If you want to be a slave, be a slave!
What was going through that blonde chick's head? Who the hell WANTS to be a slave?!?
shareWhat was going through that blonde chick's head? Who the hell WANTS to be a slave?!?
shareI believe it wasn't unheard of for folks deep in debt to sell their future services and become indentured servants, which basically made them slaves. Unless that was something that only happened in historical fiction. Anyway, if the alternative is debtor's prison, or your family starving, a bed, meals and a purpose in life doesn't look so bad.
Or maybe it was just something to do with "States' Rights", a phrase that tends to come up when Southerners try to explain the American Civil War.
But if the alternative is debtor's prison then you have no choice. And you aren't "choosing" to be a slave. Even indentured servitude isn't slavery. Now, some people did trap their indentured servants into a slave like condition, kind of like sharecropping in the Reconstruction & Jim Crow eras. But on their faces, neither indentured servitude nor sharecropping were slavery. It may be semantics, but words have meaning and are important.
The reason why that statement is so ignorant is because one cannot give up their rights. Your rights are your rights are your rights. The whole basis of slavery is that the slave has no rights. I could be wrong, but some cultures in the past where slavery was not based on race or place of origin (historically slaves were prizes won in conflict or had to pay something back and had no money) probably did have protections for slaves as they weren't necessarily seen as subhuman. But still, it's not like those slaves had rights to vote or to speak their mind or leave, etc.
So you can't sell yourself into slavery. Afterall, you wouldn't be able to do with the money what you pleased if the moment you took it you were a slave, right?
She said she didn't think the south was wrong. She doesn't mean, "if you want to be a slave, be a slave.". She means she and probably many like her still believe slavery should never have been stopped but they can't say that out loud and still operate in society in an all round way, so they made this justification..".I want a slave, so if I ask someone to be my slave and they agree, then that's ok."
Know what I mean?