Latest / Why We Do What We Do / History of Slavery pt 2

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History of Slavery pt 2 · Why We Do What We Do

0:03
You're listening to Why we Do what we Do? Welcome to Why we Do
0:16
what we Do. I am your still Sad host Abraham, Yeah, and
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I'm your slowly becoming Anti Florida host Shane. Where it's called podcast. We
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talk about the things that people do, and sometimes we really unpack the horrible
0:29
things that people have done and why they did them. We are coming back
0:33
on our part two episode discussion about slavery, So if you missed the first
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part of this, we really unpack the history of slavery in part one.
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It's probably important for part two, but we are talking about a different aspect
0:45
of it and the second discussion. We should be able to wrap up this
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discussion in today's episode. I think, but hey, if you're joining us
0:52
for the first time, welcome, Yeah, We're glad you're here. If
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this is the first time you're joining us, then it's a heavy topic to
0:58
jump into, so true, hopefully you're here you're finding it informative. Yeah,
1:03
And as I said, go back and check out the first part probably
1:04
although you could probably get through this and you'd still have what you need.
1:08
And if you're listening to this on the day that it comes out, it
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is August thirtieth, So happy National toasted marshmallow Day. Ah, yes,
1:15
it's too bad that. Well, the dandies are good, so that dandy
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the vegan marshmallows, Right, those aren't too bad. It's also International Whale
1:22
Shark Day, the Gentlest of Sharks. Indeed, it is Grief Awareness Day,
1:26
so know that some people have grief, yes, leading into that very
1:30
nicely. It's Frankenstein Day. Oh that is good. So much of that
1:34
story has to deal with grief, but the grief of being alive as a
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monster, so that's the whole thing. Right. Yeah. It is National
1:42
Slinky Day. Everyone loves a slinky, Yeah they do. I think I
1:45
don't know anybody who hates slinky's. I think people who hate slinky's probably dislike
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fun. It's also National Beach Day, so go go hang out there if
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you're near one. Yeah, and it is also Amaguenia Day. I think
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I said that right. And this is a type of African pastry. They
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look sort of like Bigner donuts type of things. Oh, I like that.
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I'm a big fan of bignets, so I support that. Yeah.
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It's actually described as a Johnny cake or a Dutch oliable. I don't know
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what that is or a sapolils. This is its own version, this fried
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dough bread, and it's supposed to be incredible and delicious and so celebrating August
2:23
thirtieth, which is the amaguen Ya Day. I like it. I like
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it all right. Where a podcast about psychology, as I said when we
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started sort version of that anyway, and if you like what you hear today,
2:34
you can support us by picking up some merch join us on Patreon,
2:37
we can leave us a rating in review, you can subscribe. You can
2:39
start a reparations project that will pay back all the people who had suffered through
2:44
slavery, and we'll call it why we do what we do reparations and we'd
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be honored if you did that. That would be really great. I'll talk
2:51
about the other ways that you could support us at the end of this topic.
2:53
But as I said, we're picking up on our second part of this
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discussion about slavery. I feel like I'm missing some amble stuff we get into
3:00
before we started episode. We're ready to jump into this or am I missing
3:04
something? I think we usually say If you'd like to join us, join
3:07
us on Patreon. We say that we're an award nominated podcast. Oh yeah,
3:13
that's an important part. Yeah, that should be my opening line anymore.
3:15
Speaking of which, that's a really good prompt there. If you are
3:19
able to if you've voted for us in the first round, you should be
3:22
able to vote for us in the second round. There's two rounds of votes
3:24
for the People's Choice Podcast Awards. You can go to Podcast Awards dot com.
3:29
We are on the Skeptics Guide Science and Medicine category. We can vote
3:32
for us. We would be extremely honored if we want, and we're honestly
3:35
just extremely honored to have been nominated at all. So thank you to the
3:38
academy that is the Podcast Awards Academy, and to everyone who voted for us.
3:44
And A Z are just incredibly grateful to be here. And I think
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the only other preamble for this episode would be the content warning. Oh yes,
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thank you. There's a trigger warning in here. We're talking about the
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brutality and violence done to people. This includes things like rape and child abuse
4:00
and general mutilation and mistreatment. So if that's something that you're unable to sit
4:05
through, there's really no way around it with this particular topic. So you
4:09
might want to sit this one out. However, I do encourage you to
4:11
listen through it, because I think this is an important topic. If you
4:14
feel like you can handle it, and if you're in Florida, you really
4:15
should listen because you're not going to hear it anywhere else. Yep, those
4:17
are content warnings and recommendation to listen anyway if you can. But wanted to
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make sure that that was out there. And I still feel like there's something
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I'm missing, but it's fine. We just need to get started on this
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topic anyway. Absolutely. So in the last episode, we talked about definitions
4:33
of what slavery is. We talked about some of the history of slavery and
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kind of where that took us, and really spend a lot of time talking
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about specifically what slavery looked like within the colonial United States of America, So
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looking at that time kind of how the South benefited from it directly, how
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the North benefited from it directly as well, and how it created it kind
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of like an economic system that really benefited everybody else but the enslaved people.
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So today, hey, we are going to start diving into what the conditions
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of slavery looked like in the United States, and kind of how that impacted
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everybody that was living here at the time, and how you kind of still
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feel that ripple throughout today. That was the exact preamble that I was missing.
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Thank you, Okay, so I knew we had one. Yeah,
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all right, So let's get into this. The conditions of slavery generally and
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specifically slavery is brutal, coerced labor, and subjugating people by dehumanizing him.
