Neoslavery II and Social Death (Slavery and Social Death, by Orlando Patterson)

12 Years a Slave; 407 years of Slavery.

12 years a slave (1841-1853); 407 years of slavery (1607-2014) [preslavery, slavery, neoslavery I, neoslavery II].  Preslavery---indentured servants who came over on slave ships to Virginia; slavery---1660-1865; neoslavery I [segregation, sharecropping, incarceration, prison work gangs]. roughly (1865-1968); neoslavery II, (1980-2014).

Neoslavery II and Social Death

The term neoslavery was coined by scholars to describe the period of oppression that followed the abolition of legal slavery; this was a period of roughly 100 years sometimes called Jim Crow, the period of segregation, sharecropping, etc.

Neoslavery II (to my knowledge, no scholar has used this term yet) is applied to the period of unjust mass incarceration of young black and Latino males and to the massive racial wealth gap (20-1, white households over black; 17-1, white households over Latino).  Michelle Alexander argues in her book, The New Jim Crow, that in America we do not end systems of oppression; we merely redesign them.  She does not use the term neoslavery II, but she endorses the concept.  Alexander could have subtitled her book The New Jim Crow: Neoslavery II.

Orlando Patterson in his book Slavery and Social Death, a world-wide and cross-cultural study of slavery, uses the term social death to describe the enormous damage that slavery does to a society, a culture.  Nothing, including basic social institutions such as marriage and family, is allowed to function normally; cultural and social dysfunction is the norm.  When slave are sold, families are broken; when illegals are deported, families are torn apart.  Neoslavery II in the form of mass incarceration and the wealth gap also breaks up and impoverishes families on a large scale; in addition, communities and schools are deeply impacted.

A suggestion.  Take advantage of 12 Years a Slave winning the Oscar; organize a Sunday School class or a church and go see this movie together.  Then come back and discuss the movie as a group, or build a Sunday School class around the biblical teaching on ethnocentrism, oppression and justice [Luke 4:18 on oppression and Luke 4:25-30 on ethnocentrism.]  Have half of your class read The New Jim Crow and the other half read The Hidden Cost of Being African American [the racial wealth gap].