Magdelin Laundry
 

I just saw a play about this last night.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magdalene_asylum

So, apparently, up until friggin' 1996 the Catholic Church in Ireland was keeping "fallen" women against their will, in virtual slavery, taking their children away from them to raise in their orphanages, and using them for free labor in their for-profit laundry business. They beat them, they tortured them, they robbed them of all their possessions and gave them new names.

News article on them from 2009:

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-3445_162-567365.html

Here's the website of a group which is trying to get justice for the women, as of now neither the Catholic Church nor the Irish government has so much as apologized for keeping these women in SLAVERY.

The church won't even release the records of who was in the various Laundries or who died there.

Apparently there was a movie about it in 2002:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0318411/

So yeah...that happened

That's... abduction and unlawful imprisonment. :eek:

But they're people of faith, who only want to help the community! I'm sure without them all those dirty sluts/potential sluts would be out having consensual sex all whilly-nilly instead of doing hard labor for the enrichment of the church!

:D

Slavery huh.

What else would you call being forced to work for no pay, against your will, under threat of violence for an indefinite amount of time?

You know, Saya and I took bets about what you would say. She said that you would tell me that I do not have a monopoly on slavery, possibly expanding that Jews were slaves, too. I thought you might ask me how it is not slavery, or try to redefine what it is.

Looks like I won.

So, what would you call it?

You're a smart guy. You can figure out what's wrong.

No doubt I could make an educated guess.

But that still doesn't answer my question. So now I ask you for a third time, what would you call it?

It is slavery.

Sure. And so is this

http://mindprod.com/animalrights/animalslaves.html

and this

http://www.mises.org/daily/410

and this

http://www.davidkopel.com/NRO/2001/N...ed-Slavery.htm.

And Despanan, do you remember on Facebook when that asshat talked about how it wasn't acceptable to berate homophobic people publically, and asked you not to use swear words because they triggered him?

And then you said something like "uh, usually the word "triggering is reserved for **** or sexual assault victims."

It's kind of like that.

Sure, and this is not
http://momentscount.com/wp-content/u...2/braceros.jpg
http://blog.mysanantonio.com/latinli...y/braceros.jpg
http://americanhistory.si.edu/onthem...media/l/75.jpg

I didn't say it wasn't, Alan.

No it's not.

What'd you win?

The problem with the term slavery is that Ireland has a legacy of indentured servitude (the Magdalene asylums are also linked to industrial schools, psychiatric asylums, single mother homes and more that all exploited labour from those they were supposed to care for) that extended to their immigrants to America, in which while treated pretty badly they were given hierarchy over slaves and eventually freed, whereas slaves were born slaves, died slaves and their children were slaves. They weren't considered people at all much less people who could be redeemed through hard labour.

Its also interesting to note how this is now considered unacceptable, but when Irish critics point out that they still lock up aslyum seekers for daring to apply for refugee status, where they're paid very little weekly and become very sick, sometimes die, its not comparable to what was done to white women. They're just freeloaders who should be thankful.

And I didn't say taxes were.
Funny how it works when people call on bullshit double standards, huh?

No, that wasn't my point. It's that Despanan is so comfortable using the term and making direct comparisons. He fucking knows the problem and doesn't want to be wrong.

Well now he has the street cred of a mexican in this issue, and that happened before you gave me your half-baked examples, so you should have added that to the socioeconomic dick measurement.

1) The slave societies of Ancient Greece and Rome were not hereditary, and were largely based on conquest.

2) The Madeline wash-women could not work their way out of slavery, the best thing they could hope to would be to become a nun, and even then they would never be freed and continue to labor for the enrichment of the church and the laundry.

3) Often times if their children were girls they WOULD be sent to work in the laundry, because of indoctrination by the nuns in the orphanages.

4) Would you be against the label "sex-slavery" for 3rd world women forced into indefinite prostitution in the 1st world?

[quote=Despanan;701810]1) The slave societies of Ancient Greece and Rome were not hereditary, and were largely based on conquest.[quote]

I win, Versus!

I think the legacy of slavery in Ancient Greece is pretty well gone. You and I are not reaping the benefits of Greek slavery and pederasty.


Many Magdalene sisters did leave, you know, their families would put them in there and they could take them out, or they could theoretically become of age and leave, although many didn't due to mental disability or being unable to survive outside the system.

Actually a large amount were adopted out, it wasn't necessarily hereditary.

