The major loophole here is in the 13th amendment:
> Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
That doesn’t work if the judicial system is unfair. There are many, many examples showing that it too often isn’t with uncomfortably close relationships between the police, prosecutors, judges, and the prison industry. This is one of the more egregious cases in recent memory because it involved children but the cases involving adults tend to get far less media coverage:
https://www.inquirer.com/news/pennsylvania/pa-kids-for-cash-...
The infamous Kids for Cash scandal you mentioned was in Pennsylvania, not a Southern state that rebuilt "many of the same [prewar] power structures".
The book the myth is based on “How the Irish Became White” defines white basically as “didn’t face discrimination”, which Irish people certainly did, but never because they “weren’t white”. Obviously these are different things, and this (I think deliberately) confusing framing leads to the myth. This is just a piece of the reason why defining “whiteness” as anything other than the skin color is racist and inaccurate, and it throws a wrench into the idea that American history is just “white = free, nonwhite = all discrimination”, which is a convenient narrative but completely fabricated.
This doesn’t at all diminish the discrimination other groups suffered, but Irish people were considered white and STILL received significant discrimination (Italians and Jews too, Catholics as a religious example as well).
[0]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/201...
It's a shorthand but it's not a myth. Yes, they weren't discriminated against as badly. No, they did not have the full access to and support of society which that term is shorthand for.
(And, no, this did not start with a book which came out in 1995)
Yes, it’s a myth. 100%. There’s only 2 ways of reading “Irish people weren’t considered white”. The first is that people didn’t consider them white in the consensus definition of the word: white skin/being of white stock/white-classed ethnicity - which Irish were considered to fit this (thus the claim is a myth).
The other way of interpreting this statement is that white has any definition other than the commonly accepted one. In this case, not only has it led to so much misinformation (people genuinely think Irish people weren’t considered white people), but in this particular definition of “white” it is racist and assumes white supremacy by definition by just putting anyone discriminated against in any way as “definitely not white”, an entirely politically motivated definition, and so should be entirely disregarded.
“Irish people weren’t considered white” is a myth, it’s completely wrong. If you are trying to say something like “Irish people received more discrimination than anglo-Saxons”, then just say that rather than appropriating the term white for political purposes.
Many of the groups we now consider white were not originally fully accepted as such. If you want to argue that we should have a different term than "whiteness" to describe that, fine, but there is plenty of scholarly usage of the term and it doesn't change the intended meaning that different groups had different levels of acceptance and, most relevantly, joining the anti-Black side tended to be an effective way to avoid one's own status being question.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definitions_of_whiteness_in_th...
> For example, one of the things which helped Irish immigrants like my ancestors get accepted into the white club was their value as cheap labor to lower black negotiating power and a lot of them were recruited into rapidly expanded police forces for the same reasons.
The point was that while the Irish (or Jews, or Italians, or …) were not considered enslavable prior to the Civil War or on the Black side of the Jim Crow laws afterwards, they also were not treated as full members of society with equal access to the courts, jobs, education, etc. and one of the ways that all of those groups were able to improve their status was by joining the white side of anti-Black discrimination by taking jobs, becoming cops, keeping neighborhoods segregated, etc.
Again, the point wasn't that no other forms of discrimination have ever been practiced but that just because the Northern states fought the South didn't mean that they didn't have significant problems with anti-Black discrimination. In the context of this post, prison labor was used to fill some demand for cheap labor to replace slaves and the North was again more than willing to look the other way or profit from that labor even if it wasn't as common (or severe) in their states.
Being discriminated against in job opportunities and so on has NOTHING to do with being white. Tying them inextricably together is completely unnecessary and pollutes the conversation with borderline racism.
Being white is as simple as being black, or any other race: it’s your lineage/how you are perceived/how you identify/etc all wrapped into one and can be complicated. It is not at all dependent on your rights, or level of discrimination.
In all laws that grouped treatment on race (segregation, Jim Crow, quotas, etc) Irish people fell into the white category, every single time. Despite harsh miscegenation laws, Irish people could “intermarry” other white people without any issue - because it wasn’t intermarrying - they were all considered white. That they also received other discrimination is irrelevant to the question.
