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My Family’s Slave

theatlantic.com

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Re: My Family’s Slave

#611

Post by kelnos »

abalashov wrote: post #475
kelnos wrote: post #449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Servants get paid and have the freedom to choose their own destiny. Lola had neither of those things.

If I had to read the grandparent's comment charitably, there is a formal distinction in that Lola's relationship to the family was not legally institutionalised. If they tried to stop her from leaving the house by force, they would be committing a crime. Whether it amounted to de facto slavery is a different question, as I pointed out in another comment on this article.

I fail to see how the distinction matters. If you are treated like a slave, act like a slave, required to do a slave's work, and aren't compensated and are coerced into giving up your freedom, then you are a slave. The legalities or formal relationship is irrelevant. The de facto nature of her slavery is all that matters.

Re: My Family’s Slave

#612

Post by mcv »

codehusker wrote: post #18
barsonme wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

for people who don't click the link: a larger number is better. it's ranking by prevalence, so countries like North Korea (rank #1) worse than countries like the U.S. (#52) and Australia (also #52). I couldn't find a country that was ranked #167 out of #167, though. I think #52 is as high as it goes.

It seems that a higher ranking is worse. > The Index presents a ranking of 167 countries based on the proportion of the population that is estimated to be in modern slavery. [0] North Korea, with 4.37% in slavery, is ranked 1. India, with 1.4% in slavery, is ranked 4. Philippines, with 0.4% in slavery, is ranked 33. China, with 0.25% in slavery, is ranked 40. USA, with .02% in slavery, is ranked 52. [0] https://www.g…

What surprises me is that Netherland, while praised for doing the most to fight slavery, is, at #50, ranked lower than the US, which I believe has forced prison labour.

Maybe it has to do with prostitution being legal here. You'd expect licensed and regulated prostitution to reduce slavery in prostitution, but apparently it's still a serious problem. Still, 17,500 people in slavery? That's a lot. I'd like to know where they got that figure.

Re: My Family’s Slave

#613

Post by mcv »

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.

"free the slave" is not always trivial, though. Simply taking them out of the house moves them from a mat in the kitchen to sleeping on the street without a mat. They need a place to live, friends and family, and confidence to look for a real job.

Modern slavery is rarely keeping someone physically locked up (though sometimes it is). It's often more a matter of keeping the slave socially isolated and with too low confidence to dare to walk away.

I don't mean that they like their situation, but it's often what they're familiar with. Setting them free requires support and commitment.

Re: My Family’s Slave

#614

Post by emodendroket »

cmdrfred wrote: post #552
emodendroket wrote: post #548

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems strange that for the vast majority of human history most people were not wage workers and yet now we're positing that there is absolutely no other way to organize a society.

Prior to that you had feudalism where you farmed land and shared the spoils with a king, prior to that we simply murdered the unproductive and socially unacceptable by removing them from the village. So far this seems like the best option.

That seems like a pretty facile summary of the entirety of human history.

Re: My Family’s Slave

#615

Post by mcv »

hueving wrote: post #604
glogla wrote: post #479

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Family like this is worth destroying.

Said the person who didn't have to destroy their family. Once you are an adult, a family cannot realistically be replaced. You can have children but children are not the kind of family you can depend on and look up to for advice. You can also marry into another family, but frankly the same strength of bond is just not there (guess which person that family will choose to side with if you get a divorce). It takes a pre…

I know several people who cut ties with their toxic family. It's painful, but sometimes it's necessary. They replace their family with friends. Good friends who support them.

In cases where only one or a few people are abusive, it may be possible to gather the rest of the family and continue a healthier family without the toxic people.

Re: My Family’s Slave

#616

Post by mcv »

MockObject wrote: post #293
sillysaurus3 wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a male, I'd personally prefer to live a life filled with traditional housewife work. Kids are fun, and I'd like raising them. I like cooking. Cleaning is pretty fun. More than that, though, employment sucks. If you keep me fed, clothed, and with an internet connection, I'd be happy as a clam, even spending eight hours a day doing nothing but housework. I sometimes wonder if there are others who feel this way, espe…

It's because women's lib effectively doubled the labor force, halving wages. Now only the top 3% can afford a house-spouse.

Doubling the work force should not lead to halving wages. It should lead to doubling productivity, or halving the time spent working. The problem is that the extra gains from increased productivity aren't going to the workers, but to the bosses.

Until about the 70s or 80s, salaries of CEOs and workers grew at a similar pace. After that, the salaries of workers stagnated, while that of CEOs rose dramatically. Looks like that's where the profit of the increased labor force went.

Re: My Family’s Slave

#617

Post by mcv »

DamnYuppie wrote: post #187
MrLeap wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Phew thanks for making yourself known. This could be bias, but the blob of people on the internet seems to have become a lot more casually sociopathic over the last 15 years. Sure back when folks used to troll for laughs, but it always seemed like a mask to get a rise out of people. I've only noticed people recently openly talking convincingly and casually about weird shit like this. Either A) The world has always be…

I vote for B & C.

