In American
culture we learn about African American slavery and how it was the most
terrible times in history. As kids we learn the name Christopher Columbus and
we also learn he “founded America”. Little do we know he found what we now call
Dominican Republic; in a span of twenty years he shipped slaves back to Europe making
him a very wealthy man. “Slavery is another way of taking the sunlight stored
in somebody else’s body and harnessing it for the benefit of the exploiter.” As
nations grew, more civilizations began to pop up which leads to the expansion
of trading and sadly increases the need for slaves. Upon the discovery of “America”
between the years 1500 and 1880 Europeans shipped more than 12 million slaves
to north and South America. Aristotle believed/argued that slaves were tools
used to maintain property and Harttman believes slaves were not tools but power
sources of stored energy. Harttman says “slaves became less important because
coal and oil became widely inexpensive” and due to the explosion of coal and
oil slaves became less important because we soon began to use machines; which
leads to modern day slavery. Modern day slavery can be described as us doing so
much and getting paid so little. Society has transformed the term into
something we only tie to African American struggles and forget our own. Little do
we know mentally we are still there. CEO’s can be considered the owner of the
plantations, our managers are seen as people who live on the plantation to
manage and keep track of the production flow, and the workers are used and
abused to please the owner, the management, and the people who use the
products. The sweatshops we work in are the same as others in “developing” or “third
world” countries we just get paid a little more. If money was not attached to
the outcome of our day to day lives we would be considered slaves.
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