Why people can't get it is beyond me. We live in a world that still has slavery. It's reprehensible. It's offensive. If you've never been enslaved, then you don't know what slavery means. If you don't have an ancestor who was a slave, you don't know what slavery means. If you haven't bothered to look at the horrific documentation from the 18th and 19th centuries (or today!) referencing slavery; you don't know the brutality of slavery. You don't know the callous indifference of how slavery was and is implemented. So, stop with the slavery analogies. Slavery exists today in this country and others. Slavery analogies are grating in that they are the epitome of false equivalencies. The slavery that up to 30 million people in the world currently live under is real. The enslavement of millions of people in North America prior to abolition was real. Slavery analogies trivialize the horrible experiences slaves endure.
The new movie release, 12 Years a Slave, gives insight to what it is like to have all humanity striped from you and more importantly, how it impacts the need to survive. Amistad gives insight of the callousness and the horrors of slavery, but no movie or book can really convey what it is to be enslaved. Reading Biblical scriptures about slavery doesn't create experts on slavery anymore than using the Sky Watch app makes you an astronomer. Unrelentless, living in poverty (pdf, page 3) is linked to slavery, but if you don't know extreme poverty, you don't understand this dynamic.
The word, slavery, gives people a visceral reaction. People like Michele Bachmann, George Will or Sarah Palin use it fully aware of how powerful a word slavery is, but they are oblivious to their tone deafness when they reference it. Ben Carson said the ACA was the worst thing since slavery - a total miss if you've ever seen one. Republicans know the ACA is nothing like slavery. You won't be beaten, raped, killed, or have your identity obliterated if you don't comply with the ACA; but they make this obtuse and absurd assertion anyway.
Slavery is abhorrent (pdf). If you don't get that, then you don't know jack about slavery. It is a concept most of us have not experienced first hand (thank god!). We may have slavery in our ancestry. We may have slave ownership in our ancestry. Some of us may have both slavery and slave ownership in our ancestry. The fact remains (and the chances are low) unless you are part of the estimated 27-30 million people in slavery today, or work to free these people; you don't know as much about slavery as you think you do. Don't make analogies about slavery. It's ignorant, insensitive and offensive.
Recently, a man of color became incensed with one of these slavery analogies and found one of the most vile descriptions of one overseer's treatment of slaves from 1750-1786. He then described one of the most dehumanizing punishments meted out to slaves under his control. That's what slavery was - cruel, demeaning and unjust. That's what slavery is - depraved, degradation of people. Slavery is when one person controls and dehumanizes another.
A man of color dared ask how a white woman would feel if the same dehumanizing punishment meted out to slaves 250 years ago was done to her. At the end of his show before the weekend, Martin Bashir dared to suggest "If anyone truly qualified for a discipline from Thomas Thislewood, then she would be the outstanding candidate."
Well, I dare say, a shit storm ensued. That was too far. It was wrong. It was ill considered and gross. No one should ever be "disciplined" in the manner described by Thomas Thistlewood - not ever, it's too debasing. Just because it was done in the past, doesn't mean it should be done today. Martin Bashir delivered a professional, graceful apology at the beginning of his show the following Monday. The apology was accepted, but it took nearly a week and it was done in a less graceful, somewhat scornful manner which shows how far we have to go when it comes to racism in this country.
What was lost in the Palin/Bashir incident is that Bashir did, in fact find documentation and explain just how awful slavery is. Bashir is right in calling out anyone who uses the word "slavery" in an analogy to justify one rhetorical political point or another. He had the right of it until he blew it and dehumanized Sarah Palin, which considering how many awful things she's said and written over the years; is galling. I have a Republican friend who when asked about Sarah Palin says, "I have no use for her". Had Mr. Bashir said he has no use for someone who obviously has no clue what slavery is and then used Thomas Thistlewood's diary to illustrate his point; we'd be having a different discussion today. The one thing I can say about Martin Bashir that I cannot say of Sarah Palin is that Martin Bashir is a man who learns from his mistakes.