re: #46 The Ghost of a Flea

There’s a lot of dark stuff to unpack in the “better off under slavery” thing.

Today it occurred to me that it’s not just about race as justification for slavery, but also about denying all the abuses inherent in the system.

The arbitrary physical violence?

The rapes, and the subsequent chattelage of one’s own children?

The police state invested with the ability to surveil suspected abolitionists, to confiscate and destroy all printed/written abolitionist materials, and detain any suspected sympathizer? The death penalty for abolitionists,,,and/or the collaboration of legal authorities in lynching or extralegal murders?

All of this is handwaved. It’s exaggeration, lies, propaganda.

There is a part of me that wonders if the “better under slavery” language might also be a way of softening up people for a return to legal chattel slavery, you know where your food and shelter were provided for you if you worked for someone for life with no chance of ever leaving? No more living paycheck to paycheck, right?