Tortuous History Traced in Sunken Slave Ship Found Off South Africa
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Re: Tortuous History Traced in Sunken Slave Ship Found Off South Africa
#2The middle passage is one of the most awful things anyone can say about humans.
Another, sadly, is the current state of the US prison system.
I'm always a bit amazed at how casually people talk about how "slavery ended," punctuated by the civil war, when in fact, the 13th amendment didn't end slavery at all, at least legally.
> except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted
The drug war and prison state aren't metaphorical continuations of slavery, but the literal legal legacy.
Re: Tortuous History Traced in Sunken Slave Ship Found Off South Africa
#3The middle passage is one of the most awful things anyone can say about humans. Another, sadly, is the current state of the US prison system. I'm always a bit amazed at how casually people talk about how "slavery ended," punctuated by the civil war, when in fact, the 13th amendment didn't end slavery at all, at least legally. > except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted The drug…
Can't upvote enough. It's sad that more people aren't aware of this.
Re: Tortuous History Traced in Sunken Slave Ship Found Off South Africa
#4Even more "sad" is the current state of Mozambique.
Re: Tortuous History Traced in Sunken Slave Ship Found Off South Africa
#5The middle passage is one of the most awful things anyone can say about humans. Another, sadly, is the current state of the US prison system. I'm always a bit amazed at how casually people talk about how "slavery ended," punctuated by the civil war, when in fact, the 13th amendment didn't end slavery at all, at least legally. > except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted The drug…
Can't upvote enough. It's sad that more people aren't aware of this.
Absolutely. Free will and ability to differentiate right from wrong are way overrated.
Re: Tortuous History Traced in Sunken Slave Ship Found Off South Africa
#6The middle passage is one of the most awful things anyone can say about humans. Another, sadly, is the current state of the US prison system. I'm always a bit amazed at how casually people talk about how "slavery ended," punctuated by the civil war, when in fact, the 13th amendment didn't end slavery at all, at least legally. > except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted The drug…
The US prison system (and, in conjunction, the justice system as a whole) is appalling by developed-country standards and in need of reform, but I don't think it even ranks on the list of "most awful things anyone can say about humans."
Re: Tortuous History Traced in Sunken Slave Ship Found Off South Africa
#7[deleted]
Re: Tortuous History Traced in Sunken Slave Ship Found Off South Africa
#8The middle passage is one of the most awful things anyone can say about humans. Another, sadly, is the current state of the US prison system. I'm always a bit amazed at how casually people talk about how "slavery ended," punctuated by the civil war, when in fact, the 13th amendment didn't end slavery at all, at least legally. > except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted The drug…
> I'm always a bit amazed at how casually people talk about how "slavery ended," punctuated by the civil war, when in fact, the 13th amendment didn't end slavery at all, at least legally.
I always cringe when people talk about sweatshops being a thing of the past.
Being held captive and working for $0.23/hour [0] may not be literal slavery, but it's at best a rounding error away[1]. And that's exactly the state of many prisons in the US, or factories and field work in many other parts of the world.
We haven't really ended labor inequality; we've just exported it, and we continue to benefit from the dirt-cheap costs of exploitative labor on a daily basis[2].
[0] http://www.prisonpolicy.org/prisonindex/prisonlabor.html
[1] Remember that prisoners are usually expected to pay for their own costs-of-living while incarcerated, such as toiletries, and that the prices for these are set by a monopoly seller for the prison.
[2] https://theweek.com/articles/463364/11-products-might-not-re...
Re: Tortuous History Traced in Sunken Slave Ship Found Off South Africa
#9The middle passage is one of the most awful things anyone can say about humans. Another, sadly, is the current state of the US prison system. I'm always a bit amazed at how casually people talk about how "slavery ended," punctuated by the civil war, when in fact, the 13th amendment didn't end slavery at all, at least legally. > except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted The drug…
Agreed.
We need more funding, research, and articles that remind us about the middle passage and how it relates to the drug war and the current state of the U.S. prison system.
I for one, completely fail to see a relevant relationship.
Re: Tortuous History Traced in Sunken Slave Ship Found Off South Africa
#10I think the important thing to remember here - especially for gentrified 21st century software engineers - is that to fully own your guilt for slavery in the Americas, you must first ignore the history of slavery in Africa itself.