I think it's A.

It's just always been easy to close our eyes to it, but western shops are full of products created through slavery. A couple of years some people (at least in Netherland) drew attention to the fact that nearly all chocolate is grown by people who are effectively slaves, and there was no way to eat chocolate while being sure you didn't support slavery. A lot has been done to improve that situation (at least in Netherland; no idea about other countries), but the same is still true with other products. If your smartphone is not a Fairphone, chances are that some of the materials used it in, have been dug up by slaves. Cheap clothes are often made in sweat shops, often by children who should be in school.

The public face in western developed countries may have been freed from the appearance of slavery and oppression, but that's just a thin veneer. Slavery, child labour and really awful working conditions are still appallingly common, and are a big part of the reason why so many products in our shops are so cheap. And most people close their eyes to it because it's easy to ignore, and we like cheap stuff. And when we do see it, it's so easy pretend it's not really slavery, because once you take up that fight, it never stops, because there's so much injustice that still needs to be righted.

And even in western countries, vulnerable people (illegal immigrants, young women, people with mental disabilities) are conned or pressed into all sorts of situations that are disgustingly close to slavery.

Re: My Family’s Slave

#618

Post by mcv »

Chris2048 wrote: post #608
mcv wrote: post #607

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's forced labour, it should count. If it's voluntary (to allow inmates to make some money and have something to do), then it shouldn't.

Prison itself isn't voluntary, so it's a biased choice.

True, but whether inmates are forced to provide cheap labor still makes a lot of difference. After the abolition of slavery in the US, prison labor has been used as a replacement in areas that used to rely on slave labor.

Re: My Family’s Slave

#619

Post by quirkafleeg »

dang wrote: post #601
quirkafleeg wrote: post #456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. Rather than worrying about hurting the feelings of someone sharing a "difficult situation" (the horrible exploitation and abuse of someone else , that they admit themselves they "feel complicit" in), perhaps some people here should spare more concern for the actual victim .

Comments on HN do nothing for the victim, and it's self-righteous posturing to pretend they do. We don't do this kind of thing because we care about someone we'd never heard of until a minute ago. It's an opportune way to get some of our own anger out and see ourselves as moral at the same time. Lashing out at the person you're talking to, on the other hand, actually can do harm—and that only means hurting the victim…

> Comments on HN do nothing for the victim

What was the point of the original comment then, in your opinion? Just to upset people here?

> and it's self-righteous posturing to pretend they do.

This is nothing more than your opinion, based on nothing more than your imagination.

> We don't do this kind of thing because we care about someone we'd never heard of until a minute ago. It's an opportune way to get some of our own anger out and see ourselves as moral at the same time.

So if someone you didn't know a minute ago was hit by a bus, or tripped on the pavement, or dropped their shopping, the only reason you'd stop to help is because you want to show how moral you are?

Most people are not that sociopathic, and I doubt you're unaware of that fact, so I'm not sure why you're pretending other people's motives can only be selfish or insincere.

> Lashing out at the person you're talking to, on the other hand, actually can do harm—and that only means hurting the victim further as well.

Can you quote where the poster "lashed out" at the OP, because all I remember is they called him complicit in the exploitation (which the OP said himself is what he feels) and then said "free her".

Re: My Family’s Slave

#620

Post by croon »

weberc2 wrote: post #528
justinpombrio wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ironically, our conservative friends and family have never said a word about whether she works or tends home; they're very laissez-faire about the matter. The fair comparison would be to see how they reacted if your roles were reversed: if she worked and you made her lunch.

First off, this isn't meant to generalize to the broader population of conservatives and liberals, and the statistically insignificant sample size is the number one reason why this anecdote would be unfair for such a purpose. That said, if my conservative acquaintances are more tolerant of a "left-of-center" arrangement than my liberal acquaintances, why would it be more fair to push the comparison further left? Cons…

First off I'm not excusing what you're experiencing from your coworkers.

That said:

> if my conservative acquaintances are more tolerant of a "left-of-center" arrangement than my liberal acquaintances, why would it be more fair to push the comparison further left?

That isn't a left-of-center arrangement. It's a hundred+ year old conservatives dream (see: traditional family values), of course they're accepting of it.

The point of the opposite scenario is that it's non-traditional, and I GUARANTEE you that the acceptance would be reversed on both counts.

Obviously preferably the acceptance would be there regardless, when both you and your wife's roles are self-chosen, but you must see that it's easy from the outside to suspect that it's formed by traditional gender roles, even if it happens to be unrelated?

In the same way people generalize about a white man with a pacific looking younger wife, or just a younger wife in general, which isn't the same thing people think when they see an older woman with a younger man.

These things could be great, loving relationships, but the generalizations about them are at some point rooted in truth, because of a traditionally asymmetric power dynamic.

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