class material

Today I would like to discuss a few topics that come to mind also that are intertwined with the class material, which include slavery and genocide. Genocide is the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group. While slavery is similar in a capitalist perspective is a form of forced labor in where one person at the least is owned by another individual. For example, “We can see a parallel in post apartheid South Africa; faced with the, large-scale, horrific murders and torture of the past, many people in that country argued that collective amnesia would best serve the reconstruction of a truly democratic state” (Bales 7). How can one forget the trials and tribulations these people have endured for hundreds of years and what does that say about the victims? The institution of slavery is as old as civilization, made off the backs of others. Despite the efforts to end slavery it is still very prominent today, worldwide we have the highest number documented of slaves today which is estimated around 27 million. In addition, “we have to observe that the socioeconomically oppressed (the poor) do not simply exist alongside other oppressed groups, such as blacks, indigenous people, women-to take the three major categories in the Third World; No, the ‘class-oppressed’-the socioeconomically poor-are the infrastructural expression of the oppressed” (Farmer 49). This can also refer to the sexism and the racism that has been a factor in poor countries as well as the rich countries. With poor status as a reflection of these two prejudices we live in a world were worth is measured, we must first understand and stop racism and this will assist in steps to stop sexism. These workers are put in stereotypical roles that they are conditioned to learn and carry out, without knowledge of the inequalities that take place they will forever be lost. Furthermore, “The dehumanizing process behind forming variable capital ‘converts the worker into a crippled monstrosity’” (Wright 73). All slavery is dehumanizing and degrades the individuals who are in that positions, for most of the Africans involved in the diamond trade they have know stability so they enter this conflicted situation to secure living measures not realizing the drugs and abuse that will be placed on them. This all is a form of genocide and further perpetuates the cycle of slavery. Lastly, “The latter is the strategy for the defeated or for those who have accepted inevitability of defeat; some things, though, are bound to emerge victorious, whatever strategy is chosen: the new fragmentation of the city space, the shrinkage and disappearance of public space, the falling apart of urban community, separation and segregation-and above all the exterritoriality of the new elite and the forced territoriality of the rest” (Bauman 23). It is all about strains that keep the poor poorer and anyone who is of low class stay in low class. By keeping the power in the hands of the elite they control markets and the people who work around them. It’s a power struggle and by keeping the power they hold the lives of these slaves. We need to stop slavery, genocide, racism, and sexism, but slavery and these ideals are so embedded in the globalization of marketing that if we did then the economy gets messed up. So it keeps the market open for slaves.