Would you suggest Irish people aren’t white even today? All the same arguments that “demonstrate” racial discrimination: longer jail sentences, lower incomes and wealth, etc for black people show Irish people trailing behind white averages too. So even though nearly every American would consider Irish people to be white, because of the discrepancy in outcomes you’d say Irish people aren’t white?
They received discrimination in other ways, including for Irish ancestry, but not for being white. Do you understand how those are different? The article DID mention “Irish need not apply” signs, but that’s on the basis of ethnicity, not race.
Different groups had different levels of acceptance even today. The vast majority of Americans consider Jews to be white, but there are still people who dislike Jews. Jews receiving discrimination doesn’t make them any less white.
Even your linked article has 0 examples of Irish people not being considered white. You seem to be under the impression that being white by definition can’t receive racial discrimination, and if they do then they can’t be considered white by definition. That’s a ridiculous definition, it’s confusing, and black/Asian/etc has no kind of definition so this definition is clearly just politically motivated - it overloads a commonly understood term to smuggle in the idea that white supremacy is just true by definition and whites people never experience racism by definition. Both of which defy observed reality, making this an entirely nonsense definition.
The only valid definition of white is the commonly accepted one: of the white racial group as decided by a combination of factors including your lineage, how you are perceived, and so on. This is the same definition for any race, and under this definition: Irish people have always been considered white.
However, your definition of race is incomplete.
> defining “whiteness” as anything other than the skin color is racist and inaccurate
You are assuming that race is an objective measure, but there isn't a scientific definition of race which matches common understandings of race. Instead of accepting that people may act on a personal understanding of race, you are asserting that their definition of race doesn't match your definition, and so there's no racial component at play. Ethnicity has a habit of becoming racialized. For example:
> Different groups had different levels of acceptance even today. The vast majority of Americans consider Jews to be white, but there are still people who dislike Jews. Jews receiving discrimination doesn’t make them any less white.
Does it matter that you think that Jews are white if the Nazis did not believe that? They created racial categories for the purpose of discrimination. Jews and Slavs were subject to "racialization" by the Nazis. We can say that Jews in Europe faced racial oppression under the Nazis because the Nazis oppressed them by labeling them a race. In fact, the Nazi classification of the Jewish Race meets your updated definition:
> The only valid definition of white is the commonly accepted one: of the white racial group as decided by a combination of factors including your lineage, how you are perceived, and so on.
The problem with your insistence that the Irish and Jews are white is that there isn't an authoritative white lineage or white appearance. People disagree[1] over who's considered white.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definitions_of_whiteness_in_th...
[0] https://www.amazon.com/Irish-Became-White-Routledge-Classics...
It’s pretty simple: the book doesn’t mean “white” like white, you know the actual definition of the word. It means “white: having the most rights”, which isn’t the definition at all and is deliberately misleading. It pretends like being white a priori makes one immune from discrimination.
Irish people were always considered white, they were also discriminated against more than anglo-Saxons. Both of these are true. The only reason this would be hard to comprehend is if you have the warped view that American history is just white supremacy (clearly many whites didn’t have it so good).
So what is the definition then?
Not only is it racist, there’s also no sense in tying extra garbage like “level of discrimination” to the definition of white - it just doesn’t match up to observed reality. White people have been enslaved, white people are discriminated against in many countries where they aren’t the majority, white groups receive varying levels of discrimination even now. These facts don’t make a person any more or less white.
Beyond that: being white and being accepted in America having little to do with each other. In every legal instance of discrimination on the basis of race (segregation, Jim Crow, etc), Irish people fell in the white category. Despite harsh miscegenation laws, Irish people could “intermarry” other white people without any issue - because it wasn’t intermarrying - they were all considered white.
This is the problem with the nonsense definition of white as “accepted in America and receiving zero discrimination”. Was JFK not white either because he was Catholic and Catholics dealt with discrimination through US history? Of course not.
Irish people have worse outcomes today vs the average for whites across incomes, wealth, interview rates, and so on. Are they still not white today?
White has a very simple meaning, like black or Asian does: it’s determined by your lineage and how you are perceived by other and yourself, with a few other factors. It’s complicated in some cases, but it has nothing to do with your level of discrimination. Do you think white people can’t receive discrimination by definition? If one is discriminated against, are they no longer white?