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That's almost its definition. It's getting closed. The institution itself cannot work unless
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you see people as something other than human. You can't make it work because
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you see people as human otherwise, and then you can't really justify treating them
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that way. So most people struggle to inflict that kind of harm on other
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people when they see them as people, and they had to be then treated
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as animals or worse for the slave system to exist. This is even true
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in war, as some people have found that many soldiers aim slightly above the
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heads of their opponent to a void killing them, so they don't like to
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hurt or harm people most of the time. And also treating animals this way
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isn't that easy to do either, But people do get used to it.
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You see videos of people treating other like other living organisms pretty poorly all the
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time, and so people do eventually kind of habituate to that. Yeah,
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but generally speaking, it's not something that is easy for us to do.
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And part of the reason that in a lot of pre industrialized cultures, animals,
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even when they were killed for food, were treated with the respect and
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honor. This what has turned into how they are treated, regardless of how
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you feel about things like meat consumption, is pretty shameful. I think that
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most people would say so. Right. Getting back to slavery, though,
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a day in the life of the slave was work, work, work,
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just like Rihanna would say, almost always from sun up to sundown, regardless
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of the day of the week, and almost always without any sort of pay
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or anything even remotely close to that. Right, The most they would typically
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get would be maybe a place to stay, like sleep on the site that
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they were working, and making sure they were fed, but that was treated
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as kind of like shelter, like they would for like maybe the people that
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own the plantations in the spaces would treat that the same as like having shelter
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for animals and making sure that the animals were fed, so they can continue
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to do labor. They wouldn't treat that. It's like kind of a human
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dignity, right. There is a task system version of slavery common among rice
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plantation slaves. This was that they had a certain amount of work that needed
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to be completed, and once done, their work was done for the day.
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So essentially you complete all your work for the day, you can go
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rest and relax whatever that looks like for you in that space where there's probably
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not as a lot of rest and relaxation. Yeah, I mean, first
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of all, they did their task for the day were usually pretty substantial,
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so it's unlikely they were going to finish without having done probably at least ten
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hours of work anyway, and probably almost always more than that. And second,
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the working conditions on these little rice plantations were reportedly just horrendous, awful
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working conditions. So not only were you doing that almost all day and like,
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yeah, you might be able to get done a little earlier, but
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your working conditions were terrible. Other systems of slavery that are more the ones
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that people probably think about as being representative of what slavery was were often under
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a driver which was often another slave. This person was meant to oversee the
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productivity of the slaves and essentially maintain productivity for all working hours. So that's
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why they called them a driver, right. The labor was extremely physically demanding,
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in backbreaking and took place usually in direct sunlight. And if you have
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ever spent any time in the South, you know that it is incredibly hot
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and human here, which makes it even more difficult. I mean, just
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this last week where I'm at, we have gotten heat warnings all week because
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it's so hot. It's an oppressive heat. So a lot of this work
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was done in the sun. In the Enslaved folks had to keep up with
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high rates of productivity, and it was essentially demanded of them that the drivers
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used torture or threat of torture such as whipping, scarring, burning, or
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branding to people on task to keep people working and working at a pretty fast
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pace. Now, owners, drivers and other people on the plantation saw and
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treated slaves as property, as we alluded to, not as humans, not
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even burial, I mean sometimes as sort of like animals at best, but
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generally as property. But another thing about this is their treatment of slaves was
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completely arbitrary, So they would regularly beat a slave for no reason at all.
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They could be starved, burned, raped, tortured, and killed,
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and everyone around them saw that as that owner's freedom to do to their property
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as they would. And there's that use of the word freedom again to justify
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cruelty to others. I think we talked about this in our episodes discussing freedom
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and what that meant. Yeah, one little girl actually related story that kind
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of goes like this. So quote the overseer went to my father one morning
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and said, Bob, I'm going to whip you this morning. Daddy said,
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I ain't done nothing, and he said I know it. I'm going
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to whip you to keep you from doing something. And he hid him with
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that cow hide. You know, it would cut the blood out of you
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with every lick if they hit you hard. End quote. So you see
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these stories and these anecdotal these reports of people's experiences where people will say,
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like this is what happened. They would just hurt us for no reason.
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Yeah, not an uncommon story, Like things like that happen all the time.
