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Comment by southphillyman | Hacker News Reader

Interesting that the author and his siblings had empathy for the servant. In most American Slavery stories the entire household, including young children, are portrayed as being evil and unforgiving towards the slaves. In these situations I wonder if there is any sort of innate feeling of compassion and decency and how that manifest itself in a culture where slavery and cruelty is the norm.

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Many such American slavery stories are just that- stories. There are plenty of real examples of American slave owners across the spectrum from evil cruelty to compassionate caring, even love.

you can't be compassionate if your compassion only extends to the point that it starts to have any negative effect on your life.

Then you're just a dick that wants to pretend you are a better person than you are.

The author is as compassionate as many of the Republicans in Congress. They care! They really do, just not enough to vote in anyway that would make a difference to the things they proclaim to care about.

I really appreciate the author sharing something so personal, but his entire family is less than human.

> you can't be compassionate if your compassion only extends to the point that it starts to have any negative effect on your life.

How much of your income do you donate?

Yes, except as a full grown adult, the author never reported the situation to the authorities, took this 'secret' to the grave and even 'inherited' his slave from his parents. He said he paid her an allowance (which didn't sound like much) and also didn't make her work after she lived with them, but that's a token effort to right the injustice of decades of work without pay.

Devil's advocate:

After the mother passed, Lola had nowhere to go, and no job or career or savings. She had nothing, except for the kids that she helped raise since their birth. The author gave her not only a place to live rent-free, but paid her some amount of money he could afford so she could better enjoy her life.

I'm not saying either of our comments are 100% accurate, but you are taking a pretty 1-sided viewpoint to the situation. You can't pretend like the relationship between the author and Lola was strictly one of slave-master - that's disingenuous.

It's really easy to judge someone else for what they didn't do when you have no understanding of what their lives were like.

What do you think would happen if you report the family to the authorities? it was a tragedy but I bet making her life a lot less miserable is the best one can do. In case you havent realized yet from reading the story, he considers her second mom and Lola considers him her son and his offsprings her grandkids. Your "authorities" will just throw everyone into a bureaucratic hell.

Are you an American? If so: America has never paid reparations to former slaves or their descendants. He may have only paid her a token sum, but it's better than the rest of us have done, so don't act holier than thou about it.

Also, he clearly didn't plan to take his secret to the grave, it's on the cover of the Atlantic.

So, obviously my citizenship or my country's history has no bearing on the merits of my criticism. It seems you want to have a completely different argument.

I think it's fair to criticize someone for being aware that a person is being enslaved and not doing anything meaningful about it for the same reason that it's fair to criticize onlookers who fail to call 911 on a crime in progress.

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