Atlantic: My Family’s Slave

[BornaSkinsFan83]

20 minutes ago, stevemcqueen1 said:

 

Also saw the comparison to 19th century slavery in America coming too.  Tizon used the word deliberately.  I think it was a form of self flagellation, as well as a way to draw attention to the story and the issues at play.  But the word slave in America means something different.  Our system of slavery was different--a chattel system that was legally and racially grounded.  It's very different from the sort of exploitative domestic servitude that was going on in this story.

 

Just in the middle of writing you a PM...like to keep my personal shade for there

 

But yeah, I'm puzzled by how people are able to completely dismiss or even ignore the whole cultural assimilation and cross-cultural conflict elements of the story. I mean it's only central to understanding the authors entire freaking POV. Throw in a dysfunctional family and yeah. It's not surprising that his siblings made the same decisions. Or are they all pieces of **** too? 

 

I'd like to think that I would make some different decisions than him but who knows really? Because to be in that same situation I would have to not be anymore. Thus I can see and understand how such a thing happens. And not to sound like a prick but I don't think it's really all that complicated either. 

[SkinInsite]

It might feel good to crucify this family all day long but it does nothing for the millions others in the same situation all over the world.

 

Lets face the facts, a lot of the things we take for granted are from for what can be classified as slave labor.

[Destino]

45 minutes ago, stevemcqueen1 said:

Also saw the comparison to 19th century slavery in America coming too.  Tizon used the word deliberately.  I think it was a form of self flagellation, as well as a way to draw attention to the story and the issues at play.  But the word slave in America means something different.  Our system of slavery was different--a chattel system that was legally and racially grounded.  It's very different from the sort of exploitative domestic servitude that was going on in this story.

 

He used the word because it fit.  She was treated like a pet, not a person.  She was owned, beaten, denied medical care, denied an education, denied privacy, and denied an identity of her own.  There wasn't a single choice that this woman was able to make in her own life the moment she landed in the US.  

[Going Commando]

34 minutes ago, Destino said:

 

He used the word because it fit.  She was treated like a pet, not a person.  She was owned, beaten, denied medical care, denied an education, denied privacy, and denied an identity of her own.  There wasn't a single choice that this woman was able to make in her own life the moment she landed in the US.  

 

It doesn't fit.  Slave means there would be some sort of legal or customary institution establishing and defining Lola's situation.  That is not established by the article.  And from what Elessar wrote earlier in the thread, this kind of practice was unheard of.  Lola's situation is more accurately described as being the abused member of a really ****ed up dyfunctional family--an immigrant family where, as BornaSkinsFan said, there are very complex cross cultural issues at play that make the situation difficult for us to understand.

[Kosher Ham]

2 hours ago, Gamebreaker said:

He could've blown the whistle on this decades ago.

 

Absolutely. This man knew what slavery was, he learned about it in school, witnessed the abuse (yes it was abuse), simply ignored it... turned a blind eye. 

This guy is worthless. You don't have the stones to call out your family, friends, or peers, you are a useless individual...that deserves ZERO respect. 

Pathetic. 

[Popeman38]

10 minutes ago, stevemcqueen1 said:

 

It doesn't fit.  Slave means there would be some sort of legal or customary institution establishing and defining Lola's situation.  That is not established by the article.  And from what Elessar wrote earlier in the thread, this kind of practice was unheard of.  Lola's situation is more accurately described as being the abused member of a really ****ed up dyfunctional family--an immigrant family where, as BornaSkinsFan said, there are very complex cross cultural issues at play that make the situation difficult for us to understand.

OK, because SM says it isn't slavery it isn't slavery. Forgive us unenlightened peons for reading a story written right before the author dies and disagreeing with your unquestionable interpretation. 

 

Dude owned a slave. She was duped into a life of slavery much in the same way Nepalese and Bangladeshi are duped into slavery in Gulf countries to build their luxury accommodations. They have no legal rights, they have no means of escape, they have NOTHING.

 

But by all means, keep calling the AUTHOR a victim because he had a dysfunctional family. 

[Destino]

16 minutes ago, stevemcqueen1 said:

 

It doesn't fit.  Slave means there would be some sort of legal or customary institution establishing and defining Lola's situation.  That is not established by the article.  And from what Elessar wrote earlier in the thread, this kind of practice was unheard of.  Lola's situation is more accurately described as being the abused member of a really ****ed up dyfunctional family--an immigrant family where, as BornaSkinsFan said, there are very complex cross cultural issues at play that make the situation difficult for us to understand.

 

This kind of practice is not unheard of, this is from anti-slavery.org: 

 

Quote

What is domestic slavery?

Domestic work is a sector which is particularly vulnerable to exploitation and domestic slavery because of the unique circumstances of working inside a private household combined with a lack of legal protection.
 