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So these slaveholders wouldn't think of their slaves as humans. And to further
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this, They would try to make it so that the slaves themselves did not
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think of themselves as humans. They would tell the slaves repeatedly the lies that
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the slaveholders told themselves and hope that the slaves would internalize this message. Unfortunately,
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and sadly, many of them did internalize that message. They started to
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think of themselves as being unworthy, that they were only good enough for slaves,
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and that they weren't humans. But most of them did not. It's
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textbook gaslighting. I mean, that's really what it is. They were gaslighting,
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thinking of like this, this is what is good for you, right,
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I am taking care of you. If you weren't here, it would
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be so much worse for you. Blah blah blah blah. You hear that
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kind of all the time, pardon my language. Some tried or try to
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argue that slavery wasn't so bad, and evidence of this is in the fact
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that relatively few enslaved people tried to rebel and fight against their oppressors. First,
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that's a non sequitor. Even if they didn't try to fight back,
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that doesn't imply that they were okay with their conditions. That doesn't make any
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sense. There are lots of reasons not to fight back, which leads to
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the second. When rebellions did happen, the powers that be would often respond
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by murdering dozens of other enslaved people associated with those involved in the rebellion lives,
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children, friends, other family, etc. And instill practices that were
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far more brutal as a standard was across all of those enslave folks, So
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thus rebelling would almost certainly have made life worse for the families of those enslaved
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peoples in the rebellion. And third, enslave people resisted their oppression in other
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ways. They usually did it in non passive or non aggressive ways. Yes,
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non violent is what I meant to say, non violent ways. And
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of course there were violent uprisings in that sort of thing, but the most
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of the time that didn't happen. But again, the important thing to understand
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is like this idea that slavery wasn't so bad is just completely assinine. It's
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wrong, wrong, wrong, yeah, super wrong, and just it is
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a total false lie of nonsense. Under no circumstances was it good for those
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folks who were enslaved. But speaking of this way that they did resist enslave
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people resisted their dehumanization in many ways. One way that most slaves resisted this
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is that they did not stoop to the level of their enslavers by treating them
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with the kind of brutal cruelty with which they had been treated. They refused
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to be the chattel that their captors believed them to be, and they maintain
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their humanity by acting like humans unlike their masters, essentially meaning that they would
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not allow themselves to become the people or become the objects that they were seen
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as being. They rose above it, even though that often did not work
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in their immediate favor. I think it's hard to imagine being in that position
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and taking on the fact that you're like, you know what, even though
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I'm being abused and the conditions here are horrible, I'm still going to be
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the bigger person here. I can't imagine having the wherewithal to take something like
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that on. That's incredible. The amount of resilience and patients that takes and
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still continues still continues in descendants of folks who have experienced this. I mean
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it is incredible. Yeah, I mean that just makes them a thousand times
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better, a million times better than the people who enslaved them could ever be.
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Yeah. Of course, some enslave folks resisted by engaging in very understandable
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armed rebellions, during which they would coalesce and use weapons to attack their oppressors.
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These were rare, however, there were a few. There were only
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plots for a rebellion that did not actually happen, and some were questionable as
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to whether the plot even happened, such as Denmark Vesey, who was a
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former enslaved person who purchased his freedom. He was accused of plotting to destroy
13:52
Charleston, South Virginia, but his trial was extremely biased and unfair and may
13:56
have been orchestrated simply to justify executing him and several other several of his associates,
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which they did, you know. So it was basically he bought his
14:03
freedom and he was there, but he was still put to death and oppressed
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as a result of people disagreeing with him because of the color of his skin
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and who he was. Yep, exactly right. It occurs to me that
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we've reached the point at which, although there is much more to unpack,
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we should really take that ad break. Let the capitalists do what they do,
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and we'll come right back. Okay, So we've been talking about a
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little bit, a little bit of like history here, but I think mostly
14:33
the conditions of slavery, what that was like. When recently talking about rebellion,
14:37
and there's another one to talk about because the most probably recognizable and significant
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rebellion was led by the preacher Nat Turner in eighteen thirty one. And in
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this rebellion, a group of eighty slaves rated and killed the white residents of
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several harms in Southampton, Virginia. Basically went house to house during the night,
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killing people anyone that they could find in these sort of slave holding homes.
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Most of the victims in this case were women and children because the male
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slave owners that were the actual owners there were at a religious revival getaway camp
15:09
in North Carolina. That's how they ended up shaking out with the people who
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died. And again, this is not a fairytale story. This is a
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brutal story, and it's difficult to unpack sometimes. Yeah, so you would
15:20
think that with enslaved people constantly trying to escape, purchase their freedom, or
15:24
leading or joining rebellions, you might take that as a sign that they don't
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want to be enslaved, and that mistreating enslaved people was terrible. But the
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way the South responded was to make slavery significantly worse. Virginia led several Southern
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states in passing laws that made preaching among slaves and enslave people, and teaching
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enslaved people to read made it illegal, So people who were quote unquote property
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were not allowed to be taught, not allowed to preach, and not allowed
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to read. Yes, so we've talked about these ways that there's been some
15:56
amount of resisting. We had people who have maintained their dignity with people who
16:00
have engaged in uprising and rebellion, but they also resisted oppression in more subtle
16:04
ways. So apparently some would they would damage equipment, they would slow down
16:10
work or production, and they would pretend not to understand commands that were given
16:14
to them. And in this way they would also sort of try and fight
16:17
back and resist in ways that were not as overt. Right. They would
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also resist dehumanization by their commitment to family, so they married, they had
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children, and support each other in a two parent loving home as long as
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they were able to. But they were often separated so that happened quite a
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bit. Yeah, One plantation owner wrote into the rules of the plantation that
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enslaved people were not able to marry outside of the plantation for fear that they
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would gain some sense of freedom or independence. So you find that there were
16:45
these kind of arbitrary rules that would work to keep these folks in an oppressed
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state and keep them on the property continuing to produce for those folks that were
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directly benefiting from it. Well. And it speaks to the fact that they
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knew, they could see from the outset that like people wanted freedom and that
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freedom was good, and they tried to find ways to have them not even
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think that it was available to them or not see that as being a reality
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or even existing if they possibly could. Like the smoke screen of like,
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we're going to make it impossible for them to be successful because they can't read,
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they can't learn, they don't know very much, and that's the way
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that we're going to maintain them as slaves. I think reveals the hand that
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they know that this is bad while they're also trying to tell people that it's
17:30
good. Right, if it was good, then why are people trying to
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escape it? And why are you preventing them from learning? Like why wouldn't
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they just want to stay there anyway? So I think it shows, albeit
17:41
kind of subtly, even when they are sitting here saying that it's not that
17:45
bad, they very much understood how terrible it was, or at least they
17:48
had a sense of it right now. Most commonly when slaves did run away,
17:52
then they would run away from captivity and they'd escape to the northern quote
17:56
unquote free states or to Canada, which had abolished slavery decades before the United
18:02
States had, and so that was how they would sometimes get away, although
18:04
obviously the north was not always a safe place for them to be either,
18:08
Right, go Canada. At least, you know, at least they got
18:11
they got ahead of the game and got rid of it, I know,
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right. And another thing too to kind of and another thing because I feel
18:18
like that's what's going to keep happening here. Yeah. All those slavers use
18:19
the Bible to justify their slavery and ensured that the enslaved people were familiar with
18:23
the passages that talked about people working happily in their bondage. The enslaved would
18:27
also read the Bible and focus on the stories of exodus and stories about heroes
18:33
overcoming great odds, such as Daniel and David. Preachers would cite the Bible
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and ask that the lessons contained therein be impressed upon the heart of the air
18:41
pressors, such that the slaveholders would see the error of their ways and grant
18:45
freedom to the enslaved peoples. Yes, So, if we haven't made it
18:49
abundantly clear by now, slavery was unforgivably horrible, unforgivably horrible. Yes,
18:57
the new old argument now that slaves may have benefited from their time as slaves.