And you mentioned starving in the Irish Potato Famine. That was a failure of government policy and farmers breeding the same strain. The prevailing British policy was that you only received welfare benefits if you didn’t own land, and so many Irish farmers and others who needed it weren’t willing to give up their land for it. That has nothing to do with race
The Rwandan genocide was entirely between black people, but 2 different ethnic groups. It was a brutal genocide, ethnic discrimination to the extreme, but that doesn’t make anyone less black. Colorism exists, that doesn’t make anyone less black. WW2 was a massive violent conflict between predominantly white people. Tens of millions died, and Americans were as willing to kill Germans as Germans were to kill the British and so on. They are all white.
Being of the same race doesn’t mean there’s also massive racial solidarity at all times. White Americans today are fairly split between conservative and democrats even now. Is one group less white?
This is just a few of the contradictions created when you try to cram “discrimination” in as an aspect of being white (but not for any other race). It’s such a narrow, racist, incorrect worldview that runs against reality pretty much everywhere. It serves no academic usefulness at all except agenda-pushing
The state of prisons in the US is abhorrent and not what one would expect from a modern democratic nation, which coincidentally also claims to be the champion of freedom.
I never claimed it did. Your previous post suggested we got to this point by "allowing the South to rebuild many of the same power structures". Even if that were the whole story in the South, it does nothing to explain the situation in the North.
People fly Confederate flags here all the time. There's one in the window of a house just down the street.
Just because the actual seceding states were in the South doesn't mean the racism stopped there.
The power structures the South rebuilt, they then exported ideologically. The ideals of equality the North held, they also exported ideologically.
It's very, very important to remember that there are many very right-wing people in "blue" states—just as there are many very left-wing people in "red" states. In fact, every state in the nation is some shade of "purple", with the strongest concentrations of one end of the political spectrum being around 60-70%.
It's mostly an urban versus rural divide. The states with the really big and politically influential cities all reliably have their elections won by Democrats and the states without big cities, or at least without politically powerful ones, all reliably have their elections won by republicans. Needless to say, the toss-up states have something of a balance of political power.
I presume the effect is largely due to self-selection. The arrow of causality is almost certainly political orientation causing choice of where to reside. In my experience Democrat voters who move to a rural area don't become Republican voters, they become miserable and go on and on, mostly online, about just how awful everyone else around them is. One sees a similar, but less noticeable, effect with Republicans in cities.
And several blue states (Hawaii, New Mexico, Vermont, Colorado ) hold many prisoners in private prisons. Others used to.
There's more involved here than "Republicans are bad people".
The same pattern applied the 60s "civil rights era", some northern liberals were against jim crow, but certainly did not want blacks moving in next door to them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Puritans_in_Nor...
I am not an advocate for the current state of the prison system. But I don't get why people are fundamentally against "prisoners should work to provide for themselves, just like the rest of us."
Hell, it would probably be great for rehabilitation. You could teach people how to show up for a job and manage money. Make it work like it does on the outside, and you'd have an infinitely more effective prison system.
I am also forced into labor. I suppose I technically COULD just not work. But then I'd have no place to live and no food to eat.
That isn't really very much of a choice, is it?
I feel like you're missing the "needs" part that the rest of society has.
Federal prisons banned cigarettes from commissaries in 2006 and smoking in general in 2014[0].
And many states have restricted tobacco use in their jails and prisons[1].
[0] https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2014/12/05/smoking-offi...
If we treat prison as a service to society it makes sense that we should pay for the service through taxes. Prison obviously isn't intended to be a service for the convicted individual so it doesn't make any sense to charge them.
If this cost is considered too high we should consider reducing the number of people we send to prison. If we can offload the cost to prisoners, those least capable of fighting back (they can't even vote!), then the sky's the limit!
> Hell, it would probably be great for rehabilitation. You could teach people how to show up for a job and manage money.
Sure, if and only if they're paid the local minimum wage and services in the prison are reasonably priced (no $25 brief phone calls, etc). Otherwise we're not teaching them to manage anything, we're just exploiting them.
You interview for a job, you get paid a fair market rate, you get reasonable paid time off and sick time.
On the flip side of that, you also need to pay for your own lodging and food. Also at fair market rate (accounting for prison quality generally being lower means lower rent, I wager).
You could offer nicer accommodations that prisoners can upgrade to, for a higher monthly rent. And maybe the food line has different meal options. If you want to splurge one day to celebrate, you could order a steak or lobster, or something.
