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So I've been enthralled in this new show. A tale of an American Christian theocratic government that has, within a few years sent the society back 250 years. Women aren't allowed to read, everyone has to be some type of fanatic christian, death is around the corner for anyone who aint on board. I really can't stop watching! The fact that there's very few Black people make me enjoy it more. Either we all went to canada/into hiding, or they killed us all for non-compliance. Personally, I'm good with whichever.

In hiding or dead?

When asked about chattel slavery in America, most people say that they wouldn't go it. "Couldn't be me! I'd be doing X,Y,Z and them crakkas would have to kill me!" These revolutionary spirits would kill Massa, burn the house down and take guns and swords to officials that got something to say. Personally tho, I dunno how true all that is. History does show that most people would in fact go for it. They'd also just do their best stay alive. Saying very little, follow orders, not making waves, etc. Taking history out of the equation, and just looking at the present day state of Black life in America, there's all the reason for Black men and women en masse to be taking up arms against the American government.


Imprisoned at a higher rate than in Apartheid South Africa?

According to the good folks over at "The Sentencing Project" a group that has been researching the use of prisons in America for over 30 years, near the end of the Apartheid regime in South Africa, for every 100,000 people in the country, 368 of them were behind bars. At that same time, in America, the number was 519. Not too much of a difference, but when you broke that down by race and gender the numbers become somewhat more telling. At that time, In SA, Black men were imprisoned at a rate of 851 per 100,000, while in the USA the rate was more than 6x that. 3,822 per 100,000! Fast forward to today, the rate for imprisoned Black men is 4,347 per 100,000. Ever rising. Broken down even further (Just for number's sake) Black men aged 20-40 are locked up at a rate ~9000 per 100,000. In other words almost 10% of Black men aged 20-40 are behind bars right now! All them Black men in the bing, Black folks aint taking it to the weapons, so somebody lying somewhere.

Couldn't be ME!

Bringing it all back to this hot new show on, American history notwithstanding, I still say I wouldn't go for it. As I watch this show, I feel a tinge of inspiration. It makes me want to work out, get my gun game up, weapon game up, etc. I imagine living in the mountains or in some maroon community having skirmishes with the officials of the theocracy. As I go through these daydreams I get to thinking could this sort of thing happen? Specifically, could it happen to Black people in america? Could we go careening 150+ years back in time?

As far as I understand the limits to Black folk's freedom in the USA there are 2 barriers to reconstituting chattel enslavement.

  1. The Emancipation Proclamation
  2. The "Reconstruction Amendments"
  3. Black people's unwillingness to be enslaved again

The Emancipation Proclamation is a presidential executive order that was instituted in 1862. Basically it said that the states that were rebelling against the union, were losing their right to have enslaved people. It was only a proclamation though, so folks were only freed from the plantation as the union swept through the south

The Reconstruction Ammendments (the 13, 14 & 15th) are a set of protocols that the US Gov't made before and after the civil ware ostensiblily making the system of enslavement, as it was practiced at the time, illegal. It also made the only type of legal slavery, that of imprisoned criminals. Thus introducing Jim Crow and chain-gangs all over the country.

The Thirteenth Amendment (Amendment XIII) to the United States Constitution abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime. This stands today, that's why folks in prison are able to work for pennies per hour.

The Fourteenth Amendment (Amendment XIV) defined that a citizen was any person born in the USA, and that it discriminating against a person on the basis of skin color or any other physical characteristic was illegal.

The Fifteenth Amendment (Amendment XV) to the United States Constitution prohibits the federal and state governments from denying a citizen the right to vote based on that citizen's "race, color, or previous condition of servitude".

Could the E.P. and Reconstruction amendments be reversed?

Without a doubt! those laws could be reversed just as easily as they were put into law. Article Five of the United States Constitution details the two-step process for amending the nation's frame of government. Amendments must be properly Proposed and Ratified before becoming operative. An amendment may be proposed and sent to the states for ratification by either:

  • The United States Congress, whenever a two-thirds majority in both the Senate and the House of Representatives deem it necessary;

-OR-

  • A national convention, called by Congress for this purpose, on the application of the legislatures of two-thirds (currently 34) of the states.

To become part of the Constitution, an amendment must be ratified by either (as determined by Congress):

  • The legislatures of three-fourths (currently 38) of the states, within the stipulated time

-OR-

  • State ratifying conventions in three-fourths (currently 38) of the states, within the stipulated time period—if any.

After that, what would be left is several years of harsh oppression, and murdering of people who refuse to comply. It sounds like a dystopic scifi future, but there are a lot of people who would love to hear that its legal to abuse people.

In the Handmaid's Tale, every episode people are shown getting murdered, wheelbarrowed to the town center and burned, or just hung until dead. No one country would be able to step in because 20k nukes could be pointed outward. At the same time, 310+ million guns would be pointed inward.


Now, there's an amendment that's been on the books since the 1860's called the Corwin Amendment. This basically states that congress can't outlaw slavery, or any other "domestic institution". Again, that could be passed as easily as the reconstruction amendments were.

Scary what-if's but not impossible.




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