Juneteenth
America has a new holy day where we celebrate the end of American slavery. This is a good thing to celebrate. This is a good thing to do. This is a good achievement for our country. Unfortunately, this is also a lie. For a moment, let's ignore our more unconventional slavery. Let's ignore the slavery that has taken place "underground". Let's ignore the slavery that we have outsourced to third world nations through our imports. Let's even ignore the treatment of our migrant workers which we keep in check by threatening to deport them. Let's ignore the millions of "jobs" that don't pay a living wage.
I'd like to talk about our tradition of maintaining slavery by other means. I'm talking about our tradition of keeping blacks in involuntary servitude under names other slavery. I'm talking about tweaking our institutions to follow the letter of the law without ever following the intent of the law.
Share cropping - contracts with farmers that tied workers to their land with any hope of profit or escape
Truck system - laborers were paid in tokens that could only be spent in a company store
Prison labor - make everything that blacks do illegal, place them in jail and then require them to work for pennies on the dollar
Add that up together and you get a system where slavery has never ended.