this post was submitted on 05 Apr 2026
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You're whitewashing how bad chattel slavery was. Slaves were separated from their spouses by sale. Slaves' children were automatically enslaved. Slaves were legally barred from being educated. They were not allowed to testify in court, so even laws against extreme abuse could not be enforced.
I don't think I am, which parts of my reply disputes that? Keep in mind modern prison system also forces divorce, their children way more likely to be enslaved, they are denied testifying in abuse cases, and they are denied higher education. The issue is that these are obfuscated in the current system on purpose, because almost all the abuse today well integrated into the system.
They are denied one specific grant for higher education, but they are taught for free within the prison system and can pay for outside education themselves. This is different from being barred by law from learning to read.
Your link does not say that they are denied by law from testifying in abuse cases. It just says that prison abuse happens.
Their children are more likely to end up in prison, but they are not bound by law to the prison that their parents were in.
Prisons do not force divorce.
By saying that imprisonment is literally slavery, you are absolutely minimizing the horrors of chattel slavery.
You nor I said they were prevented from being taught to read, we are talking about education. Most Americans aren't literate fwiw, less so in imprisioned populations. They are denied a grant that allows them to access wages at or above living wage, greatly increasing the risk of them being reimprisioned. How do they pay for education if they are not adequately paid in prison, which also drains their bank accounts while in there? Most are already working poor before prison.
You didn't read too much into the link, here is an article that summarizes it for you. What matters is whether justice for abuse cases happen, not whether or not one can testify about it. Same outcome different method.
What are you trying to say here? That there's a substantial difference on which prison a person goes to?
Prisons force separation.
By saying that chattel slavery is the only real slavery, you are absolutely minimizing the horrors of today. I'm not saying that prison = chattel slavery, that is you trying to create a false equivalence to deny. I am saying that 5 on the slavery scale and 10 on the slavery scale are not 0 on the slavery scale.
It was illegal to teach slaves to read. It is not illegal to teach prisoners to read. On the contrary, most prisons have adult basic education or high school equivalency programs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-literacy_laws_in_the_United_States?wprov=sfla1
I never said that. I said that imprisonment is nowhere near chattel slavery, and saying that it is whitewashes how bad chattel slavery was.
And we were talking about education.
Then please go into detail about how pointing out how terrible the prison system can be actually is whitewashes chattel slavery, one day old account.
Yes, you made several incorrect claims about education. Not only are they not denied higher education like you originally claimed, but they are also given free lower education. Slaves were legally barred from being educated. I don't understand why this stark difference is so difficult to understand.
What does the age of my account have to do with anything? I would not be at all surprised if you made as many incorrect claims when your account was one day old as you make today, but I also would not be surprised if you made fewer incorrect claims then either.
imprisonment is literally slavery
there are different kinds of slavery, and no one is saying prison slavery is exactly the same as chattle slavery, though it is more similar to chattle slavery than it is to wage slavery.
You did it again! The gap between imprisonment and chattel slavery is much larger than the gap between imprisonment and wage slavery.
There is no way that Elizabeth Holmes would submit to chattel slavery, but she calls imprisonment "hell," and she is far off the mark. https://people.com/elizabeth-holmes-breaks-her-silence-in-first-interview-from-prison-it-s-been-hell-and-torture-exclusive-8789737