All slavery now officially banned in Tennessee

We should be careful not to give the rest of us too much credit:

Before Tuesday’s midterms, only four other states had barred slavery as a form of punishment, Colorado, Rhode Island, and as of 2020, Nebraska and Utah.

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Careful about assuming that only certain states retain this sort of thing, or assuming that the provision was uncommon. The comment Lion replied to congratulated Tennessee for “joining the rest of us.” Many of “us” still have this awful vestige.

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I was trying to find the other results and there was something about the person who proposed the Louisiana initiative objecting to the final wording and urging people not to vote for it. The article was short on details.

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Yes, because Tennessee’s vote was the subject of the FPP article.

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Right. “The rest of us” isn’t clear when a bunch of states, righty and lefty and centery still have this.

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Well, they said it would happen. First, those bleeding-heart leftists tore down statues of slave-owners. Then they came for the noble institution of slavery itself. What will these crazed radicals want next? Where will it all end?

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It feels like a bold assumption that “rest of us” means “exactly all the other states, and nowhere else in the world” instead of some general majority that the writer might be part of, but all right.

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Yes. Another highly white state. :woman_shrugging:

And so does the actual US constitution…

The British Parliament that banned slavery has entered the chat…

Yep. A point I will keep pushing until I am blue in the face is that this and other things like it) is a national problem, not a red state problem.

White supemacy has shaped the whole world and the entire planet needs to be decolonized.

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:sparkling_heart: :sparkling_heart: :sparkling_heart: :sparkling_heart: :sparkling_heart:

I am an Oregonian and I’m so glad that passed!!

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As noted in the article, they’re closing a loophole that is still in the federal constitution. They’re ahead of the curve, especially considering that most items that are proudly emblazoned “Made in America” are made by imprisoned people working for few to no wages in red and blue states.

so not so much “all slavery banned” as that the exception has been … rephrased :grimacing:

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“Slavery and involuntary servitude are forever prohibited. Nothing in this section shall prohibit an inmate from working when the inmate has been duly convicted of a crime.”

Why didn’t they just end with the first sentence, since that alone should be enough to make it clear that slavery is prohibited?

The addition of the second sentence is really confusing: what does “working” mean? Working as a slave? Working as a [presumably fairly] paid, free laborer? If the former, then it implies that slavery is legal, i.e. nothing shall prohibit an inmate from [working as a slave]. What am I missing here?

Many states still need to follow the example and formally outlaw all forms of slavery as Alabama, Tennessee, Oregon and Vermont just did. But the state that really disturbs me is Louisiana—that’s the one state where voters did have a chance to reject slavery on Tuesday but actively decided against it.

I know the Republicans live to “own the libs” but usually it’s just metaphorical.

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Meme Reaction GIF by Robert E Blackmon

We should amend the 13th, too, but this would help the current problem we have with incarceration a good bit.

Right? The right wing thinking on this is that “those people” are criminals and “deserve it”… And we wonder why so many republicans embraced Trump - it’s because they’re cruel assholes, too.

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Fun fact: Mississippi didn’t ratify the 13th amendment until 1995, and didn’t do the certification paperwork until 2013. (In contrast, Kentucky was relatively progressive and ratified it in 1976).

So it will definitely take a little prodding to get the amendment updated. (Not that we shouldn’t try.)

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Here’s some more info on that

I’m having trouble trying to figure what bits to quote from it. IMO it’s worth reading the whole article.

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