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My Family’s Slave

theatlantic.com

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Re: My Family’s Slave

#601

Post by dang »

quirkafleeg wrote: post #456
abritinthebay wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people would rather criticize the critics than admit there is a problem. :(

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 further as well.

Re: My Family’s Slave

#602

Post by dang »

abritinthebay wrote: post #394
quirkafleeg wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make here. He wasn't calling the OP a sinner, or even questioning his posting on HN, he was telling him to do something to stop the abuse of his sister.

Some people would rather criticize the critics than admit there is a problem. :(

It's obvious that there is a problem. Adding a second problem does no good.

Re: My Family’s Slave

#603

Post by hueving »

wordupmaking wrote: post #521
baby wrote: post #485

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Worth thinking about: is it worth destroying a dysfunctional but happy family? Are our own standards for freedom worth enforcing on other people's life? I'm also thinking about that last child in Arrested Development. A lot of families and people are dysfunctional. But are we functional enough to tell them what to do?

> dysfunctional but happy That is an oxymoron. When someone is "happy" to live in the rain and snow on concrete without a roof, because some abuser told them if they move from there, the world will eat them and torture them in hell forever, they're not actually happy, they're trapped in a shit situation by the lie that any attempt to free themselves from it would make it worse. The fact that what they feel is happine…

You setup a strawman and then tear it down (living outside with no shelter).

However, the scenario here is basically the same as having a garnished wage. You will need to provide some evidence that it is impossible to be happy living with a garnished wage.

Re: My Family’s Slave

#604

Post by hueving »

glogla wrote: post #479
hueving wrote: post #458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many people are hesitant to intervene in something that will likely destroy their own family. This should not be surprising at all. It happens all of the time in family abuse cases.

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 pretty seriously bad family for it to be worth destroying because people don't want to lose that irreplaceable attachment.

Re: My Family’s Slave

#605

Post by helb »

hnaccount123 wrote: post #432

Someone commented on twitter that it's weird how much he empathizes and is complicit with his mom, especially after owning a slave. He also points out that he mentions she worked at Fairview Training Center, which doesn't exactly have a good history - http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2010/01/erasing_... Usually I feel like pointing out these things is sort of not understanding the perspective, but also aft…

Seattle Times published a followup yesterday:

Why the obituary for Eudocia Tomas Pulido didn’t tell the story of her life in slavery, http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/northwest/why-the-o...

Re: My Family’s Slave

#606

Post by helb »

akalin wrote: post #547

Here is a damning Twitter thread comparing the article to Lola's published obituary: https://twitter.com/caulkthewagon/status/864656017480708102 It makes the author and his family a lot less sympathetic.

Seattle Times published a followup yesterday:

Why the obituary for Eudocia Tomas Pulido didn’t tell the story of her life in slavery, http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/northwest/why-the-o...

Re: My Family’s Slave

#607

Post by mcv »

Chris2048 wrote: post #502
nebulous1 wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Due to all of them having an estimated 0.018% in slavery, which seems kind of arbitrary so they should really mark that as some sort of minimal slavery standard rather than make it look like an estimate actually based on the country. Site seems pretty good overall but is missing a hard facts and figures section to go alongside the nice graphical interface. They appear to offer a pdf report but they wanted me to reque…

> Due to all of them having an estimated 0.018% in slavery So they didn't count prisoner labour?

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.

Re: My Family’s Slave

#608

Post by Chris2048 »

mcv wrote: post #607
Chris2048 wrote: post #502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Due to all of them having an estimated 0.018% in slavery So they didn't count prisoner labour?

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.

Re: My Family’s Slave

#610

Post by kelnos »

dennisgorelik wrote: post #600
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.

> Servants get paid Not necessarily. They could be volunteers. > freedom to choose their own destiny Lola had the freedom to choose when she was deciding to move to the US. She also had freedom to choose when she was deciding whether to keep working for that family. If she wanted - she could walk out any time. Lola also wanted to keep working even when she retired and was even discouraged from working. Calling that r…

> Lola had the freedom to choose when she was deciding to move to the US.

She agreed to go based on lies and false promises. She was emotionally manipulated into moving.

> She also had freedom to choose when she was deciding whether to keep working for that family. If she wanted - she could walk out any time.

Having "choice" in name is one thing, but actually being able to execute that choice is another. There are several points in the original article that illustrate that even if she was given a choice, or could have theoretically taken matters into her own hands, she was constrained by her lack of funds, illiteracy, lack of US citizenship, lies told to her by her slave masters, and just plain fear.

Sure, slaves in the South back in antebellum America could "choose" to get out of their situation, and many did... and often it resulted in injury, death, or return to their masters, where they were further brutalized. While the situation may not have been the same with Lola, that does not make her in any way less a slave.

> Lola also wanted to keep working even when she retired and was even discouraged from working.

So what? Kidnapping victims who experience Stockholm Syndrome often feel emotionally attached to their kidnappers and want to stay with them, but that does not make them any less victims of kidnapping. Lola's actions at that point were in the same vein.

> Calling that relationship "slavery" is not fair to actual "slaves" who were forced to work against their will.

She was forced to work against her will. Period. Any other reading of the original article is pure fantasy, and I'm absolutely appalled and disgusted that so many people in this thread are acting as apologists and downplaying the severity of this situation.

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