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My Family’s Slave

theatlantic.com

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Re: My Family’s Slave

#491

Post by jstewartmobile »

praneshp wrote: post #155
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.

Did you usually ask your Indian clasmates' caste? Or did they volunteer that information themselves?

Whenever we'd talk girls, if I suggested someone who wasn't a Brahmin, first they'd look at me as if I were asking them to date livestock, then they'd tell me they only date Brahmin girls.

Re: My Family’s Slave

#492

Post by Mtinie »

Sacho wrote: post #466
hyperdunc wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rhetorical questions (that you've probably already asked yourself many times): Why are you letting this happen and what do you fear will happen if you do something about it?

What if they "do something about it" and it turns out no one wanted their "help" and they alienate both their aunt and the "slave"? That would be the obvious question on my mind. Especially if you do something irreversible like call the government to intervene.

This is a fine-edged and very delicate situation. That is why I encouraged the OP to seek legal guidance. The first step isn't to call in the government, but to gain access to advocates that can work with his/her family to separate fact from fiction.

With outside counsel (legal, psychological, or both) involved, if the OP has misunderstood the nature of the family members' relationships, it will be revealed. On the other hand, if the situation is abusive, having an objective third party there for support and advice will be extremely important.

I am not trying to downplay the emotional difficulties present here. Fearing that you may alienate portions of your family is entirely understandable. But not acting means you are complicit.

If you see someone who is in trouble and who needs help, face your fears and work to build the support structures that will return to them their "voice" and personal agency going forward.

Re: My Family’s Slave

#493

Post by jstewartmobile »

kamaal wrote: post #362
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.

There is a saying : “To the privileged, equality feels like oppression.” If you already belong to a community in a geo-location which holds and controls entry to key places in every walk of life. It makes zero sense to migrate to a different place and stand in the queue like a plebeian.

That's a good one. Is there a source, or is it just a folk saying?

Re: My Family’s Slave

#494

Post by Chris2048 »

Baeocystin wrote: post #361
weberc2 wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My wife has always had traditionally-feminine work preferences, but she's felt a lot of shame from her more left-leaning friends and coworkers (we're both moderate liberals). Similarly, my office is very liberal, and I often feel a bit judged if I mention that my wife cooked my lunch or otherwise mention that my wife's hobbies are traditionally feminine. Ironically, our conservative friends and family have never said…

The Left is not the epitome of tolerance it pretends to be any more than the Right is the epitome of morality it pretends to be. I remember very clearly who it was that made my mother miserable for daring to enjoy being a housewife and mother, and it wasn't our conservative friends. I also remember who made our family miserable for loving and caring for my gay brother as he died of AIDS, and it wasn't our liberal fri…

> for loving and caring for my gay brother

Is this the right, or the religious right?

Re: My Family’s Slave

#495

Post by alistproducer2 »

My mother is from Jamaica and I have a similar story. I was in Jamaica last summer visiting my grandmother. We were sitting on he porch and she was telling me how disappointed she was in her sister, who she raised as a daughter​, as she "gave" the daughter of the women who helped raise my mother to her sister. I remember being struck by that language. I began wondering what the real nature of the relationship between my grandmother and the woman I affectionately knew as "aunt erma." I wonder how common these kind of arrangements are around the world.

Re: My Family’s Slave

#496

Post by Chris2048 »

vvdcect wrote: post #308
song wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I've seen families in Malaysia and Singapore that really treated their housekeeper badly. In a lot of cases, they are not allowed to go out of the apartment either because of potential pregnancy or because they are scared of the housekeeper stealing things from them. They bring housekeepers from Indonesia and pay them very little. The housekeepers have to work a lot of hours and are pretty much treated as slaves…

I only can speak for malaysia and yes this issue doesn't get brought up much, it's quite sickening to be honest. What is even more interesting is that most of the housekeepers are hired by the middle class, the same middle class that is wants racial equality in malaysia..

Middle-class non-ethnic-Malays?

Re: My Family’s Slave

#497

Post by saiya-jin »

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.

A soon-to-be-married couple of Brahmins I met few years ago in India while backpacking seemed very nice. Very modern and educated. Till the point of discussing life of small kids from lowest caste (Dalits) - it felt natural and correct to them that 5-6 years old would work in a fireworks factory. "You know, they bring a bit of money home".

I was speechless for a while, not wanting to start yelling on them. Maybe I should have had. I am pretty sure they wouldn't enjoy THEIR 5-6 year old kid working every day with possibility of losing fingers/dying. And of course forget school, and any good future whatsoever.

Damn, it still makes me angry! Bear in mind that most Indians you can meet in the west are Brahmins, common folks wouldn't be able to afford schools good enough to get out. Caste system is fading and it will die eventually, one of great evils of mankind and in fact a form of slavery for lower castes.

Re: My Family’s Slave

#498

Post by dismantlethesun »

wavefunction wrote: post #199
wyager wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 c…

Would you say it is misandrist to harm any man, anywhere? But I agree like most people they are likely a realist not an idealist.

Re: My Family’s Slave

#499

Post by pionar »

posguy wrote: post #430
anovikov wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are typing this sitting at your comfortable 1% Valley workplace. Nowhere in the world does $55K a year before tax provide anywhere like 'good life'. It means endless misery and generational psychological poverty passed on to your children. Only reason of doing it is if your desire to exert psychological pressure on your wife is greater than even desire to consume. It simply doesn't sound healthy, and it i…

Huh? You could easily live a comfortable life on $55k a year in say Tacoma, WA or Eugene, OR with a wife and a kid. I've earned less than $45k a year living on my own in Seattle not even 5 years ago, and despite shopping at expensive stores, eating out daily, and spending quite a bit on other random stuff, I always was able to avoid going into the red financially without watching my spending much at all. Even in Seat…

Yeah, I live in Michigan, and while I do make really good money (especially for this area - more than triple the median), my wife and I live simply in our 1100 square foot 2-bedroom house with our 10-year-old cars and no debt.

I know that I'm very privileged in that I could afford to live at a higher level than what we do, but I don't want that. I've got my American dream. I've got a wonderful wife who dotes on me (it's mutual), a small house in a quiet town, and a cat. That's all I really need in life. All the other shit (gadgets, new cars, etc.) is cool, but I realized about 5 years ago that none of it made me happy.

If we have kids, of course those expenses will go up, and we'll probably have to find a bigger house, but for now, we live cheaply not because we have to, but because expensive stuff won't make us happy.

(Just to be clear, I know what it's like to be poor, I grew up in a very poor family. I very much realize that I'm lucky and more fortunate than a lot of other people in that I have the luxury of living below my means, a luxury that not everyone has, even in the US).

Re: My Family’s Slave

#500

Post by zero_intp »

lettergram wrote: post #405
int_19h wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The left is not a hivemind. There are people who self-identify as liberals but not progressives, and there are people who self-identify as progressives but not liberals, and there's those who mix and match.

Ive actually noticed that really there appears to be a pretty interesting split between progressives and conservatives. Leaving the middle "liberals" (really from both sides) caught in an awkward situation. For example, being liberal usually implies greater freedoms, such as being pro-choice. However, it can also be pro-gun ownership, or anti-war, pro-research, etc. To me that's the dichotomy the U.S. is facing is re…

Unregulated capitalism trends toward monopolistic market dominance.

The fundamental problem with the Libertarian ideology is that the emergent outcome is of a fully economically captured state.

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