People are in prison because of their own antisocial behavior, and you think that others should bear the costs of keeping them there?
The "punishment" inherent in prison is the loss of your basic human rights, your freedom. Anything above and beyond that should be considered unethical treatment. Prison should be an incredibly boring hotel stay really.
And if you say "but then people will want to go to prison" you should think about how horrible of a world you've built where it's better to give up basic rights than participate in society.
No, people need money to afford their housing, food, clothing, etc. Most people acquire that money through labor, but they can select between a variety of employers and quit whenever they want.
And as for why freedom to choose their job should be different, we sort of agreed as a society quite some time ago that slavery is wrong.
But there are plenty of other things prisoners could do if reasonable accommodations were made. Making widgets, for example.
Also, taking the "prisoners must work" piece out of the equation doesn't really solve any of those problems.
At what point do you think being in prison should differ from being free then?
The best thing that recently has happened in this regard is California saying they will consider people who did fire fighting during their jail time will get real consideration to work for Calfire if they apply for openings. Which is awesome since these people already have some basic experience and training.
It is crazy what we allow prisoners do and then they can't get hired for it. My father in law for awhile during his one of his prison sentences worked with EMTs, but yet on release, has no pathway to employ the skills he learned.
The prison sentence is the loss of your liberty and the mark on your record. Not being sold as forced labor.
If we don't want to pay for prisons, maybe we shouldn't have so many people imprisoned.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jun/15/us-prison-wo...
A lot of "businesses" would straight up collapse without this free labor
On the labor issue I don’t see why prison populations shouldn’t get put to work on public works projects. It’s not a vacation, it’s jail.
>>On the labor issue I don’t see why prison populations shouldn’t get put to work on public works projects.
No one is arguing against that. The problem is that prison populations are being used for profit making - anyone can contract with a prison to use their labour to make whatever thing you want to do or make. So companies use prisoners to make products that they then sell for profit. Which obviously creates perverse incentives for prisons to have a large workforce they can hire out for profit. No one is arguing against using prisoners to clear out public pathways or whatever.
>> It’s not a vacation, it’s jail.
Also, I just want to say I'm not a fan of this argument because people use it to excuse all kinds of things. "People get beaten up in prison? It's not a vacation, it's jail". "Prison rape happens? It's not a vacation, it's jail". And so on and so on. Like, yeah, it's not a vacation, but a basic standard of human dignity should be allowed.
> No one is arguing against that.
There's nothing wrong with arguing against that, and there are plenty of people who argue against that.
Why should conditions be any better than what is legally required? If you have a problem with what the law requires, fine. The law should describe some reasonable standard.
But making jail conditions "better" doesn't happen by magic. It requires effort and it costs money.
Perfect riposte, indeed.
Rehabilitation is secondary to that.
Additionally it is important to call out that humane does not mean nice or pleasant. Prison does not need to be cruel. But it should absolutely not be something that people enjoy, because then you create perverse incentives.
Your thought process implies that you want even harsher conditions for prisoners that regularly are starved, show up in cells dead from lack of water or beaten and left to die, where rape is used a joke, and recidivism increases because we refuse to hire or integrate people into our society post crime.
How much torture should people endure to satisfy your need for punishment?
The punishment is deprivation of liberty. I regard that as already an extreme punishment, entailing as it does the loss of your job, and like as not the loss of your family. You are also deprived of the means to defend yourself, despite being surrounded by violent people who wish you harm. I don't think anyone should ever be incarcerated, unless there is no choice - i.e. for the protection of society.
I findit remarkable that a country that proclaims itself as the beacon of capitalism, skews the labour market by hiring-out compelled, unpaid labourers. That's not how I was taught that well-regulated markets are supposed to work.
When taking a dump on the US, whether it's the rate of maternal death, incarcerations, prison conditions or school shootings or whatever, it's usually only relevant to compare to a subset of rich and democratic countries.
Of course there are places with more murders and worse prisons. The question is if it's reasonable that the country with one of the highest GDPs per capita and the best universities in the world does.
There was a very good LT (cop of lieutenant level) (strict, super cop type, but he followed the rules and you knew what you got, which is what you want in prison) transferred to UNICOR. He quit the BOP prior to getting his very very generous retirement package because he could no longer accept how UNICOR treated people (not inmates, people).