with just a phone call to the police. It doesn't have to be easy to do to be unacceptable not to do .

> it is within your power to free them with just a phone call to the police

Maybe not. Sounds like the situation was in another country. Who knows if the police there would care or not. And applying the term "slavery" to the story in the comment is jumping to a conclusion that provides more moral clarity than there may actually be. We don't know enough to say if the situation is that of a shitty employer or that of a slaveowner, and our only source of information doesn't even know himself:

> I will talk to this friend in person next time I'm in that part of the world, which should be soon, about this incident, and get the full story of how their housekeeper lives.

I only say that to emphasize that this stuff, in reality, is probably a lot harder to deal with than some people seem to think.

Re: My Family’s Slave

#133

Post by zeckalpha »

ksenzee wrote: post #76
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.

Look at it the other way: If people in your social class were glad to keep the electric bill paid and have a working car, some of them could have ended up like Lola.

Re: My Family’s Slave

#134

Post by knodi123 »

jablan wrote: post #110
ksenzee wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Boy, I'm so glad that I grew up in a socialist country!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_Russia

Re: My Family’s Slave

#135

Post by phire »

jstewartmobile wrote: post #108

Most of the guys I went to engineering school with were Indians (Brahmins), and they'd frequently mention how the jobs here paid more, but they still wanted to go back to India because they'd have to treat their servants "differently" here. I just assumed it was a payroll issue. Perhaps I assumed wrongly.

It varies from area to area and case by case, ranging from servants who live in nearby shanty towns who are payed "technically livable wages"; To live-in servants who are paid what we would consider unfair wages, but compensated in food and board.

Even among the live-in servants there will be huge ranges in the fairness (or in this case, existence) of the wages they get, the amount of respect they are given, the quality of the food/board, the amount of free time they get, and the amount of rights they are allowed to express.

Re: My Family’s Slave

#136

Post by valuearb »

Horribly compelling story.

When Ulysses S Grants father-in-law died a few years before the civil war, he left them his slave. The Grants were dead broke, Ulysses had failed at farming and the slave was worth a lot of money, they could have worked him or sold him to make the their life instantly better. Instead Ulysses took him to the courthouse and made him a free man.

How hard is it to have empathy for others?

Re: My Family’s Slave

#137

Post by RangerScience »

Note - This is a modern tale, and the title is accurate. This isn't about unearthing stories from the 1800; this is by the son raised by the slave in question.

This was very much worth the read. It's touching and troubling and a human story.

Re: My Family’s Slave

#138

Post by MrZongle2 »

MrLeap wrote: post #82
lordnacho wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

There is no question in my mind that I would confront anyone I knew engaging in the situation you're describing. Among my circles, injustices always seem to be a third person. Mostly bosses. Boss doesn't give you a day off despite a month of notice. Boss dicks you around on hours or a promised promotion. The people I consider friends are folks I can talk to about morality. I've grown as a person based on the critical…

I wish I could upvote you more.

When this story hit HN earlier today, I was taken aback by how so many of the responses basically were of the hand-clasping, oh-what-a-touching-story nature.

This is fucking slavery. There is nothing to admire. Treating slaves-in-all-but-name nicer after the fact does not make it any less repellent.

One human being owned another, and had final say regarding all aspects of their lives. It is abhorrent in all forms, and should called out as such. This isn't something that a sad-face emoji or hashtag campaign fixes, and isn't something that should wait until a more convenient time lest anyone be offended.

Jesus Christ, this may be one of the most vile things I've ever seen on HN.

Re: My Family’s Slave

#139

Post by ArchReaper »

naiveattack wrote: post #112
wavefunction wrote: post #94

I downvoted you for bullshit

I invite you to point out a flaw in my observations. Sometimes it's good to be able to rationality ground your morality instead of merely feeling it. Guess which one will hold up when actually challenged in real life.

Your whole post is disingenuous and full of logical fallacies.[1]

>Take a homeless person and let them sleep in your kitchen in exchange for mowing your lawn -> moral hero.

This is a flawed thesis if you're still trying to argue w.r.t. lordnacho's post.

>Take a homeless person

First off, there's no reason to believe that that person was or was not homeless prior to the situation. This is called an "Argument from ignorance"[2]

>let them sleep in your kitchen in exchange for mowing your lawn

This premise is really a False analogy[3], and explicitly ignores the other warning signs in his post that would indicate that this is not what the situation truly is.

Also, in most developed countries, there are very specific labor and tenant laws. "I'm letting him sleep on my couch if he mows my lawn once a week" is not a legal agreement. It is also not equivalent to "I have a live-in maid" - which also has a buttload of legal protections.

All of your other statements are riddled with half-truth bullshit and I'm not interested in explicitly explaining the rest to you. If you are, in fact, serious about being able to "rationality ground your morality" then I suggest you take a look at some of your statements and think about how grounded in reality they truly are.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance

[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_analogy#False_an...

Re: My Family’s Slave

#140

Post by rincebrain »

naiveattack wrote: post #91
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…

Take a homeless person and let them sleep in your kitchen in exchange for mowing your lawn -> moral hero. Build a mansion around this kitchen -> morally reprehensible It seems contrast in an unrelated area has confused the morally righteous over here. Do you own a nice car? Have a room in your house that is currently empty? There are people out there who could use some of that wealth for food. How would you feel if t…

I don't think people are arguing that it is bad this woman has shelter and a place to sleep.

I think people are arguing that the treatment of said woman, between the infantilizing phone call to wake her every morning to insist she doesn't "get too comfy", and her sleeping on the floor in a house that sounds like it had more rooms than people to live in them, is unnecessarily demeaning at best.

High contrast at short distances, indeed, is the problem for one of the above two points - sleeping on an open space on the floor when everyone else has their own bedroom and bed is at least one tier beyond "just" wanting to put yourself above those you employ to help in your home.

The other, though, is possibly the more damning to me - calling someone every day to insist they be awake at the same time even while you're out of town? At best, that sounds like an overly controlling homeowner trying to make sure the staff are keeping the house up, but that dynamic would usually imply (to my mind) a trusted person in charge of the staff in their absence, to contact, not the two persons combined in one.

The whole situation leaves a bad taste in my mouth because it implies that the people whose home this is do not think it necessary to treat this woman well, and that does not, in my experience, bode well for how they treat others whom they have no obligation to.

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