Was slavery really so bad?
Dear Dale:
One of my co-workers is a white supremacist who’s always talking about the good old days when black people were slaves and did all the dirty work like picking cotton or raising children while we sat on the veranda drinking mint juleps and talking about honor. It certainly sounds good but I’m not so sure. What do you think? Was slavery really so bad?
Signed,
Whistling Dixie
Dear WD:
This is a tough one. I mean, who wouldn’t want a bunch of slaves doing all his chores for him? I could use one just to clean the empties out of my car.
Then again, you got to look at it from the slaves’ point of view. Those people had lives too and my guess is they didn’t want to spend all day working in the hot sun. I sure wouldn’t.
(And don’t either. As soon as the temperature hits 85, I park my lawnmower behind a tree and head for the comfort station. Health and safety, after all.)
So I did a bit of research and it turns out your buddy is right. In the old days, anyway. Two armies would face off and, after the slaughter was over, the winners took the losers as slaves. No hard feelings. Just the way it was.
(Like pro sports where, after the game, they line up and shake hands. You think losing the championship is bad? Imagine having to spend the rest of your life polishing the guy’s trophy. Plus paint his house and cut his grass.)
Or, even easier, a group of warriors would raid a village, kill all the men, steal the livestock and take the chicks and kids for slaves.
(Talk about a rough childhood.)
Now, admittedly, that would suck but if you were a loyal slave who did what you were told, you could, in time, gain the trust of your master and come to be seen as a member of the family.
(Like being adopted by the psychopath who killed your parents.)
So it wasn’t all bad.
Not only that. If you worked really hard, usually as a soldier, you could rise through the ranks. Maybe even to the top. Become king or emperor.
Like the Romans. Their empire was built on slavery.
(The original labor-saving device.)
That and crucifixion, their answer for everything. Poison your master? The cross. Lead a slave rebellion? The cross. Preach peace and love? The cross.
People put them down, just because they killed Jesus — crucify one Savior and no one ever lets you forget it — but they were pretty progressive. Didn’t care what color you were or which god you worshipped. So long as you paid your taxes and were willing to slaughter your fellow barbarians, you could become a citizen and own slaves yourself. Talk about open-minded.
But then Rome fell and the good times came to an end: the supply of slaves stopped and, for a while there, it looked like the rich might actually have to do some work. But then someone, a lazy fuck no doubt, had a bright idea.
Let’s turn everyone into slaves, he said. Call them serfs instead.
(These days, we call that a rebrand. Or, as my bartender Bob calls it, bullshit. Like when someone finds poison in a soft drink so they change the name and packaging. Or when your boss gives you a promotion with a fancy title and a lot more work and but no extra money or benefits.)
And so you got the Middle Ages. People still spoke Latin and drank wine but they were Christians so it wasn’t any fun. You only got a sip or two and they purposefully tried to put you off by telling it was the blood of Jesus.
(Even now, if you grab the cup and gulp it down, people look at you funny.)
But then, having chased out the Moslems and Jews and tired of torturing their own for not being Christian enough, the Spanish built some ships and went looking for heathens to torment. And boy, did they find them.
First stop, Hispaniola. Used to be a great place. A beautiful island, full of fun-loving natives who spent their days fishing, farming and fucking.
But Columbus took care of that. He and his buddies hit that island like a motorcycle gang crashing a Girl Guides’ picnic.
True, the natives fucked up. Treated the Spanish like friends, giving them food and drink and offering them gifts of gold.
Big mistake.
(Piece of advice: If a bunch of strangers suddenly show up in sailing ships, carrying swords and waving Bibles, kill them all. You’ll be glad you did.)
Poisoned by their greed for gold, the Spaniards treated them like shit. Made the men work in mines and used the women as cumbuckets.
Not only that. Told them they were sinners who should repent. Made them wear clothes and listen to some fat fuck read the Bible while they starved in the muck.
You know, civilized them.
Eventually, they just gave up. Stopped having sex and died out as a people. Fragments of their DNA remain, buried in the blood of their conquerors, but, as a tribe, they’re gone.
Paved paradise. Put up a gold mine.
Fortunately, there was another continent, just across the Atlantic, with a long and glorious history of slavery.
(The first sign of civilization.)
Not only that. Unlike the natives who, besides being strangely reluctant to waste their lives making the Spanish rich, had an unfortunate tendency to succumb to disease, the Africans were strong.
So strong they could endure a life of abuse and not complain about it. On the contrary, they sang. Joyful stuff, about cracking Jimmy’s corn and other good times. What eventually became the blues.
So when the Spanish ran out of Indians, they replaced them with Africans who, captured by their fellow countrymen and crammed into slavers — like cruise ships, only not as nice — were given a free trip to America.
Which worked out really well since you needed something to fill those ships for the third part of the journey: besides gold and silver, you had sugar and spice and everything nice going to Europe, manufactured goods to Africa and slaves to the New World.
(Talk about adding value.)
This went on for centuries. Until people started feeling guilty about living off the suffering of others. Ones they could see anyway.
Some people, especially in England and the northern part of America, even started to think their slaves might be human.
Got so bad we fought a war over it. Which the anti-slavery side won.
And so black people were finally free to face prejudice and discrimination as second-class citizens. They had all the obligations of their former masters — pay taxes and die in pointless wars — with none of the benefits: the right to vote or drink from a clean water fountain.
Took another hundred years for folks to decide that was no good either, that black people are entitled to the same shitty social services as the rest of us.
(Some people, like your co-worker, still haven’t gotten the news.)
Still, there’s no denying they did well. Not only in music but sports as well. Take out all the Blacks and Latinos and what’s left? Hockey. Which is fine in winter but what are you going to watch in summer? Soccer? Yeah, right.
Now, of course, everything is perfect. Martin Luther’s dream came true and we live in a land of equal opportunity where anyone, so long as he’s rich and has excellent connections, can succeed. God bless America.
But the truth is… slavery never went away. It just got outsourced. To the little children of Povertistan. What do they need school for, anyway?
(Free trade sounds good. Until you learn what it really means: free to pay the desperate citizens of developing countries as little as possible.)
And then there’s addiction. Why stand over a slave with a whip when you can control him with an ad campaign? Fool him into thinking smoking is cool or that he needs a new smartphone, just because the latest model has an extra button. If he thinks it’s his choice, he’ll come running to you with his money.
(Good thing I’m just an alcoholic and drug addict. No chains on me.)
Finally, there’s debt slavery. Like in India, where people borrow huge sums of money for fancy weddings. Or America, where people go hopelessly in debt for the fetish of a diploma that qualifies them for nothing. Not only do they never escape their obligations but, thanks to loan-shark-style interest, usually die owning more than they borrowed.
(At least Indian weddings are colorful.)
So next time your co-worker starts talking about the good old days when slavery was legal and inferiors knew their place, tell him we’re still there. Because the truth is, we’re all the proprietors of an invisible plantation, our every greedy and deviant desire satisfied by the sweat of the servile: from the Mexicans who pick our produce to the Congolese who dig our cobalt to the Cambodians who suck our cock, all the world’s a slave camp. You just didn’t see it before. Now you do. Hope this helps.
Sincerely,
Dale
Hi. If you’ve made it this far, you probably liked the story. So why not check out some others at my Medium page? https://medium.com/dear-dale
