Secrets of the City

Some of the links in this post via Metafilter.

*There may be more slaves now than any time in human history*

What a stupid quote. I can also state there are more Redheads now than any time in human history! Woohoo! Oh oh – I have another one – there are more PEOPLE in the world than any time in history!

(yes slavery is bad – I just get pissed off at bad reporting and sensationalist meaningless quotes)

I think it’s a useful quote in that people tend to think slavery has all but ended. Your criticism would make sense if slavery had just continued on, unabated — then of course there would be more slaves, because there are a lot more people. But if people think it is seen as a universal evil and has been pretty well outlawed, then the fact that there aren’t less slaves than when the U.S. outlawed slavery, but more — well, that’s pretty astounding.

What you can do about slavery.

What businesses can do.

Has anyone seen C.S.A? Uncomfortably funny at times, creepy and scary the whole way through.

Charles S. Anderson?

There was a story out of Rochester last year or the year before involving a rich woman who kept a poor immigrant as a slave and wouldn’t let her out of the house. She broke free and the woman was convicted of slavery, I think. If I had time, I’d look it up, maybe when I get home.

Also, the best law on the books regarding immigration is that if a person is brought to the US as a slave, including sex workers, and if they testify against their captors, they can stay in the country if they were here illegally.

I remember this story from just last year, but they were in New York.

Miller, heh…no, it’s a movie that shows what the US may have been like if the South had won the Civil War and if slavery wasn’t abolished.

That makes more sense. Although, much of Anderson’s stuff is uncomfortably funny, some could be considered creepy, or even scary.

DouglasG – That woman in the article – the one who was holding those women as slaves – yikes! I wonder where they found a jury of her peers who wouldn’t take one look at her and say, “Yup, she did it.”

1. Max has used up his weekly allotment of the word “disquieting” in one day. Hope you’ve made arrangements to use other words for the rest of the week, Sparber.

2. @alie: I started watching CSA but I didn’t finish it. It was really unsettling to me. So much so that I didn’t find it as funny as I should have. I wasn’t offended, just disturbed.

3. Did anyone ever see the news story about the diplomats in DC who enslaved their cleaning lady and how they pretty much got off scott-free because of diplomatic immunity?

4. Anyone who watches enough MSNBC hears all about all kinds of human trafficking and slavery.

Max has used up his weekly allotment of the word “disquieting” in one day.

Well, that’s disquieting.

Bix, yeah, that’s pretty much why I stopped watching it too. I could see why parts would be funny in a satirical way, but I just couldn’t laugh. Frankly, after watching it for about a half an hour I started to get a little freaked out.

But if people think it is seen as a universal evil and has been pretty well outlawed, then the fact that there aren’t less slaves than when the U.S. outlawed slavery

Don’t be self-righteous. Just because the US outlawed slavery didn’t mean the rest of the world ever did. Slavery continued to exist around the world, especially in the area around the Horn of Africa, long after the Emancipation Proclamation. Both Britain and France outlawed slavery decades before Lincoln did; the US had to fight a civil war before the practice was abolished in this country.

Similar to slavery but in more wide-spread practice is the concept of indentured servitude. The only real differences are that the indentured servant gets paid (a trifle) and has a contract expiration.

Oh, I agree, Noodleman. I think I was being less self-righteous than self-absorbed, in that I suspect it’s pretty common for Americans to think about slavery only in terms of the United States, and to be unaware that it continues after it was outlawed here, and still continues.