Domestic workers perform a range of tasks in private homes including: cooking, cleaning, laundry, taking care of children and the elderly and running errands. Some domestic workers also live in their employers’ homes and are often considered ‘on call’ to undertake work for their employer 24 hours a day.

The pay is often very low, with wage payments frequently delayed. Some domestic workers may not be paid at all or only receive ‘payment in kind’ such as food or accommodation.

For some domestic workers, the circumstances and conditions of their work amount to slavery. This happens when employers stop domestic workers from leaving the house, don’t pay wages, use violence or threats, withhold their identity documents, limit their contact with family and force them to work.

That last bit sound familiar? 

 

This is from endslaverynow.org:

Quote

Domestic servitude is the seemingly normal practice of live-in help that is used as cover for the exploitation and control of someone, usually from another country. It is a form of forced labor, but it also warrants its own category of slavery because of the unique contexts and challenges it presents.

 

Victims of domestic servitude may appear to be nannies or other domestic help, but the moment their employment arrangement transitions into a situation whereby they cannot leave on their own free will, it becomes a case of enslavement.
 

The circumstances of live-in help can create unique vulnerabilities for victims. Domestic workplaces are connected to off-duty living quarters and often not shared with other workers. Such an environment can isolate domestic workers and is conducive to exploitation because authorities cannot inspect homes as easily as they can formal workplaces.

Domestic servitude can also be a form of bonded labor. This form of slavery happens when migrant workers reach a destination country, and they incur a debt for their travel and/or a recruitment fee. Though working, if their employer or recruiter adds on additional costs that can never be repaid, like housing or food, then the arrangement has transitioned into a form of slavery. This problem is compounded when employers or recruiters neglect legal documentation or confiscate it because migrant domestic workers are often fearful of reporting the abuse for fear of legal consequences.

 

Domestic slavery is a well known and widespread problem and it is absolutely a form of slavery.   

[Gamebreaker]

Poor Tizon, he had to endure the terrible conditions of never doing chores and watching his slave get beat for his actions. That poor man, more should be done to prevent the kind of childhood he endured. A damn shame. 

[Going Commando]

22 minutes ago, Destino said:

This is from endslaverynow.org:

 

Victims of domestic servitude may appear to be nannies or other domestic help, but the moment their employment arrangement transitions into a situation whereby they cannot leave on their own free will, it becomes a case of enslavement.

 

How are you establishing as fact that Lola couldn't leave?

 

Is she too somehow culpable for not leaving the household of her abuser and reporting them?

[Kosher Ham]

7 minutes ago, stevemcqueen1 said:

How are you establishing as fact that Lola couldn't leave?

Is she too somehow culpable for not leaving the household of her abuser and reporting them?

 

So that is all you got out of that ??? 

I know you like to be obtuse at times. 

But come on man. SMH. 

 

She had zero skills to employ her legally ...because she didn't even have a way to claim herself as a citizen.  I would love to make a wager about whether she had access to her own paperwork...or if there was any. 

Foreign country, different language, and ALL she knew for decades. That is the reason why you had the House vs. the Field in our  ( American) storied history.  

Illegals DO NOT have the same rights, some are given provisions, but it is certainly not a right technically... NO rights. 

She was so young when she was "gifted"...she was most likely abused in many ways that the son did not even know of. 

 

If you are so set on protecting the victim... as my homeboy Benning would say...show some empathy for the victim. 

 

No one is blaming the son for the initial situation he grew up in. We are blaming him for continuing to allow it as an adult...and then taking it on into his own life. 

That guy... 

 

Off topic : Bet there will not be a march about this, nor will LEOs get involved into what seems like a sketchy situation ( probable cause).

Then again why would they ? People who do stuff like this get fake everything for these people. 

 

Waste of time in your eyes perhaps ? 

Continued : 

 

Dude, She knew nothing else, it was her expectation. That was it. 

She might not have even known there were options. 

[Destino]

1 hour ago, stevemcqueen1 said:

 

How are you establishing as fact that Lola couldn't leave?

 

Is she too somehow culpable for not leaving the household of her abuser and reporting them?

Remember when you said I was blaming the victim?  

[TheGreatBuzz]

In now way is this meant to defend the guy.  But there is one thing I think everyone should keep in mind when judging things like this.  It is something I do my best to keep in mind when I deal with my animal rescue affairs.

 

sometimes people are raised from a young age being taught that bad things are okay and normal.  This can be an extremely difficult thing to overcome and it doesn't happen over night.  Now it's not an excuse for a person not working to fix it but also must be kept in mind when judging their actions.

 

this was also the only way I was able to come to peace with Michael Vick.

[Kosher Ham]

This thread is a perfect example of how people feel prejudice... it is not simply racism. 