19:03
That's a thing that part of the reason that we're talking about this today,
19:06
part of what we have already alluded to in portions of this discussion,
19:10
is that there's this now conversation happening where in Florida people are being taught that
19:15
there may have been some benefit to being a slave. For those of you
19:18
who hear this and say, quote, they did do your homework, end
19:22
quote. If you're saying that to us and we're saying that they did not
19:26
benefit as slaves, first, you're an apple. Second, there was some
19:30
evidence that some slaves were able to use some of their experience and subsequent employment.
19:34
But major caveats need to be unpacked to understand that at all. Right,
19:41
first, we have no reason to think that they would have been unable
19:44
to get those jobs even without their experience. So there's nothing to say that
19:48
their experience working in an enslaved space was the thing that gave them the skill
19:52
to work that job. They probably could have very likely would have gotten that
19:55
job without that experience to begin with. Also, they could have gotten that
19:59
and much better experience without ever having to have been slaves. There's obviously training
20:04
and intern mentorships, like people gain jobs without having been slaves for you know,
20:11
all of human history, since we've ever had jobs. So that is
20:15
just a nonsense argument. That's how learning works. Yes, Also, no
20:18
one would have voluntarily been an enslaved person to gain these skills, these hypothetical
20:23
skills, these hypothesized skills they talk about, Nobody would have done that voluntarily.
20:27
Also, having been a slave more likely and more often stifled the development
20:33
of effective skill building. They likely would have gotten much better training in other
20:37
situations. But just because they learned something doesn't mean that they learned a good
20:41
you know, learned a good amount or a good way of doing things.
20:44
They just may have had something that they learned, one they learned under coercion,
20:48
and two many of those places made it illegal for them to read,
20:52
so they had a hard time learning other things they could have learned, benefited
20:56
from, and had greater skills. So right, so it's stifled the developments.
21:00
So much to unpack here. So the original argument that enslaved people benefited
21:04
from slavery, it implies that there are benefits to slavery in general, besides
21:07
all the things that we just talked about. Any silver lining here is a
21:11
disgusting attempt to minimize suffering and victimization. If you try to defend slavery,
21:15
you like, there is no way to defend it without outing yourself as a
21:22
as an inherent racist. Yeah, just because someone can find ways to make
21:26
use of their traumatic experiences does not justify putting them through traumatic experiences. The
21:33
victim may subsequently choose to Like, let's say you have a victim of assault,
21:37
they may choose to subsequently get extremely skilled in self defense. This does
21:42
not mean that assault then wasn't so bad. Like you wouldn't say that someone
21:48
who is a victim of sexual assault then like gained useful skills. They're like,
21:52
oh, well, at least now you're going to be more attentive to
21:56
strangers who are around you. I think that is an extremely offensive and inappropriate
22:02
position to take. They would have never wanted to have been assaulted, even
22:06
if it meant that they got better at attending to strangers, even if it
22:08
meant that they got better to self defense. That is an asinine, stupid
22:14
argument to make that nobody should be making. Like, just because there's some
22:18
ever silver lining to two, that does not mean that being a victim was
22:22
ever an okay thing for that to have happened. Yeah, right, Slavery
22:26
was not a job training exercise, and making an argument that there is silver
22:30
lining is not. It's so inappropriate. It's unfair to the folks that still
22:36
suffer from it, and it's a ridiculous. It's a ridiculous thing. They
22:40
think of it like they should never have to need You should never have to
22:42
need a silver lining. Yeah, that's as simple as that, Like you
22:45
should never have to say that there's a silver lining to this really bad thing,
22:48
because that bad thing shouldn't have happened to begin with. Yeah, absolutely,
22:52
Okay, Well, it's a little early for a break, but I
22:55
think it would be a kind of jarring segue to transition to our next topic.
23:00
Maybe not. I don't know. It's pretty on brandy, But let's
23:03
go ahead and let the advertisers do the thing and we'll come back with something
23:07
about Nazis. All right, So we've been talking about about slavery, the
23:18
conditions of slavery, and the thing is like the practice of American slavery.