As a white person that isn't my decision to make. I'm skeptical of my own outrage when I learned about this years ago and critical of my delayed outrage at indentured servitude in the US that continues in the prison system. I'm very quick to feel outraged for other white women and yet slow to recognize the oppression of PoC, and until I can get over that I'm not able to use terms that in our society are extremely racialized.

I'm just hoping he won't use your street cred as justification. "But Alan is Mexican and HE said it was okay!"

So it's okay to use the term "slave" if there's been significant time? What's the expiration date? If I wait a few more years can I call what the Church did to those women slavery? Can someone in Russia call what was done to those women Slavery? How about China?

That question is rhetorical btw. Your argument is an ad-hominem and you should feel bad about yourself for making it.

Yes, or much more often, they died there and were buried in secret without even their real name.

So the ones that weren't adopted out, were they hereditary slaves?

Jesus Christ Saya, that is a complete cop-out. One can make an objective judgement about whether or not someone's treatment meets a set of criteria. If they refuse to acknowledge other people who meet that criteria it doesn't mean their first judgement was wrong, it just means they are inconsistent/hypocritical.

As to what goes on in the prison industrial complex, your initial lack of outrage doesn't invalidate your initial outrage: we as a society are conditioned to believe that folks in prison deserve to be there. Many people are not aware of the facts. You, like many others were suffering from a lack of information. It's silly to be skeptical about selective outrage as stress is subjective and there's really only so much rage to go around. We have evolved to tune out the stuff which effects us on a less personal level.

So, pointing out we have privilege and are still reaping the benefits of black slavery and therefore shouldn't be quick to cry out racialized terms when white people who don't affect you in any regard are oppressed?

You just learned about this last night, dude. There were 133 unmarked graves discovered, not 30,000, which is roughly the number of women who were in Magdalene asylums in the last 150 years.

You mean were they classified under flora and fauna, considered animals, considered property, considered subhuman? Not really. They were poor and destitute and this is like Randian charity.


There is no objectivity here. We're white people with an interest in maintaining white supremacy and only caring about white people. The only thing that makes that appear "objective" is because it comes natural to us and we don't see it as a bias.

The girls were blamed for being there too, they were seen as deserving. It was punishment and an attempt at rehabilitation, just like the exploitation of prisoners is considered deserved and rehabilitating. The difference is is that one group is white and the other is mainly PoC.

If we're going to get into semantics, I'd say that the term could be 'serfdom' - but there wasn't really a chance to raise a certain amount of money to buy freedom. Bondsperson isn't a great fit either.


I'm with Despanan though.
Despite the racialised and problematic nature of the word, and the fact that it's derived from a more extreme and systemic oppression in history - I don't think that Magdalene laundries and sex trafficking could be dismissed as forms of slavery.


Anyway. Unlawful restraint, forced labour, failure to pay wages. Not cool.

Apparently.

What Versus is saying though is that its not necessarily that its not slavery, its just very uncomfortable coming from a privileged white dude (or any white person) to talk about other white people when they previously show little sensitivity when it comes to racialized terms or oppressions or the opinions of women and PoC.

What I'm saying is that I find it highly suspicious to be suddenly concerned for white women who were exploited when we have a history of not giving a rat's ass when it isn't a white person.

My outrage in this case has less to do with them being white and more to do with the fact that:

1) This is new information

2) This is more recent than American Slavery, as in, this occurred during my lifetime

3) This particular slavery is faith-based, and that happens to be a type of oppression I am personally passionate about fighting.

4) I just saw a play about it, and art, especially live theatre is a very effective way of making an argument more personal.

There were 133 unmarked graves found in ONE location. There were multiple locations so the body count is probably much higher.

Once again, there are other cases where the term slave applies, that were not the same as American slavery, which is a particularly brutal version of it. Rome, Greece, you brought up the Jews in Egypt, modern sexual slavery, hell the slave societies of Africa weren't nearly as bad as American slavery, and in fact were closer to European serfdom. We still use the term "slave".

People naturally care more about things that look like them, and remind them of themselves, and directly relate to them. This is a product of our evolution.

Now I won't disagree that white-supremacy and euro-centric culture plays into this and exacerbates this tendency, but to argue that a person is physically incapable of looking beyond this and making an informed judgement because of the color of their skin or their cultural background is pretty damn racist. It's also stupid.

You can argue that communication is more difficult due to cultural norms and ethnic backgrounds, and that there is a greater chance of misinterpretation, but to argue what you're arguing presupposes that a certain amount of communication between different races and cultures is impossible.

