End American Slavery

America has always depended on slave labor. It still does.

This is not to denigrate my black friends. Black folks here were slaves from the moment they came to these shores. Civil rights ended that for many, but there were still broken families, often created with intent, and little memory of the past. All efforts to pull together, to start new traditions, and to reclaim black history are great things to me.

They're evidence of freedom. They're evidence of finally coming into full standing as Americans.

But I digress. Nearly every American family has gone through a period, in its history on these shores, where it was "the other." Where it was exploited. My mother's family were O'Donnells, and in the 19th century they faced discrimination. My dad's people were Germans, who flooded in during the late 19th century and were distrusted during World War I.

(Above is my great-grandmother Anna Korcyniewski O'Donnell, born in 1867, who worked as a midwife in turn-of-the-century New England and who helped (without realizing it) give me a unique name, since Dana is Polish and my German dad never knew that. You may notice a resemblance to this reporter. I do.)

Minor stuff to be sure. The point is that my people were subject to exploitation, and most likely so were yours. We overcame it with time, and with assimilation. Usually it takes about a generation.

But if the flood of your people seems unrelenting, your period of slavery can last a good long while. Millions of Mexican-Americans are fully assimilated, but they feel feel the sting as distant relatives continue to cross the border.

We depend on slavery. As Americans, we have always done so. We need someone to do our scut work for us. We need someone to harvest our crops, to clean our homes, to watch our kids, and we don't honor that work. We claim we can't afford it. So we turn the other way when newcomers are exploited. We turn our backs on slavery that's happening right now, in our country. Sex slavery and unsafe working conditions, people treated as disposable. People who don't have to be given even minimum wage, because we know they can't go to the authorities.

Seen from the point of view of exploitation, Arizona's actions are actually heartening in a way. The people there are saying, we don't want to exploit people anymore. We're willing to pay more so Americans — documented, complaining, maybe (eventually) even unionized Americans — will do our scut work for us.

Isn't that right? The extreme measures being taken there are just because the federal government won't secure the border. That's what the measure's advocates say. It's not racism. It's the end of exploitation. 

The proper response should be to take them at their word. Mexican Americans who work for minimum wage or less should not live in Arizona. There are jobs elsewhere. Say sayonara. Leave. Let the dishes pile up, let the cooktops go untended. Let the crops be left to lie fallow in the fields. Let the babies of the middle class cry. Let the aged go untended in the nursing homes.

It would be great if Arizona were to face these consequences for its actions. It would put the issue squarely. Because I don't think this is what Arizona intended at all.  (Picture from the Border Patrol, and Elena del Valle.)

I'm not naive enough to believe that Arizona can last long without an exploited, and easily exploitable, underclass. We have become increasingly dependent on such people these last 40 years. They keep our upper middle-class from feeling poor. Folks with incomes like mine can easily afford the cost of a maid, or a gardener, and those in the middle-middle class afford these luxuries by buying them from a service.

The real issue here should be Americans' continuing dependence on the equivalent of slave labor. Are you willing to let your children become domestics, and demand they be paid a decent wage? Are you willing to give your gardener, or the busboy at your favorite restaurant, the full measure of the American dream? That means insurance, a home, medical care, and enough in his or her pocket to raise a family.

Are you really willing to see that happen? Are you ready to let the American poor, our proletariat, our working class, into the middle class? Because when you pull up the gangplank, when you really secure the borders and end slavery in America, that is what is going to happen. Even if you're not willing to give it, the workers will demand it. And the market will give it to them, because there won't be enough workers to do that scut work, and the value of scut work will naturally go up.

If America is willing to end slavery, then I have a simple suggestion. Here is how you secure the borders.

Forget national ID cards. We really don't need it. Instead, take biometric data when you hand out driver's licenses. Take retinal scans, take fingerprints, take DNA if it makes you happy. 

You don't have to put that stuff on a card, and make people show you that card when they're stopped by the police. Just put the data in a database. Then make it available.

Make that biometric data available to anyone with an obvious need to prove identity. Let police have it, and make it available to employers. Make it available to landlords, and school authorities.  Make it available to credit card companies, to banks, to anyone who needs it under our law. Fingerprints, retinal scans, DNA, whatever is easiest to collect, collect it, then run it through the database and don't trust identity unless it matches.

Done.

Assuming, of course, you do want to end slavery in America? You do, don't you?