23:23
And I mean, there's other things to talk about slavery outside of the United
23:26
States in the past, now and into the future, but one of the
23:32
interesting things is slavery and how it related to Nazi Germany and Hitler specifically.
23:36
So Adolf Hitler, for those of you who don't know, the leader of
23:41
the Nazi Party, was a huge fan of American racism. In his famous
23:45
book mindcomf Hitler celebrated and acknowledged America's great success in isolating citizenship based on race
23:52
by quote excluding certain races from naturalization end quote. Right. So, just
23:57
to be clear, Hitler found things like American slavery to be a good example
24:03
of how racism should be done. Yes, So just kind of keep that
24:07
in mind for those of you who are defending slavery. Just know that he
24:11
thought that that was like a really good practice. Hitler also pointed to the
24:14
treatment of indigenous people of North America as a demonstration of for concentration camps,
24:18
writing quote, concentration camps were not invented in Germany. It is the English
24:22
who are their inventors, using this institution to gradually break the backs of other
24:26
nations end quote. So again he just keeps going on. Basically, he
24:32
used America as an example for the Third Reich. Yeah, he loved what
24:36
America did. Hitler greatly admired the Jim Crow laws of the South that further
24:40
treated people with dark skin as a disparate species, unworthy of the same rights
24:44
and liberties as the quote dominant race end quote. He also further cited Jim
24:48
Crow laws and developing Nazi treatment of Jews, saying essentially, like, in
24:53
defense of this, everyone does this already, so it's okay for Germany to
24:57
do it too. Yeah. Yeah, Like that was Jim Crowe directly inspired
25:02
the ghettos. Yeah, I mean, there was probably other things that went
25:06
into it, but that was a variable that inspired the ghettos that he put
25:08
Jews into, Like America was a muse for the Holocaust. Yeah, it
25:12
was. American eugenists were also very popular among the Nazis, who directly applied
25:17
the hypothesis of eugenics into their genocidal campaign. So even then, eugenicists were
25:22
stoking fear and support of their claims by arguing that if people do not control
25:25
the breeding of quote undesirables, that minority groups would take over the white race
25:30
in America, which we still hear people say that today, which is absurd.
25:34
The great replacement theory is ridiculous. Yeah, California developed a sterilization program
25:38
in nineteen o nine that four sterilization of people who were quote feeble minded or
25:44
often incarcerated people. This directly inspired Nazi four sterilization programs in correspondence with their
25:48
eugenics movement. Yeah, California was not always the blue state it is today.
25:53
They actually very much led the way in some very oppressive policies for a
25:56
while. I think they also voted for Nicky. So yeah, this is
26:00
a relatively recent developments that it became a place of liberal ideas. Right anyway,
26:07
the American Immigration Act of nineteen twenty four imposed quotas and bands on who
26:11
could migrate to the country and from where. These laws focused specifically on Asian
26:15
countries and other countries with people of other races that might try to come to
26:19
the US, and it also prevented almost by design here, So this is
26:23
the American Immigration Act. This also prevented later many Jewish people from arriving to
26:29
the US during the Holocaust, including Anne Frank and her family. So where
26:33
we could have been as safe haven for people seeking asylum, we were not.
26:37
We were not. We were very isolationists at the time. Yeah,
26:41
we definitely have tried to close our borders to every single person, and it
26:44
became a real problem. I mean, it essentially forced us into the war
26:48
eventually. As much as we like to champion the US being a part of
26:52
the Allied forces against Germany, the things that we were doing directly helped and
26:57
benefited Hitler huh, Yeah, and gave him inspiration. Now, most horribly,
27:03
Nevada was the first US state to use a gas chemical to carry out
27:07
a death sentence of an incarcerated inmate. The chemical was Zyklon B, which
27:11
a chemist modified for use in the gas chambers in Auschwitz. So the US
27:15
was also directly responsible for the development of that particular method of death. Yep.
27:22
Oh, so that's what we're at. I guess so bad, Yeah,
27:26
okay now and into the future. So versions of slavery do still exist,
27:30
largely in the form of human trafficking, forced labor, human bondage,
27:34
sex trafficking, and involuntary prostitution, with as many as an estimated forty million
27:41
people who may be in some sort of bondage, although it has gotten increasingly
27:45
surreptitious and difficult to track, and there are countries still that use slave labor,
27:51
for example, mining precious metals and earth minerals that are used in things
27:55
like batteries, So that is a thing that also still goes on. You
28:00
know. I think this is one of those things where as we evolve as
28:03
a species, we end up having better descriptive language for things that occurring.
28:07
These things were happening before too, human trafficking, forced labor, human bondage,
28:11
like sex trafficking, in voluntary prostitution, This was happening before as well.
