Thursday, November 28, 2013

Job Description

A potential juror in DeKalb county GA discovered that the workstation used to enter information had, in the "occupation" slot, the opportunity to describe your occupation as "slave". Being properly affronted by the notion that this might actually describe anyone's circumstances, objections were raised, and the offending selection removed.

I don't see the problem. In the course of my life and career I've seen lots of people who described their situation as "slave" either to someone, usually a spouse or S.O.) or some institution, notwithstanding the institutions tendency to actually pay them for whatever it was they did.

Back in the day, slavery was after all cheap, not free, labor. Since 1865 inflation has taken its toll. I wonder what the real cost of keeping a slave in 1860 would be in today's dollars?

1 comment:

Brad K. said...

Then there is the documented, but sparsely reported, fact of sexual and other slavery, occurring as crimes here in the US and around the world.

We still fly flags for MIA's from past military actions, yet knowing that some thousands of people have been abducted into slavery, to serve or be sold here or elsewhere, seems to be just an annoying crime statistic.

"slave" should have been removed as an occupation choice, because, at least until Obamacare, it wasn't a socially recognized and tolerated kind of economic station in life. But slavery does exist, today, in the US.