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My Family’s Slave

theatlantic.com

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Re: My Family’s Slave

#191

Post by true_religion »

chrisallenlane wrote: post #175
MrLeap wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, a fantasy. I doubt you can be convinced, but let me try. I was always sure that if someone broke into my home, I would confront them - lethally - if necessary, despite any complexities. Dignity is important to me, and I'm willing to take risks to keep it. When I was a sweet summer child I used to think that was the default state of adulthood. Well, recently someone did break into my home at 3am. Coincidentally…

For what it's worth, this entire thread is making me feel like I'm taking crazy pills. Typically, I appreciate the nuanced, thoughtful, and introspective discussions we tend to have here. In this case? Like, what the fuck is there even to discuss here? This is black and white. You free the slave and deal with "social inconveniences" or whatever. Jesus Christ.

To me, I'm wondering where the mistreatment is.

We have someone sleeping on a matt, and getting a daily wake up call to do their work.

Work which presumably they are being paid for---we don't know if they're not being paid for the work.

Now in the USA, sleeping on a matt in the kitchen is some kind of terrible situation that no one would live with but....

In my country, I slept on a matt as a child. I wasn't poor. We had a house, food, private schooling, etc. but kids under the age of 7 slept on a matt. It was just the way things were done.

Even today, I have relatives who sleep on matt's despite being totally capable of buying western style beds.

Now as for not having a room of their own, I don't understand the attachment to a private room as opposed to simply a lockbox or a place to keep your things. Private rooms seem like a luxury that one can do without, not a must have.

Disclaimer:

Our families maids have private rooms, and beds (which ironically they endlessly complain are too hot compared to the breezy floor mats they're used to). They also have savings accounts, and pension funds because the family matriarch is a western trained banker and believes that in the absence of good governance, private individuals have to take better care of their employees livelihood.

Re: My Family’s Slave

#192

Post by dismantlethesun »

frandroid wrote: post #170
Chaebixi wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> Who knows if the police there would care or not. That's not a reason not to call. > 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: Well, if police were to check, all the "friend" would have to do is provide proof of salary and most everything would be fine if it was a mistake.

I think you're pretty mistaken in thinking any proof would be available or required. All these maids are typically paid in cash.

Unless the person has bruises, or complains that they're not being allowed to leave---the police would ignore the situation.

Compounding this effect is that most 'maids' are distant relatives in the western sense---being 3rd cousins or nieces through marriage to the hosting family. When push comes to shove, the host family just claims truthfully that they are all a single family, and the sleeping conditions of an adult who isn't being forced to do anything is really no ones business.

---

As an edit. What I'm describing is the traditional lifestyle of West African maidservants. All maids are relatives, since no one trusts anyone who isn't related to them to live in their house.

The world is a big place though. I wouldn't be surprised if maidservant lifestyles in Asian countries or Middle Eastern countries was much different.

Middle Eastern countries even use foreign-born servants, something that'd be seen as the height of insanity in someplace like Ghana.

Re: My Family’s Slave

#193

Post by cryptica »

This story highlights just how blurry and complex things can get.

Maybe to a lesser extent we are all slaves of the system because we have to work increasingly long hours for an ever decreasing wage.

I think that the most kind-hearted and generous people tend to slowly slip into slavery over time because the system tends to reward greedy, selfish people.

The sudden, massive collapse of the system will come when there won't be enough altruistic, productive people left to support all the greedy, non-productive ones which are currently winning the game of natural selection.

Re: My Family’s Slave

#194

Post by bmmayer1 »

MaxfordAndSons wrote: post #131
bmmayer1 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

So, obviously my citizenship or my country's history has no bearing on the merits of my criticism. It seems you want to have a completely different argument.

I think it's fair to criticize someone for being aware that a person is being enslaved and not doing anything meaningful about it for the same reason that it's fair to criticize onlookers who fail to call 911 on a crime in progress.

Re: My Family’s Slave

#196

Post by Consultant32452 »

achou wrote: post #176
lacampbell wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An argument could be made that the entire capitalist system is built upon uncompensated labor. Just ask your mom. Are you insinuating that in a traditional nuclear family, where a father provides all the money for housing, food, clothing and sundry - the mothers house work constitutes "uncompensated labour"? And that this is the basis of capitalism? What's your humane socialist alternative? Collectivising the childre…

My point is that the systems we've built optimize for things we choose to measure. We're very much measuring and optimizing for money and the kinds of goods and services money can be exchanged for. But to a startling degree we're not choosing to measure all the other hard work that has to get done if we expect humanity to exist beyond one generation. This article just puts it in stark relief for me. All of the work t…

>We're very much measuring and optimizing for money and the kinds of goods and services money can be exchanged for.

"Money" is just a metric of economic value, and basically everything has an economic value, including leisure. The emotional and educational value of raising your own children instead of putting them in a daycare has a real economic value that can be measured in dollars. Just like housework has an economic value. Every family I know has weighed these values when they have children.

Re: My Family’s Slave

#197

Post by dismantlethesun »

novembermike wrote: post #64
lordnacho wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

What about the slave?

I think there might be some conflation between this story and the article posted. We and the OP don't actually know if the person was enslaved by forced labour.

All they know is that they slept on a matt in the kitchen.

If they were being paid adequately, I would not call it slavery. Poor labour practice, certainly, and distasteful in the extreme but not the same thing as forced labour and bondage.

Re: My Family’s Slave

#198

Post by dismantlethesun »

mgkimsal wrote: post #149
logfromblammo wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why US government employees and employees of contractors get mandatory training in how to recognize human trafficking. In this situation, at the very minimum, you need to ask "Do you feel your employer treats you fairly? I will keep your answer confidential." If the answer is "yes", then your moral obligation is satisfied. If the answer is "no", you may have to dig down through "uncomfortable situation," pote…

If you discuss the answer with anyone... you've not kept the answer confidential.

Well obviously, if there is an ongoing crime being committed they will speak. Even lawyers, priests, and doctors will speak if there's an ongoing crime being committed by someone who they'd otherwise hold confidence to.

Re: My Family’s Slave

#199

Post by wavefunction »

wyager wrote: post #106
wavefunction wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess I would have taken her to the authorities and helped her get whatever help she needs as soon as I determined her situation. And your friend is no feminist or idealist.

> And your friend is no feminist or idealist. No Scotsman either!

Feminism is the idea that women have the natural right to make decisions for their own lives and pursue those decisions to the best of their abilities. Taking part in the detention and mistreatment of a woman is orthogonal to being a feminist.

Idealism, well I'm assuming she's not an adherent of the philosophical kind and aspires to some sort of 'ideal' which I would have a hard time reconciling with slavery.

So in conclusion, I reject your charges of No True Scotsman. Some things are cut-and-dried.

Re: My Family’s Slave

#200

Post by true_religion »

rincebrain wrote: post #140
naiveattack wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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.

Exactly. Although its a touch shameful, the first thing that went through my mind reading the story in the comments was "what kind of person has a mansion and only one maid?".

Multi-room houses aren't easy to keep clean. Add cooking, driving, and shopping on top of that and we have a situation where:

(a) Someone is being severely overworked

(b) Someone cannot keep up with the work, leading to frustration on the employers part and an unnecessarily bad relationship

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