28:15
We just have better language for it. So like we're getting more specific
28:18
with these things, they've also gotten sneakier about it, right, right,
28:22
And so one of the questions that we posit here is that we want to
28:25
kind of know what benefit that Rohnda Santis thinks or would like to suppose these
28:29
enslaved people are getting from their captivity. I would love to know what he
28:32
thinks what these folks today are gaining from those experiences. Yeah, he sees
28:37
slavery is so good, So presumably he could find silver lining for the children
28:41
who would be in silk sex trafficked. So just as an implication of this,
28:44
I'm thinking that we could say that Rohn de Santis is generally in support
28:48
of the silver lining afforded by child sex trafficking. Yeah. I think that's
28:52
a pretty fair alignment with his views. It should be a little bit cautious
28:56
here because I believe that where this came out of was the board of people
29:00
that he put in position of power. That they're the ones who's who made
29:03
this change about slavery. So it's Ronda Santis is putting people in a position
29:07
who champion that sex slavery of children is a good thing. So Roda Santis
29:12
and friends is what you're saying, right, Yes and company? Yeah,
29:17
they work together? Fair Matt Gates, you know, yeah, well,
29:21
well we know he's a big fan of that. Yeah, yeah, so
29:26
I need a high a lawyer immediately. The Global Slavery Index has identified that
29:33
North Korea, Uzbekistan, Cambodia, India, and Qatar have the highest concentrations
29:40
of modern slavery. In case you're wondering where this is taking place, largely
29:42
today right their efforts to continue to end slavery. The website restavec Freedom offers
29:48
guidance as to how to recognize slavery and what to do if you see it.
29:52
And here's a direct quote from their site quote. If a person cannot
29:56
leave their job, reports low wages, isn't properly cared, or never speaks
30:00
for themselves, they may be victims of slavery. For children, look for
30:03
a lack of access to education, poor nutrition, shabby clothing, and a
30:07
lack of playtime. If you notice children's beds or clothing in factories or of
30:11
businesses where they don't belong, this is an indicator of child slavery. If
30:15
you recognize any of these signs, call the National Human Trafficking hot Line at
30:19
one eight eight eight three seven three seven eight eight eight to report it.
30:25
Yes, please do not let slavery and trafficking go unreported. Yes, people
30:30
will try and do something about it. Yeah, it could be less so
30:33
in Florida, but generally speaking, yeah, yeah. As a general rule,
30:37
people aren't all terrible, so people will try to do some work around
30:40
this. Yes, we do have some interesting tidbits to unpack, which is
30:44
a couple of things that have happened around this. So there's the thing called
30:48
misgenation. This is a marriage between two people of different ethnicities. It was
30:52
a term primarily used to deride such a practice as inappropriate or even gross at
30:57
the time that it was largely used in the seventeen and eighteen hundreds. Maryland
31:02
passed the very first anti miscegenation statute in sixteen sixty four, banning the marriage
31:07
between a black person and a white person, and of course many states soon
31:11
followed suit afterward. But what's interesting is that although these have been repealed over
31:15
time, and I think many of the later added states never had laws like
31:19
that to begin with. The very last state in the country to repeal their
31:25
ban on interracial marriage, which was Alabama, and they did so in Can
31:29
you guess what year? I have no idea. I think if you were
31:32
to guess, you might say like nineteen fifties, nineteen sixty It was the
31:34
year two thousand, two thousand, just twenty three years ago, as when
31:40
Alabama officially repealed their anti interracial marriage Like what the Galabama. Yeah, that
31:47
particular thing is a global phenomenon, Like that's not like unique to the United
31:51
States in terms of like right, Like, yeah, interracial marriage is I
31:53
mean, you listen to Trevor Noah's entire life story and he was like his
31:57
little his book is called a crime because he was the result of a crime
32:01
in South Africa during apartheid. So like, this is a thing that's occurring
32:06
everywhere. But man, the year two thousand, right, and people were
32:10
probably mad about it. People are still mad about it. I'm sure,
32:14
yeah, I bet you're probably right. They're probably going to say, like
32:16
how this is destroying the country and we're heading the wrong direction, Like that's
32:20
a talking point. I'm sure it happened, right, and maybe it is
32:22
happening right, is currently happening. I'm sure. Slavery was not considered globally
32:27
illegal until nineteen forty eight under the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights,
32:31
which you know was probably spawned after World War two and all the things that
32:37
came up. That was probably an important discussion to have in that space.
32:39
Now, maybe people have now heard of Juneteenth, as it is recently a
32:43
federal holiday in the United States. For those who are unfamiliar, the specific
32:47
day and reason for recognizing it comes from the fact that in Texas they decided
32:52
they just wouldn't tell the slaves the slavery had ended. They didn't have the
32:54
internet, they barely had phones, they probably didn't get national newspapers. So
32:59
there we're just gonna not say anything and keep them as sleaves. So on
33:02
June nineteenth, eighteen sixty five, two years after the Emancipation Proclamation went to
33:09
effect, General Gordon Granger ordered the final enforcement of the Emancipation Proclamation in Texas,
33:15
and the slaveholders were forced to let their slaves go. And even though
33:20
we can recognize that as being something that is good for us to acknowledge,
33:24
celebrate, take some time and bring attention to the black community and this thing
33:30
that is important to them for very understandable reasons. There are now even politicians
33:34
who are argued that we should get rid of Juneteenth. And but one of
33:37
the arguments that they make is that it's too new. We can't recognize everything
33:40
and give holidays to everything, they say, And I'm just like, what
33:45
the hell? First of all, like every holiday that we have was too
33:49
new at some point, right, and it is nevertheless state on the book.
33:52
And I think that having this one holiday does not mean that we're on
33:55
the slippery slope to nobody working. Ever, that is a nonsense argument to
34:00
make. So anyway, useful to know about Juneteenth, what it stands for,
34:04
what it means that people who argue that we should get rid of it
34:06
are ignorant? Asked, Yes, agreed? All right, I think we're
34:09
ready for some take on points. Yeah, I mean I think the biggest
34:13
takeco on point here is the slavery is and was and always will be a
34:16
disgusting, horrible, in human way to treat another person as if somehow their
34:21
lives are worth less than the people subjectating them. It was, it was
34:22
brutal. It is brutal too. I mean, let's be real, like
34:27
modern slavery is also brutal. It's also cruel, it's traumatizing, and as
34:30
close as anything can be through evil. It is purely evil through and through.
