Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

My Family’s Slave

theatlantic.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

621–630 of 645 posts

Re: My Family’s Slave

#621

Post by Chris2048 »

mcv wrote: post #618
Chris2048 wrote: post #608

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> whether inmates are forced to provide cheap labor still makes a lot of difference

What is 'force' though? "Do this or I hit you with a stick"? "Do this and you go back to your cage"? "Do this or there will be nothing positive in your life"?

The prison gets cheap labour. Slavery is just a border on a map of human exploitation, I think some distinctions need far more qualification to be relevant.

Re: My Family’s Slave

#622

Post by MrLeap »

mcv wrote: post #613
chrisallenlane wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 con…

And it's not as though my reaction would be to open a door and yell "Run! You're free!".

My first reaction would be to confront the friend about the situation. Next steps would happen next. Ignoring it because it's challenging, awkward or complicated is wrong. It just is.

Re: My Family’s Slave

#623

Post by titanomachy »

jordigh wrote: post #575
poweribo wrote: post #567

Earlier quoted context omitted.

how would you fix it as a teenager? did you get to the part where he took Lola to live with his family and treated like a real family? she was already family. looks like you didnt read the whole story.

I read the whole thing, and I still think he didn't feel like he did enough, because she couldn't stop acting like a slave, because he couldn't pay enough money to send her home once he was an adult, because he couldn't turn his back on his parents over what they did to her. I get the feeling he felt very guilty, even as an adult, and was trying to confess (shortly before dying, interesting).

He did send her home. Then he went to visit her a month later and she asked to come back to America with him. She intended to go live in the Philippines for her last years, but died unexpectedly before that could happen.

Re: My Family’s Slave

#624

Post by aangeles »

pervycreeper wrote: post #268
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…

> Then stood over her with a clenched fist and yelled at her in a language I didn't understand. Which language?

Lola comes from central philippines, probably it was Kampampangan language

Re: My Family’s Slave

#625

Post by mcv »

MrLeap wrote: post #622
mcv wrote: post #613

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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 con…

And it's not as though my reaction would be to open a door and yell "Run! You're free!". My first reaction would be to confront the friend about the situation. Next steps would happen next. Ignoring it because it's challenging, awkward or complicated is wrong. It just is.

Absolutely. It's an attrocity, but at the same time, I'm not sure I'd know what to do about it. In a society not equipped to handle this, I fear they might simply lock up the "owner" and set the slave free, but that's unlikely to do the slave much good in extreme cases like this.

Setting them free is great for people who have family that can take them in, as is often the the case when the slavery lasted a couple of months or years at most (which is probably the case with adolescent girls pressured into prostitution, for example). But in cases like in the article, where someone has groomed to be a slave from a young age, and has lived that life for decades, been moved to another country even; the family that owns them may be all they have. You've got to free them, but that might take away the only thing they still have, and sever the connection with the only people they know and care about.

It's a seriously fucked up situation.

But yes, when you know someone who seems to have a slave, that is absolutely something to confront them about.

Re: My Family’s Slave

#626

Post by baby »

JPLeRouzic wrote: post #536
baby wrote: post #483

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My mother was telling me that in her village, in the country side of France, some of her classmates ran away to her house (my mother's father was the mayor of the village). These were foreign kids that were adopted by farmers. They would get mistreated in class and mocked by other kids (which my mother found normal until this accident happened) and they would get exploited in the fields by the farmers. Apparently thi…

I was born in country side in France (Morbihan) but I never heard that farmers would adopt kids to exploit them. The closer to this that I know are some professional foster people [1] who have a bad reputation among the orphans that I met, that said I know also some perfect foster people. Those "professionals" are usually themselves quite poor and it is a second job for them (or at least for the spouse). However I re…

I googled and found out that there is actually some nasty history related to my fact: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enfants_de_la_Creuse

> Les enfants réunionnais déplacés en Creuse étaient accueillis lors de leur arrivée dans un foyer de Guéret5. "Certains ont été adoptés, d'autres sont restés en foyer ou ont servi de main-d'œuvre gratuite dans les fermes6", les paysans à travers la Creuse les utilisant alors comme « bonne à tout faire » ou « travailleur sans salaires »

Re: My Family’s Slave

#628

Post by quirkafleeg »

quirkafleeg wrote: post #619
dang wrote: post #601

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

And as per usual, downvoter/s (assuming they are genuine downvotes) are totally incapable of addressing any of the points made. Just more mindless dislikes.

Re: My Family’s Slave

#629

Post by surge »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #270
Mz wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have seen career women kind of jokingly say "I need a wife." I was struck by the fact that Alex's mother, whom some people here are vilifying, managed to have a serious career like a man because she had Lola at home to do all the "women's work." This is mostly being overlooked in discussion and I didn't know how to bring it up myself. I appreciate you remarking upon it.

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…

Same, in our marriage its a practical decision of who makes more. I work in tech and make 6 figures, my wife, has a 4 year degree in the sciences and thanks to defunding of the sciences, etc, would be lucky to make 45k as a lab tech. We did the math when we first had kids, and what she brought home after taxes, etc would be just slightly more than day care for one child, and simply wasn't worth the effort of working 40 hours a week just make a few hundred more.

If my wife could make more than I do and she might one day (we're working on business she's starting), I would quit my job in an instant and switch places if she wanted. I miss my kids, work late/nights frequently and feel like I often don't get enough time with them some days. Part of that is my own fault.

In either case, we're incredibly lucky that only one of us has to work to maintain a good lifestyle and at least one of us has the option staying home to raise our kids, give them more individual attention and education, etc. Many households are in situations where both parents have to work one or more jobs to maintain just an average lifestyle.

Re: My Family’s Slave

#630

Post by surge »

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…

Yep, I'd argue the results of the last election were the hard core conservatives and progressives duking it out with no one in the middle (the moderates or traditional liberals) with anyone to vote for. I say this because Trump got less votes than Romney and Hillary didn't bring the numbers Obama. People thought Hillary was a shoe in because that's what CNN and NY Times was reporting from their polls and didn't really have a candidate so stayed home. The more gerrymandering and other factors polarized politics further making moderate candidates untenable, the more a lot of people will just abstain as moderates feel left out of the political process.
Post reply on HN