Comment on Alabama is forcing incarcerated people to work at hundreds of companies, including McDonald’s & Wendy’s. Unionizing is illegal. The state takes 40% of wages.

switcheroo@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

• Mic_Check_One_Two@reddthat.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

  Here’s a reminder that the 13th amendment didn’t abolish slavery. It simply added the “they must be a criminal before you can enslave them” qualifier…

  Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction

  Emphasis mine. Why do you think the model for the modern police force started as slave catchers, and then pivoted hard towards “law enforcement” after the civil war? The US already had law enforcers. They were called sheriffs and marshals. The individual cities and towns didn’t have their own independent police forces until after the civil war… And those new police forces were manned by, you guessed it, former slave catchers. And they never really stopped catching slaves. They just changed what they called it.

  The US thrives on slavery, even today, with private prisons as the modern slave owners.

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