34:36
There is no benefit to it, and it does not make any sense
34:39
that anybody would advocate for the need to use this unless you're just an evil
34:44
person. And I think, you know, from we can take a sort
34:46
of scientific skeptical lens and say that there is no such thing as evil.
34:51
I'd be happy to have that argument and that discussion. But I think that,
34:55
like I said, this is as close as it gets to what we
34:58
would probably describe as being evil, and so that's obviously meaning that it's a
35:02
thing that we should stop and avoid and never do again ever to anybody.
35:06
Right. And I think another big tank Cope point for me here is that
35:08
the slaves won their freedom because they fought for it and all the ways,
35:12
and that they were able to, you know, but they should have never
35:15
had to fight for their freedom in the first place. These are human beings
35:17
that were treated as something other than human beings for a very long time,
35:21
and millions of people were treated this way. It's just it's a horrible stain
35:25
I think on the entire human race as a species historically, and hopefully one
35:30
that we can learn from and do better and never do again. Understanding that
35:35
is a thing that is still going on, but is a thing that needs
35:37
to end, and it needs to end flat out, like there is no
35:39
justification for it as a horrible, terrible practice that should have never started in
35:44
the first place and definitely should discontinue immediately and never can never happen again.
35:51
And you know, I don't know. This comes up sometimes where people are
35:53
like when certain industries get replaced, and they're like, oh, now those
35:58
people out of a job, And I'm like, I do understand the necessity
36:01
of like having employment, making money, being able to support yourself, and
36:06
like that. If there is a necessary evil, then in some ways capitalism
36:09
is it. Although I think you could also argue that is entirely unnecessary.
36:14
I shed no tears for the captors of enslaved children who lose their job,
36:17
none whatsoever, Like there is no reason feel sorry for that. Yeah,
36:22
that's not a job that anyone should have. Right, There's no justification in
36:24
maintaining an industry just because somebody might lose their job if the industry goes away,
36:29
if the industry is a terrible one that is hurting people, right,
36:31
not a thing that I think you can justify, right, And I think
36:35
going back to kind of the essence and the understanding of the why we started
36:39
the show, right, the why we do what we do part of this
36:42
like why did people do this thing? And it ultimately came down to a
36:45
lot of profit. I mean people made a lot of money and gained a
36:49
lot of resources and a lot of wealth on the backs of the folks that
36:52
were enslaved. I mean that is really a primary driver for a lot of
36:58
folks that were involved in this. Now, why did they go so far
37:00
as to horrifically abuse and treat folks the way they did? And then that's
37:05
that's an entirely different conversation. But when we start unpacking this and we start
37:08
looking at what was going on, what were the primary motivators and what's the
37:13
context? I mean, it really came down to gaining more resources as a
37:16
result of this particular industry. Yeah, exactly. Okay, Well, I
37:23
think that's what we have to say about slavery. Is there anything else you'd
37:25
like to add before we wrap up for today, Shane, I would just
37:29
like to add that it's bad. It's just bad. I don't know why
37:31
we have to say that. I don't know why. It's it's ridiculous that
37:34
we have to say it, but like it is, bad. It's a
37:36
really bad thing. So the last thing I would add is spend some time
37:39
reading about the effects of this, because we just talked about it up and
37:44
through up through you know, the emancipation and kind of like some of the
37:46
stuff that leads up to World War Two, but we have not talked about
37:49
the long lasting ramifications of this particular time in history. And it's really important
37:55
to know that this is, you know, while there is modern slavery,
38:00
everything that we've seen and everything we've talked about has rippled through our entire society
38:04
and continues to impact marginalized volts. Yes, yeah, And I think there
38:07
is a thing that I actually wanted to add in that I kind of forgot
38:10
about, which is that there is also a version of slave labor that kind
38:14
of exists in how the prison system often treats prisoners, yes, and forcing
38:17
them to do labor for next to nothing or sometimes nothing. It looks sort
38:22
of like indentured servitude sometimes but looks like slavery at other times. So I
38:24
think that there's another version of where this exists, and it's worth unpacking at
38:30
some point the prison system more generally, and why it's not appropriate to even
38:32
treat prisoners as slaves. I think that does come back to at some level
38:37
that we need to be humans treating other humans as humans, and understanding even
38:40
when we justify, for one reason or another incarcerating someone and taking away their
38:45
general liberty and freedom, that we still shouldn't treat them in humanely. Right.
38:49
So that's I think a discussion for down the road, but one that
38:52
I forgot that I wanted to include as part of our talk today. Sure,
38:55
I think it's an important discussion. I agree we should have never had
38:59
to say that this is bad, but we find ourselves in that position now,
39:01
I guess. So, Yeah, thanks Ron. Yeah. Indeed,
39:06
also by the way, Ron, child sex slavery is bad, just in
39:08
case, just in case you weren't aware. Yeah, no silver linings there,
39:13
Okay, But I think that's what we have to say. We do
39:15
have some recommendations to give, which is a part where we'd like to share
39:17
some recommendations that we have. Usually it's something that we've found joying, but
39:21
sometimes it's like an activity or a thing that you do, and we'll talk
39:22
about that in a second. First I need to acknowledge that again, if
39:25
you'd like to support the show. You can join us on Patreon. If
39:28
you do that, you get access to all these behind the scenes content,
39:30
bonus materials, and add free episodes. The people who have done that,
39:34
who would make this show possible, we are eternally grateful to, and that
39:37
includes Mike m Megan, Layla, Mike T, Justin Kim, Joshua,
39:43
Brad, Stephanie, Olivia, Brian and Ashley. Thank you all so much
39:45
for everything that you do. Also, thank you so much to my team.
