Slavery still present today

“We have long lived in a world where everyday objects embody labor in another corner of the earth. Often we do not know where the things we use come from, or the working conditions of those who made them.” Hochschild, 6


We usually think of slavery as something of the past, something we have overcome. Even though we have come a long way since then, there are roughly 12-27 million people that are still in slavery today which was brought up in class during our discussion on abolition. Between 600,000 and 800,000 are trafficked internationally, and about 17,500 are trafficked to the U.S. It does not help that we are a consumer driven nation, constantly demanding low prices. But if we are not paying full price for the product, then someone else is. The point of slavery is to increase profit with paying little to nothing for labor. We should be making an effort to find where our products are being made, and by whom because we could very well be supporting slavery and not know it.


I read this article a couple months ago about young girls from West Africa who were brought to the U.S., their parents were assured that they were going to receive a better education. Instead they were forced to work long hours in a braid shop, enduring all kinds of abuse while none of their customers knew that they were actually slaves.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/12/02/slave.labor.ring.busted/index.html?iref=allsearch


This article scared me into the realization that while something as simple as getting your hair done could be helping support someone else’s suffering. The majority of today’s slaves are said to be in Asia, where about 9.5 million people are slaves in agricultural, industrial or sex work. Hmm…isn’t Asia where most of our products made? Something to think about.

"Brute Beasts"

“Exterminate all the Brutes” by Sven Lindqvist had one section in which he described the brutal massacre of the Tasmanians. The colonists came and continually moved in on their land, pushing them out of their native land and treating them as “brute beasts”. As the population of whites continued to grow and push out the native Tasmanians, they were forced to steal and fend for themselves and in return were punished for their attempt at survival.

“We Europeans were modified and improved descendants of the Tasmanians. So according to the logic Darwinian patricide, we were forced to exterminate our parent species. That included all the ‘savage races’ of the world. They were doomed to share the fate of the Tasmanians.”- Lindqvist, 114

This way of thinking could be compared to what happened during the Holocaust, Rwanda, or any genocide. It is the idea that there is a superior race, therefore justifying wiping out a group of people. This does not just happen because it was “destined” to, it was the belief that the natives that were invaded were simply in the way of what the “superior” race wanted, and because the natives were considered “savages”, it was passable to wipe them out completely. Because they lived differently and did not look like Europeans, they were like animals in the colonist’s eyes.

This reminded me of how we had read about barriers between cultures, and how this is a good example of how the unfamiliar instills fear, creates hate and makes us act out of hate. Like we had discussed in class we cannot push the ones who did this to the Tasmanians into a different category, pushing them away from us as if they were so different. What would we have done if we were there and were brought up to believe that this act towards those different than us was acceptable? I am in no way trying to justify what had been done, but it is something to think about. Not being familiar with different cultures and thinking there is a superior race are how the problems started. Although we have moved away from the idea of some groups being “savages”, we still have not completely moved out of the mindset of there being superiority between different cultures and races.

Breaking Barriers

Martha Nussbaum writes in “Cultivating Humanity” about recognizing humanity and not letting nationality, class, or ethnicity create barriers between each other. She goes on to say that we should still be focusing on “the self” and everything that surrounds it, which leads to humanity itself. Humanity should be the main focus as it encompasses all nationalities, classes, and ethnicities. The only thing stopping unity within humanity is the barriers people place between themselves and other cultures. The lack of education concerning cultures that is not one’s own is what creates this idea of superiority. It is difficult to not be prideful towards something that one was first exposed to and is the most familiar. Because of the lack of knowledge, there is a lack of understanding, meaning an unwillingness for acceptance. The only way to move humanity forward in uniting and finding a center is to be educated so that we may accept and have a better understanding for each other’s differences.

“Imagine that all human beings are limbs of a single body, cooperating for the sake of common purposes.” – Nussbaum, 64

Because humanity is like a single body, it will never work properly and serve its’ main purpose unless the “limbs” fully cooperate and work together to form a single movement. If the limbs are not moving together but in different directions, then the body is going nowhere. Rather than building these barriers there should be an embracing of differences, otherwise there will not be any improvement within humanity.

“We were born to labor together, like the feet, the hands, the eyes, and the rows of the upper and lower teeth. To work against one another is therefore contrary to nature, and to be angry against a man or turn one’s back on him is to work against him.”  Nussbaum, 64

There is a reason for our differences, so rather than work against them, they should be used towards a greater purpose since that is what they were intended for by nature. To go against that is to go against ourselves in the end. If our main issue towards breaking our barriers is lack of understanding, then it is our job to be educating one another to save humanity.