I think a really important point about why we need to understand that slave owners were not all diabolical eeeevil people cackling in their grand estates and twirling their mustaches in between their daily slave beatings is because we need to be able to recognize similar evils that go on today. If you say: "The only people who perpetuated these travesties against human dignity had hooved feet and horns sticking out of their heads!" then you can go ahead and think that unless you see some hooved horned people running around, nothing like slavery is ever going to happen again (or indeed, is happening now). If you recognize that what we now see as a travesty against human dignity was, in its time, actually quite acceptable, then we can look at things that are acceptable now with a different eye.
When I talk to the 'ALL SLAVERY IS BAD!' group, I generally ask them how much do they pay for their produce? Do they make sure that they only buy from farms where the farmhands get a living wage? Also, where do they buy their clothes? Do they know that all of the companies they buy clothes from have fair business practices in terms of their factory conditions, etc? What about the inexpensive jewelry that they wear? I recently read an article that talked about children in India who are, quite literally, bought and sold and who make cheap bangle bracelets all day. Their parents sell them to the factories for about US $35.
The truth is that our society still rests on the shoulders of an underclass that, while not actually enslaved, might as well be, and someday, there are going to be immature people looking back at us and calling US demons because we didn't raise arms and do something about it. But the economic realities for many people are that they quite simply cannot afford to only buy produce from farms where the farmhands are all paid a living wage, and they cannot afford to only buy clothing that was made in good working conditions.
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Date: 2005-11-24 10:21 pm (UTC)When I talk to the 'ALL SLAVERY IS BAD!' group, I generally ask them how much do they pay for their produce? Do they make sure that they only buy from farms where the farmhands get a living wage? Also, where do they buy their clothes? Do they know that all of the companies they buy clothes from have fair business practices in terms of their factory conditions, etc? What about the inexpensive jewelry that they wear? I recently read an article that talked about children in India who are, quite literally, bought and sold and who make cheap bangle bracelets all day. Their parents sell them to the factories for about US $35.
The truth is that our society still rests on the shoulders of an underclass that, while not actually enslaved, might as well be, and someday, there are going to be immature people looking back at us and calling US demons because we didn't raise arms and do something about it. But the economic realities for many people are that they quite simply cannot afford to only buy produce from farms where the farmhands are all paid a living wage, and they cannot afford to only buy clothing that was made in good working conditions.