And if you believe that, then you're a believer in one form or another of racial or cultural supremacy.

And in that case you're a horrible person, so fuck you.

Once again, that doesn't mean I should be LESS angry about this, it means I should be MORE angry about the Prison Industrial Complex. Which I am angry about, I just haven't seen a play about it recently.

C'mon, AshleyO. I need you right now.

http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e3...racebingo1.jpg

To you, because you're that privileged.

Did you know? The prison industrial complex in the states was meant as a continuation of black slavery. When slaves were freed, vagrancy laws were invented to make sure black men went right back to jail, and now they could exploit their labour that way. The effects of black slavery is still occuring during your lifetime.

I didn't want to suggest you only care because its faith based and you can tag your own feelings of atheist oppression on the torture and pain of women, but there you go.

Now I'm just picturing you with a top hat and a monocle expecting people to put on plays about their oppressions so you'll learn about it. Actually, there was a pretty big splash made when The Magdalene Sisters movie was made.

But we don't know yet, so you can't make that claim unless you have evidence, isn't that what you're usually all about?


Again, we're not experiencing the benefits of Jewish slavery in Egypt. We're benefiting from the oppression of PoC, in which we feel comfortable comparing the oppression of white people in Ireland to slavery and saying the n word just to be funny.

Its a product of white supremacy. I've heard this exact argument against interracial romance, you know.

We have the reverse racist square down! Actually, its not stupid. Its your world view. Your bias. We all have one and it restricts us in several ways. This is cultural anthropology 101, dude.

But you're not interested in communicating between different races and cultures, that's the point. We just view the world through a white lense without bothering consulting PoC.

Seriously, dude? You know I'm just another white person trying to stop you from making a total ass of yourself yet again?


Well hang on while I go get a few costumes so you'll care about it. Or tie it in to religious persecution somehow so you can attach your atheist agenda to it and feel like you're part of an oppressed class.

Despanan, do you remember that comment I made on your facebook when you were being thrown down and arrested because someone compared it to "Hitler and the Jews?"

I don't consider ignorance a privilege. I consider it something that needs to be constantly remedied.

Yes, I know that.

There's a difference between "tagging my own feelings of atheist oppression" onto someone else, and recognizing when a problem intersects with an issue I'm passionate about. There was a Pakistani theatre group a while back which put on a satirical play about Burkas after they had been ordered not to by the government. I had a more emotional reaction to that than most of the other cases of people standing up to oppression in that region because I'm an artist.

Theatre is the oldest method of storytelling. It taps into a primal part of our nature in ways that other communication does not. You can mock me for stating a fact but it doesn't make your point any stronger.

There's a difference between making a reasonable supposition based upon the available evidence, and drawing a firm conclusion. You're grasping at straws here Saya.

Saying the n word was out of place. I was using it ironically and intentionally being provocative but in hindsight it was inappropriate. Please accept my apologies.

As for comparing the conditions of the women in the laundries to American slavery, I didn't do that, Versus did that. Now, you could argue that slave is so racially charged a word that one cannot help but make that connection, but again, then we shouldn't call the slaves from ancient Greece slaves, nor the Egyptians slaves, etc. and I think it's dangerous to apply that term solely to one particularly brutal version of this behavior, as it cheapens the struggle of other people who have endured this kind of inhuman treatment.

No, Saya, white supremacy is a product of this and many other parts of our psychology and society. I'm talking about our tendency to project emotions onto drawings that vaguely resemble faces and prioritize our level of reaction based upon the most immediate threats.

One could use that argument to justify forbidding interracial marriage, but it would be a fallacious argument, just as your argument against it is fallacious due to your attempt to use guilt by association to dismiss it.

No, it wouldn't be reverse racist, it would just be racist. Also reverse racism is a stupid term, as the reverse of racism is the absence of making judgements based on race. I suppose you could say "reverse bigotry" but that's pretty much privilege...anyway I digress.

The point is bias restricts us but it does not make it impossible to draw the correct conclusion, it just makes things more difficult.

You certainly are assuming alot. Suffice to say you're wrong.

I'm pointing out the very natural result of the logic you're putting forth. I don't think you're a horrible person, i was being hyperbolic. I do think you don't think this shit through though.

If there can be no communication or understanding between humans of a different cultural background beyond a certain level, then there can be no true commonality. If there is no commonality, then there can be no true equality. If there is no equality then supremacy of one kind or another is the only answer.

I'm sorry, this is math Saya. Humans of a different race are not a different species. We're not fucking aliens. Communication and understanding can be made more difficult due to differences in cultures and experience but it's not impossible.

