The 13th and the 19th

Banned Histories of Race in America

When we talk about the end of slavery, we kinda skip over one very important fact: it didn’t actually end. It just became mass incarceration and you can see it right there in Section 1 of the 13th Amendment: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States …”

The South seized upon that “except as a punishment for crime” part right away, immediately passing Black Codes and Jim Crow laws that made Black existence as illegal as possible. Cut to today and this country has the largest incarcerated population in the world, it is disproportionately Black and taken advantage of by major corporations from McDonalds to Walmart.

Appearing to grant a people rights while functionally subjugating them is Colonization 101 and it doesn’t stop at our 13^th Amendment. It also applies to the 19^th Amendment, because contrary to the documentation, women didn’t actually get the right to vote.