{"id":878,"date":"2016-08-11T14:53:21","date_gmt":"2016-08-11T14:53:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/anthrohealth.net\/blog\/?p=878"},"modified":"2016-08-11T14:53:21","modified_gmt":"2016-08-11T14:53:21","slug":"underground-airlines-did-slavery-really-end","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/anthrohealth.net\/blog\/underground-airlines-did-slavery-really-end\/","title":{"rendered":"Underground Airlines: Did Slavery Really End?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sometimes a novel really hits me in the gut. \u00a0That is the case with Underground Airlines<\/em> by Ben H. Winters. \u00a0This novel is disturbing, wrenching, powerful, and so terribly, terribly on-target.<\/p>\n

Underground Airlines<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Winters has written an alternate history that is not really alternate at all. \u00a0It is the 21st century United States of our reality thinly-disguised as from an alternate reality.<\/p>\n

In the alternate history of Underground Airlines<\/em>, Lincoln was assassinated in Indiana as he traveled East to his inauguration in 1861. \u00a0In order to prevent the Civil War, Congress agreed to the 18th Amendment which made slavery legal forever (or for as long as those states chose) in the then-current slave states. \u00a0No other states could become slave states. \u00a0Further, the Federal government, using the Federal Marshals, would be in charge of finding, capturing, and returning escaped slaves to their owners. \u00a0The Federal government would also monitor all slave operations to make sure that basic, minimum standards of care were maintained for the slaves. \u00a0Winters does an excellent job of weaving historical events in our reality of the past 150 years into the alternate reality.<\/p>\n

In the alternate 21st century, only four states remain slave states: Carolina (North and South have joined into one state), Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. \u00a0These states are fenced off from the rest of the US and have heavily-guarded entry\/exit posts. \u00a0Due to pressure from abolitionists in the non-slave states, companies in the slave states cannot sell directly to non-slave states or most other countries. \u00a0However, holding companies with complex corporate structures manage to hide\u00a0the ways in which they and their customers benefit from slave labor.<\/p>\n

The One-Drop Rule has mutated into a precisely-delineated color chart with scores of skin-color shades marking an individual as “Black” and, therefore, suspected of\u00a0being a slave, escaped slave, or, at best, a lesser form of human.<\/p>\n

The protagonist in the novel is Victor, a former slave who has been coerced into working for the Marshals as a slave catcher. \u00a0His job is to hunt down escaped slaves and then notify the Marshals who will\u00a0capture the individual in order to return him or her to\u00a0the\u00a0owner. \u00a0The story begins with Victor being given a case which feels ‘off’. \u00a0I won’t give any spoilers because I hope you will read the book.<\/p>\n

The existence of slavery and the color chart prevents anyone who is not lightly-pigmented from being treated well and equally in the non-slave\u00a0states, even if that person and his\/her ancestors have been free for generations. \u00a0Those deemed Black\u00a0are subject to intense scrutiny, must live in segregated neighborhoods that lack basic amenities, and must defer to the superior White individuals. \u00a0Even white abolitionists involved in the Underground Airlines view themselves as superior to non-whites.<\/p>\n

In our own 21st century reality, many\u00a0believe that slavery ended long ago, but that is only because they do not know our history of Post-Reconstruction share-cropping, which was slavery by another name<\/a>. \u00a0They do not understand that the Jim Crow laws<\/a> served to keep African Americans in an enforced, lower status with limited rights. \u00a0Anyone who was viewed as ‘getting uppity’ could be lynched<\/a>.\u00a0They do not see that racial profiling<\/a> gives law enforcement and armed whites in stand-your-ground states<\/a> almost unlimited freedom to treat and kill African Americans as if they were property rather than citizens with equal rights. \u00a0They are unaware of the vast number of goods sold in the U.S. that are farmed <\/a>or manufactured by prison labor<\/a>. \u00a0Nor that the U.S. has the world’s largest prison population<\/a>; a\u00a0prison population that includes\u00a0a disproportionate number<\/a> of African Americans, especially in the former slave states<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Underground Airlines<\/em> makes it very clear that Black lives do not matter except as bodies to produce goods to enrich their owners. \u00a0How much does that alternate reality really differ from our own? \u00a0For those who wish to live in a reality where there is true equality and where Black Lives Matter as much as White lives, I suggest carefully reading this policy platform <\/a>in order\u00a0to\u00a0consider how you can support it.<\/p>\n

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