{"id":910,"date":"2011-07-15T12:17:33","date_gmt":"2011-07-15T16:17:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www3.law.harvard.edu\/journals\/hlpr\/?p=910"},"modified":"2015-10-02T15:28:48","modified_gmt":"2015-10-02T15:28:48","slug":"slavery-still-part-of-the-u-s-economy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/2011\/07\/15\/slavery-still-part-of-the-u-s-economy\/","title":{"rendered":"Slavery still part of the U.S. economy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"color: #505050\"><em>Marshall Thompson<span style=\"font-weight: bold\">\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #505050\">Last Tuesday, Rep.\u00a0<a style=\"font-style: inherit;color: #3f6dcf\" href=\"http:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20110818105820\/http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/2011\/07\/13\/michele-bachmann-addresse_n_896990.html\" target=\"_blank\">Michelle Bachmann<\/a>, who is known for her controversial statements, made a very uncontroversial remark about slavery. She said, \u201cSlavery was a terrible part of our nation\u2019s history. It is good that we no longer have slavery.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #505050\">I have to agree with Bachmann in part. Slavery was, in fact, a terrible part of our nation\u2019s history. I have to disagree with her, however, that we no longer have slavery. Slave labor is still a part of the U.S. economy despite the 13th Amendment.<\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #505050\"><!--more--><\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #505050\">In 1960, Edward R. Murrow produced an amazing piece of broadcast journalism,\u00a0<a style=\"font-style: inherit;color: #3f6dcf\" href=\"http:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20110818105820\/http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=yJTVF_dya7E\" target=\"_blank\">Harvest of Shame<\/a>. In it, a farmer is quoted as saying, \u201cWe used to own our slaves. \u00a0Now we just rent them.\u201d In other words, the form of slavery may have shifted, but the practice remains.<\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #505050\">The reporting in Harvest of Shame took Murrow to\u00a0<a style=\"font-style: inherit;color: #3f6dcf\" href=\"http:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20110818105820\/http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Immokalee,_Florida\" target=\"_blank\">Immokalee, Florida<\/a>\u00a0to interview migrant laborers. In 2003, the same place attracted the attention of John Bowe, who wrote a stunning piece for the\u00a0<a style=\"font-style: inherit;color: #3f6dcf\" href=\"http:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20110818105820\/http:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/archive\/2003\/04\/21\/030421fa_fact_bowe\" target=\"_blank\">New Yorker<\/a>about slave labor in the United States. According to\u00a0<a style=\"font-style: inherit;color: #3f6dcf\" href=\"http:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20110818105820\/http:\/\/opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com\/2011\/06\/14\/the-true-cost-of-tomatoes\/?src=un&amp;feedurl=http%3A%2F%2Fjson8.nytimes.com%2Fpages%2Fopinion%2Findex.jsonp\" target=\"_blank\">Mark Bittman<\/a>\u00a0at the New York Times, the problems in Immokalee and the rest of the United States persist to this day. There is a good reason why the tomatoes in the grocery store are only 99 cents a pound: slavery and exploitative labor practices.<\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #505050\">Bachmann\u2019s statement on Tuesday won\u2019t make any headlines or raise any eyebrows, but it should. Every time someone says that slavery is part of America\u2019s past, it lulls us into thinking that it is not currently part of our present. With dedication and effort, perhaps it will not be part of our future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Marshall Thompson\u00a0 Last Tuesday, Rep.\u00a0Michelle Bachmann, who is known for her controversial statements, made a very uncontroversial remark about slavery. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-910","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/peZQka-eG","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/910","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=910"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/910\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}