wcaleb’s avatarwcaleb’s Twitter Archive—№ 15,078

                    1. 1. Important points here on the Thirteenth Amendment and incarceration, to which at least two more points could be added. @robgreeneII/807235263839825920
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                    2. Penal labor widespread in antebellum North; 13th Amendment w/o crime exemption would have rendered most Northern prison systems illegal.
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                  3. And convict labor & use of prisons as means of racial control present in South prior to abolition; incarceration & enslavement coexisted.
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                4. On point #2, see Rebecca McLennan’s work; and I gesture towards #3 at end of this piece: wcm1.web.rice.edu/beyond-failure.html
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              5. Point #2 underscores Rael’s point that freedom, not just slavery, made penal labor & incarceration—even in antebellum North.
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            6. The 13th Amendment looked back to Auburn System as well as forward to convict leasing. And former was bad too mobile.nytimes.com/2013/12/12/books/prison-memoir-of-a-black-man-in-the-1850s.html
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          7. None of these points invalidate critiques of 13th amendment for the openings it gave to white enslavers seeking to reestablish power.
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        8. But they are important points to make to show the forces creating penal labor problem even before 13th amendment & their complex causes.
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      9. Much like work showing 20c mass incarceration had roots in liberalism, works on 19c convict leasing need to ID all culprits & causes.
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    10. Also, the post really makes me want to finally sit down and watch the 13th documentary—keep in mind I haven’t seen it when reading above