Throughout my 12 years in school, I have read countless articles, short stories, and novels based on slavery or about slavery. I think over the years, students' ears have become numb to the term slavery just because it is so widely discussed and taught in school. It is not that children have stopped caring, just that they have lost sight of its true weight. Slavery is still prevalent in our world today and should continue to be taught through all levels of schooling.
I find slavery so fascinating in the way that I can't wrap my head around how human beings were once treated so poorly on the same land that I live on today. However, our "progressive" world that we live in today has not progressed as far as we like to believe, as Ta-Nehisi Coates argues. In fact, there is a living, breathing example of slavery that is a humongous issue in the United States right now- the prison system.
The Netflix documentary, Thirteenth, displays the similarities between slavery and the US prison system; the truth is shocking. The film explains a loophole in the 13th amendment that the government has been able to use to get away with slave-labor in the jails. The amendment states, "Neither slavery, nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."
The evidence of this exploitation goes all the way back to 1865, just following the Civil War. After the Confederates economy was decimated, they needed a way to boost income. However, they could not use slaves, as they had been doing. So, they found a loophole in the amendment and re-enlisted many slaves for minor offenses. The South now had free labor.
Since then, our courts system has gotten out of control and has allowed millions of African Americans with minor charges to be placed in prison for unnecessary sentences. The documentary's first line is that one in four African American men will serve prison time at some point in their life. The probability for white men is tremendously smaller.
When I think about slavery, our prison system is not the first thing to come to mind. However, it should be. It is our modern-day construction of slavery and it is not going away until we, as Americans, see it for what it really is.
While very upsetting, it is the truth that we continue to live in a racist society. But putting racism on the back-burner and arguing that slavery is in the past and not necessary to teach our children works against us. In order to live in a racially equal society, everyone must be knowledgeable and everyone must be held accountable for knowing his/her history. We cannot build a successful, loving world off of ignorance.
I agree fully with your entire argument. Our generation has become very numb to the ¨weight" and importance of slavery because we learn so much about it. Throughout every year, we grow more and more emotionally detached to slavery because we think to ourselves that it is the same thing that we have heard before. Although, slavery should still be taught in school through every year of education. It is a very sensitive and important topic. In order to keep the goal freedom and equality, we need to have the topic of slavery ingrained into society so we learn from our past and try and make a better future.
ReplyDeleteI find this argument very interesting and accurate. I agree that students and people now a days overlook and don't necessarily see the significant weight slavery has put on our modern day society. I think you brought up a good point about being a "progressive" society and how people become more and more detached from this awful part of our history because we are under the impression that we have grown and become a more progressive society. However, society has just found a new more socially acceptable way to perpetrate the same mistreatment of African Americans.
ReplyDeleteWhile i think this argument is interesting I think you're grouping two things together that aren't the same. The language itself in the amendment seems very reasonable, break a law and you have to work, it is the racism that is the problem. If we didn't have a systematically racist system this amendment wouldn't be an issue.
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