Reducto Ad-absurdum, straw man, ad hominem.

Three for three. You're bad at this.

Sadly, Godwin's law exists for a reason dude. There is no comparison between me getting my ass kicked by the NYPD and genocide. There is a comparison between multiple separate groups of people being unjustly forced to do hard labor against their will for an indefinite amount of time under threat of violence.

If you want me to say that American slavery was worse, it was, it was WAY worse, but holding out that term to describe only one incarnation of this basic behavior is not only inappropriate from a linguistic standpoint, it is also dangerous as it prevents us from recognizing the very real plight of people who are being exploited and dehumanized in such a brutal manner as the Magdeline Laundry, or the chocolate industry, or the sex trade.

Anyway, I don't think it's inappropriate. Clearly you disagree, so feel free to think I'm wrong/racist. I really don't give a crap what either of you think.

Desp why are you posting this as if it were new information? This is something that Saya brought up a couple of years ago in a thread where not only were you an active participant but you directly commented on her post. Were you really able to just forget about something this horrible?

I'm sorry, I thought you could figure that out on your own.

This is reducto ad absurdum because it fallaciously makes the claim that I don't care about what I don't see on stage.

This is a straw-man because my argument was not based upon my "atheist agenda" I simply admitted that my anti-theism is one of the reasons I found this particular issue more poignant at this time.

This is just a straight ad hominem as it supposes something negative about my motivation and implies that previous argument is incorrect.

all in all, it's a big old logicfail on Saya's part. You may simply list logical fallacies with no rhyme or reason miss absinth, but I do not.

Got it now?

I'm sorry can you link the thread? I may have indeed forgotten about it as I don't remember that thread at all.

Here is the thread, the asylums are mentioned on the second page.


I kind of assumed at the time that the reason why nobody really reacted to it was because it wasn't new information but looking back I guess most of the people were too concerned with Sternn being an asshat to care about those women.

US slavery was an attempt at genocide. It was levelled at entire races of people. To equate it with 'a group of people being unjustly forced to do hard labor against their will for an indefinite amount of time under threat of violence' trivialises the truth of the matter.

I wasn't saying that you were incorrectly deciding that things were logical fallacy. I was saying that you were being a dick about pointing it out instead of looking at the points Saya was making and trying to have a constructive conversation.

But hey.. if you want to be a dick.

Looking back, It was only a passing mention as part of a larger conversation, that centered around a different OP and Sterrn being an asshat. I don't think it's so much that people didn't care about those women, as the context it was presented in.

If it had been it's own thread (Which really, it should have been) or someone had gone "wait a minute, WHAT?!" and the conversation had turned to the asylums I probably would have remembered, but it's really no surprise I forgot about that.

No it wasn't. Genocide is an attempt at the specific extermination of an entire race of people. US slavery didn't want all blacks in America dead it wanted them to continue as a free source of labor.

You could say that Christopher Columbus committed genocide VIA slavery, as his actions actually resulted in wiping an entire race of people off the map.

Saya's points WERE the logical fallacies, and therefore they were all irrelevant.

Wait, why am I talking to you? Clearly you're a fucking idiot.

A point that is argued by use of a logical fallacy isn't necessarily a moot point.. it can be the truth argued in a poor way. Someone who is interested in having a meaningful discussion instead of just ramming their own views down another's throat might choose to look at the merit of the point that was trying to be made instead of dismissing it entirely.

If Saya had a point in any of that (and she doesn't) it's her responsibility to submit a new argument that isn't illogical, not mine to provide her arguments for her.

Your assertion that someone interested in a real argument might engage in the sort of behavior you suggest is useless vapid and fallacious and I'm going to start ignoring you now because of it.

You've got to be fucking kidding me.

I said meaningful discussion, not real argument.

Why should anyone have made a thread? It's not like it was new information and when compared to what women go through in other parts of the world it isn't even surprising. Also do you always shrug off learning of human rights violations if it isn't presented in just the right way? Or just the ones that you could never see happening to you?

Oh and if it was something you had just then found out about why didn't you go wait a minute, WHAT?

THAT is the real chauvinistic and ignorant position here.
Thinking that only THE American form of slavery is worthy of the name slavery. Come off it!

So Despanan talks about slavery, and you contest him by specifically talking about US slavery even though he didn't, and now you claim that you didn't say US slavery was the only form of slavery that matters?

You're either backpedaling or you do not realize the brazen ignorance in your previous words.