Concept or Rhetoric of Slavery

Rhetoric of Slavery

The term "slavery" evokes forced labor where people are captured and made to work without being paid, where people are given barely any clothing and barely enough to eat, where families are broken apart and where those labeled as slaves are denied any rights that they should have as human beings. Specifically, the idea of slavery is applied to pre-Civil War American or to the Jewish people when they were enslaved by the Egyptian pharaohs. However, the same ideas described can also be applied to those incarcerated in the penal system, at least according to those who are seeking to improve the lives and opportunities for those who are currently behind bars. This reevaluation of incarceration as "modern slavery" is a rhetorical device used by those with an agenda interested in promoting and improving conditions within the prison system but does not take into consideration the feelings of those who are not interested in improving prison conditions; thus the opposing sides would argue as to the validity of this terminology.

Whenever a historically negative term is taken out of its original context and applied to a different idea, it is an intentional allusion to the original usage of that term, such as the modern colloquial tendency to refer to adamant individuals as Nazis. This term has decidedly negative connotations as it refers to the government of Germany in the 1930s and 1940s who carried out the genocide of European Jews and Gypsies, as well as the large-scale murders of numberous homosexuals and those considered mentally slow. Of course, the modern usage of the word is often ironic and has little if anything to do with the German National Socialist Party. However, the villainy of that group is meant to be understood and applied in the modern context as something both devout and wholly negative. The purpose of relabeling imprisonment in the American penal system as a form of modern slavery is to create a visceral response in the reader or listener depending upon the mode in which the message is delivered. It is an intentionally hyperbolic analogy which is meant to force the person who comes into contact with this label to thereby associate the modern prison system with what they know to be facts about the institutions of slavery, particularly the inhumanity and brutality which is closely associated with slavery.

The concept of prison as "modern slavery" is presented only by individuals promoting prisoner's rights because of the violent reaction such an association creates. There are aspects of the prison system which have similarities to the slave system. Most inmates have little control over their daily lives; everything is scheduled for them from their work assignments to their living arrangements. Also, the prisoners are forcibly separated from loved ones and made to obey the orders of those in authority or face serious, potentially dangerous repercussions for not doing so. In the documentary motion picture The Farm: Angola, USA, the filmmakers performed an investigation into the American prison system by a close examination of one prison in particular, a maximum security prison in Angola, Louisiana. At "The Farm," six prisoners explain what daily life is like behind bars, focusing on the misery of living in this way. They have the potential for beatings from fellow inmates as well as forcible rape. There is no personal freedom and no such thing as privacy. Individuality is taken away from the prisoners and instead they are expected to behave exactly in terms of the behavior dictations of the jailers. In some prison systems, especially those which are privately run, prisoners can be sent out into the world and made to perform acts of labor for relatively small wages, in turn earning even more money for the private prisons who receive income for providing the inmates (Ford). There is a secondary reason why this rhetorical devise is effective. By equating prisoners with those who are or were at one time enslaved, it demands that some course of action be taken in order to free the slaves. Those working towards freeing or at least improving the lives of these individuals are therefore equated with emancipators, allowing the individual to elevate their own identity as well.

There are also some negatives associated with equating imprisonment with a modern form of slavery because it removes the term from its original context. Putting criminals in jail for illegal actions that they have committed is socially prescribed punishment which demands that the individual pay restitution for their deeds. Perhaps there are some harsh conditions associated with prison, but these are not as evil as such an allegory would suggest. Those who were enslaved for their racial background or class differences did nothing to deserve the situation that they were in. Forced labor was only one part of the experience. Slaves were frequently met with violence including murder and the rape of female slaves; raping slaves would often result in impregnation and the subsequent creation of further slaves and was thus not only frequently done but encouraged as a means of income. Enslavement was also a permanent title except for the very few that were able to escape or the even fewer who were able to purchase their freedom. Most prisoners are not living in jail forever but will have a point where they have served their full sentence and are set free. Those who are sentenced to life in prison or even execution have committed crimes of such severity that they pose a danger to the law-abiding citizens of the United States.