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What Next - Why Outlawing Slavery Won't Outlaw Slavery—Yet

Slate Daily Feed

Slate

Society & Culture, News, Business

3.91.1K Ratings

🗓️ 15 January 2020

⏱️ 25 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

During the 2022 midterms, four states voted to ban slavery, which is still legal—and practiced—in the form of forced prison labor. The ballot initiatives are designed to keep people from having to work against their will and could provide prisoners with the opportunity to sue for higher wages, and better working conditions, including medical exemptions for those who are pregnant and postpartum. 


Guest: Candace Bond-Theriault Esq., Director of Racial Justice Policy & Strategy at Columbia Law School’s Center for Gender & Sexuality Law. 


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Transcript

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0:00.0

This episode is brought to you by Krakhan.

0:03.0

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0:06.0

It doesn't care when you invest, trade or save, do it on weekends,

0:11.0

or at 5 a.m.

0:12.0

Or on Christmas Day, at 5 a.m. or on Christmas day at 5 a.m.

0:15.2

crypto is finance for everyone everywhere all the time.

0:19.4

Visit crackin.com slash see what crypto can be to learn more

0:22.8

don't invest unless you're prepared to lose all the money you invest this is a high-risk

0:26.2

investment and you should not expect to be protected if something goes wrong In all the coverage of the red wave that wasn't this midterm cycle, there's this one thing that voters weighed in on that I'm not that was not

0:45.0

that I'm not sure people have talked about enough.

0:47.5

That thing is slavery.

0:49.2

Five states voted on whether to outlaw slavery

0:52.4

this November.

0:53.8

And yes, it is 2022.

0:56.4

I was seeing all over the media in different places that slavery was on the ballot this

1:05.6

November and it parked my ears up and I said excuse me I'm sorry say that again.

1:19.9

Candice Bonterio is a legal scholar at Columbia University and I got to say I was a little relieved it was not just me who was surprised to see slavery on the ballot 150 years

1:25.2

after the Civil War ended. And then I had to look deeper into what people were

1:30.5

actually talking about and they were talking about this

1:34.8

exemption that allows for forced prison labor.

1:38.8

Candace says, this exemption, it's baked right into the 13th Amendment, the one that technically

1:45.4

abolishes slavery. It reads, neither slavery nor involuntary servitude except as punishment for crime shall exist within the United States.

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