39:49
Right now we have writting and fact checking from Shane and myself, audio
39:52
production and editing from Justin, and our social media coordinator is Emma Wilson.
39:58
Thank you all very much to my team for you, guys is doing just
40:00
the amazing work that you do, allowing the show to continue on what it
40:02
is doing. Thanks for having us. Yeah, of course, thank you
40:06
everyone to listening. Thank you for recording with me today. Shane, go
40:08
vote for us for Podcast Awards dot Com for our final round of votes.
40:12
We're hoping to clinch that win, but of course we're super stoked dig even
40:15
be considered for that, So thank you for those who did vote. Thank
40:17
you if you do, go and vote anything else before we get to recommendations.
40:22
Nope, nothing else on my end, Lovely, let's do it recommendations.
40:34
Okay, I am recommend this is tangential to slavery, but I'm gonna
40:37
go ahead and recommend this movie that is very old now called Schindler's List from
40:42
director Steven Spielberg. If you haven't seen it already, it is a heartbreaking
40:45
movie that has a lot of ups and downs. I think it's an extremely
40:50
well done movie. It is not a feel good movie, but it's an
40:52
extremely well done movie that's largely about the Holocaust and people there and and specifically
40:58
one German person who tried to help us man aid you people as he possibly
41:00
could, after initially doing a bunch of the wrong things and then he did
41:02
the right thing. But right. Yeah, so that's that's a movie.
41:06
It is a heavy watch, but it's a good watch. So I recommend
41:08
it. Yeah, it is a good one. It is a good one.
41:10
Over the last couple episodes, I've been thinking about, you know,
41:14
this is such a big topic and it's really difficult to unpack, and I
41:16
and I thought it would be good to give somebody of like some folks recommendations
41:21
to as a starting point. For kind of improving processes around this or kind
41:24
of thoughts or actions around this. So my recommendation is the work of W.
41:30
E. B. Du Boys or some people will say du Bois.
41:34
I've seen both of those and heard both of those, But right now I'm
41:37
looking at the annunciation guy that says d Boys, I would pronounce a du
41:40
Blas, but that's I'm not who am I to say. So he was
41:45
a civil rights activist. He did a lot of really great work in the
41:49
United States around improving civil rights for black folks. He's done a lot of
41:53
writings, and a lot of kind of anti racist writings are written, like
41:57
started and kind of referenced his work to begin with. He was one of
42:00
the founders of the NAACP, and he probably deserves his own episode just because
42:05
of the amount of stuff that he has done in the work that he's done
42:07
around that it's probably worth unpacking. But I strongly recommend that if you ever
42:13
get a chance, if you are interested in doing more work around anti racist
42:16
work or just kind of understanding systemic racism and all that stuff, he is
42:21
a good place to start. Yeah, he is kind of like one of
42:23
the people that had a lot of the seminal works around kind of creating the
42:29
anti racist movement. So definitely don't sleep on his work. He's done some
42:31
really powerful things. So that's just a starting place for you. That's great.
42:36
I've definitely read some snippets and excerpts. I've never read an entire piece
42:38
that he has written. I know that Ibram X Kendy, who wrote the
42:42
book on How to Be An Anti Racist, referenced a lot but also had
42:45
some criticisms of Dubois. Sure, yeah, which I think is fair and
42:49
legitimate. So I think we've recommended How to be an Anti Racist on this
42:51
podcast before, but that's what we certainly had some absolutely fantastic book to go
42:54
check out. I think is a good pair to this book or not.
42:59
Obviously the you're not refly a specific book, but I think if you read
43:00
some W. E. B. Du Bois, if you read some mm
43:04
x Kendy, I think you'll have a good, well rounded history sort of
43:07
anti racism and civil rights work. I'm glad that you said that, like
43:10
you like you know, putting somebody up on a pedestal and kind of creating
43:15
a monolith out of a single person. For any sort of work around that
43:17
is really detrimental to your learning. So definitely pear that up and you really
43:22
like know that he created a lot of stuff, but also know that there
43:25
are some discussions around that, so you have to see all the discussions around
43:29
the folks that are impacted by this. Yeah, great, love that.
43:31
Okay, so we ended with some heavier recommendations as well. But if you
43:35
would like to tell us anything that we got right, if you like to
43:37
provide some constructive and kind criticism, you can email us directly. We'd like
43:40
to hear if you'd like to tell us anything at all. I mean,
43:43
you can just tell us about what a great day you had today. You
43:45
can email us directly. Info at WWDWWD podcast dot com. You can reach
43:50
out to us on all the social media platforms. As I said, leave
43:52
us are writing in review. Subscribe so you don't miss any future episodes.
43:54
Thank you so much for listening. Is there anything else you need to add
43:58
before we wrap it up today? Shane El's on my end. All right,
44:00
then, this is Abraham and this is a Shane and we are out.
44:04
See. Yup, you've been listening to why we do what we do?
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