Please, can we separate the two things. 

[mcsluggo]

it absolutely was slavery.  no question.   and horrific.

 

 

i also think that it is butt simplistic, black and white, self congratulatory bull**** to heap blame on the kid that was born into this dysfunctional situation to blame HIM for not solving that was dumped in his lap before he was even born better than he did    

 

the FAMILIES have huge amount of blame to heap and share... the grandfather most of all (for dumping this situation on both a 13 year old daughter and an 18 year old slave).   Both Husbands sucked.  The wife sucked.   The slave's family isn't entirely blameless here, either....  they were more complicit that the grandchildren .    

 

(let it sink in that the parents of the slave KNOWINGLY submitted their teen daughter into this.   yes they were driven by the desperation of poverty, and by a different cultural viewpoint that we can't get our eyes into... but THEY SOLD THEIR DAUGHTER INTO SLAVERY.)

 

but the children born into this dysfunctional mess???   what was the GOOD answer for them?   what was the best course of action to do the very best for a 50-60 ish year old slave when the author was in his 20s and finally in a position to solve everything???   The slave at this point was a 2nd class member, but a member nonetheless, of a dysfunctional family.   This was the only family she had at this point (it didn't SUDDENLY change 5-10 years later when she finally had a chance to go back to the philippines and stay, but no longer had roots and a life with  the village she hadn't been to since the 1940s (the people that had sold her into slavery).    

 

if you asked HER (the slave) when she was in her 50s-60s whether she would've wanted to blow up the only family she really knew at that point ... what do you think her answer would've been???    If the article was written the least bit honestly, then you KNOW what her answer would've been.  She would've defended her ****ed up dysfunctional family.   Was this because of stockholm syndrome? or something related??   perhaps?  probably? definitely??? i don't know...but that is where the world was at that point.   if we take the article at face value, she LOVED the grandchildren that she had cared for their entire life.   (and the great grandchildren too) and they loved her.    They were, at that point point, real family, there is no other way to describe their relationship.   what ever the ****ed up evil origins of their family relationship.... they were a family.

 

and the author clearly loved the slave, as the person that had raised him from birth.  his true mother.   (once again...if we take the story at face value, as written)

 

 

it is a ****ed up terrible situation.   an awful injustice.  a tragedy....    and we are all damned lucky we weren't ever put in ANY PART of this situation

 

 

 

 

(and once again **** that asshole old grandfather jerkoff ****.   it cannot be said enough)   

 

[Destino]

If being born into it absolves a person from blame that would make his parents blameless as well.  Particularly his mother that was taught from a young age that it was her place to rule over the poor that served her family.  The author admits that he knew it was slavery and that it was wrong and yet still did nothing.  Even as an adult.  He took all the benefits that this slavery gave his family and never made it right. 

 

Let's remember that there were things that could have been done that did not include going to the police.  What needed to be done was to let her make her own choices, to empower her.  Keeping these enslaved people poor and powerless is a key element to keeping them subjugated.  At no time is she introduced to a support group of any kind or taken to a lawyer that could explain her rights and ask her what she wanted to do.  Is that asking too much as well?  Was this educated college man entirely unaware of these options?  Her choices were only ever presented as her being sent away with nothing into a unfamiliar world that scares her or staying with the masters family and accepting what was offered.  A woman that was owed 50 years of back pay, at a minimum, was given $200 dollars a week and we're expected to see it as a kindness.

 

I really want to know if doctor mom left an inheritance of any kind and I don't think that's an insignificant detail.    

 

 

9 hours ago, SkinInsite said:

It might feel good to crucify this family all day long but it does nothing for the millions others in the same situation all over the world.

 

Lets face the facts, a lot of the things we take for granted are from for what can be classified as slave labor.

I disagree.  Painting this as unambiguously evil is an important step in demanding governments do more to prevent these kinds of things. 

 

9 hours ago, BornaSkinsFan83 said:

 

Just in the middle of writing you a PM...like to keep my personal shade for there

 

But yeah, I'm puzzled by how people are able to completely dismiss or even ignore the whole cultural assimilation and cross-cultural conflict elements of the story. I mean it's only central to understanding the authors entire freaking POV. Throw in a dysfunctional family and yeah. It's not surprising that his siblings made the same decisions. Or are they all pieces of **** too? 

 

 

I'm confused by your blaming culture here, are you saying that people in that culture are unaware that not paying someone for work and treating them like an animal was wrong?  That seems like an insulting assumption to make of an entire culture.   

[Going Commando]

11 hours ago, Destino said:

Remember when you said I was blaming the victim?  

 

Ugh.  I was carrying your reasoning to the end to demonstrate how what you were doing was victim blaming.

[The Sisko]

On 5/17/2017 at 4:35 PM, Popeman38 said:

The mental gymnastics being performed in this thread sure as **** don't get applied to slave masters in the south! (and shouldn't be, to be clear) Read in sarcastic voice --->Well, they gave them their own rooms! And they even fed them. And they stopped beating them, so were they REALLY bad people? Or were they victims themselves since they were born into a broken system?

Uh, yeah that's been a thing for quite some time. The southern myth of the happy slave has endured and now there's a movement afoot to have it taught in schools. We'll thwart those liberal, elitist history nerds that hate 'Muricuh yet.

 

On 5/18/2017 at 0:26 AM, mcsluggo said:

it absolutely was slavery.  no question.   and horrific.

 

 

i also think that it is butt simplistic, black and white, self congratulatory bull**** to heap blame on the kid that was born into this dysfunctional situation to blame HIM for not solving that was dumped in his lap before he was even born better than he did...

This is about where I am on this. Yes it was slavery and it was awful but there's a lot more to it than that.

 

My grandmother was a housekeeper for a white doctor's family in 1950's Orlando. Due to the death of the mother, she ended up raising a little girl of three who (we'll call Susan) until Susan went away to college. Susan later got her Mrs. degree, i.e. she married her longtime beau after he finished college. IIRC, she didn't finish college. So at the point that things got serious, the fiancee forbade Susan from seeing or speaking with my grandmother as he didn't think very highly of black people. Instead of standing her ground, Susan complied with his request/order. My grandmother was the closest thing she ever had to a mother since Susan barely remembered her biological mother. Susan sent Xmas cards every year with a small check but that was the only thing my grandmother ever heard from her again and it absolutely broke her heart. Of course Susan did show up at my grandmother's funeral and cried like a baby. It was pretty much a real-life version of the movie Imitation of Life and it was all I could do not to choke her out right there in the church.

 

Obviously my grandmother wasn't a slave. However like Lola, she loved Susan as much as she did her own children. Susan faced a choice not unlike the author's. She knew this guy since they were little kids and dated him during their teenage years so she had to be aware of his feelings about black people. Yet she agreed to start and continue the relationship and even agreed to marry him, in effect choosing him over what amounted to her adoptive mother. Sometimes in life, people choose family and/or financial considerations over what's right. So yeah, I'd probably want to spit in Susan's face if I were to see her but I also recognize that as much as we try to live up to our ideals it doesn't always happen because of extenuating circumstances, and/or our own shortcomings, etc. That doesn't mean I don't believe in holding people accountable, just that I recognize the realities involved in making decisions like this. There's a lot of grey area that I think some of you aren't acknowledging.

[Elessar78]

12 minutes ago, The Sisko said:

Uh, yeah that's been a thing for quite some time. The southern myth of the happy slave has endured and now there's a movement afoot to have it taught in schools. We'll thwart those liberal, elitist history nerds that hate 'Muricuh yet.

 

This is about where I am on this. Yes it was slavery and it was awful but there's a lot more to it than that.

 

My grandmother was a housekeeper for a white doctor's family in 1950's Orlando. Due to the death of the mother, she ended up raising a little girl of three who (we'll call Susan) until Susan went away to college. Susan later got her Mrs. degree, i.e. she married her longtime beau after he finished college. IIRC, she didn't finish college. So at the point that things got serious, the fiancee forbade Susan from seeing or speaking with my grandmother as he didn't think very highly of black people. Instead of standing her ground, Susan complied with his request/order. My grandmother was the closest thing she ever had to a mother since Susan barely remembered her biological mother. Susan sent Xmas cards every year with a small check but that was the only thing my grandmother ever heard from her again and it absolutely broke her heart. Of course Susan did show up at my grandmother's funeral and cried like a baby. It was pretty much a real-life version of the movie Imitation of Life and it was all I could do not to choke her out right there in the church.

 

Obviously my grandmother wasn't a slave. However like Lola, she loved Susan as much as she did her own children. Susan faced a choice not unlike the author's. She knew this guy since they were little kids and dated him during their teenage years so she had to be aware of his feelings about black people. Yet she agreed to start and continue the relationship and even agreed to marry him, in effect choosing him over what amounted to her adoptive mother. Sometimes in life, people choose family and/or financial considerations over what's right. So yeah, I'd probably want to spit in Susan's face if I were to see her but I also recognize that as much as we try to live up to our ideals it doesn't always happen because of extenuating circumstances, and/or our own shortcomings, etc. That doesn't mean I don't believe in holding people accountable, just that I recognize the realities involved in making decisions like this. There's a lot of grey area that I think some of you aren't acknowledging.

Fantastic post. 

[StillUnknown]

 

[bearrock]

@StillUnknown  Thanks for posting that.  Very thought provoking to be sure.