I was travelling and a friend said I could use her house, because it was empty. This was perfect for me, since I had a wife and kid.
It turns out there was a housekeeper. She did everything for us, made us feel very comfortable, cooked, served, helped with the kid, etc.
Then one day I found out she didn't have her own room, despite the place being a multi storey mansion. In fact, she slept on a mat in the kitchen. And not only that, there would be a phone call each morning to wake her up, from the master of the house. He didn't want her to get too comfy while the family was out.
It was all a bit shocking. I still haven't chatted to my friend about this, because what on earth do you say? And otherwise ordinary western educated person -in fact a feminist, globalist, left-leaning idealist- who has a slave? What if I've misunderstood something? Maybe my friend didn't approve of it? Maybe he did? I'd never be able to talk to my friend again.
I got the housekeeper a present when we left, as she'd been so good at taking care of us. But naturally I didn't enquire any further into her relationship with the family.
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My main thought is there's a sort of Stockholm syndrome going on. Lola still had thoughts for her family back home, but she was so integrated in the new family it became part of her life, too. I guess it's a coping mechanism. Even slaves need meaning in their lives, and taking care of kids is meaning.
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Ok, enough of moralizing. Actually I find it comforting that there is at least some sympathy for my predicament. At least one or two of you think it is possible that they would behave similarly. Or at least acknowledge the awkward situation.
I will talk to this friend in person next time I'm in that part of the world, which should be soon, about this incident, and get the full story of how their housekeeper lives.
My main thought is there's a sort of Stockholm syndrome going on. Lola still had thoughts for her family back home, but she was so integrated in the new family it became part of her life, too. I guess it's a coping mechanism. Even slaves need meaning in their lives, and taking care of kids is meaning.
OH, puhleez. This is so much worse than theories of "codependency," as if a woman with young kids being financially dependent on her alcoholic husband isn't an actual serious problem, it's just some sort of emotional disorder. If you are married and financially dependent on the guy, you wake him up and help him get to work and you cover up his alcoholism because you and your kids are dependent upon his money, not because you need therapy or something. Geez.
Lola had no papers. She had no means to job hunt. She had no social connections outside the family. They uprooted her and moved her repeatedly. They never gave her the allowance they promised. This was her only means of survival. And she had agreed to it to get out of being married off to some asshole twice her age. So, she could do domestic labor or she could be de facto a sex slave. That would have probably involved all of the same abuses this involved, only add into it routine rape as part of the deal. She came from a place with no prospects. Then, having taken this deal, she was incredibly trapped.
It is abhorrent to westerners, but indentured servitude used to be pretty common and was often done somewhat willingly/by choice as a means to pay a debt with labor at a time when money per se was hard to come by. Historically, it was not uncommon for people to pay for passage to the U.S. by agreeing to 7 years of indentured servitude following their trip here.
That is still reality in a lot of places in the world. We don't want to hear it, but there is some truth to the idea that you need a middle class income to afford middle class morality. There are parts of the world where large numbers of people have no hope of anything resembling a middle class American lifestyle.
> That is still reality in a lot of places in the world. We don't want to hear it, but there is some truth to the idea that you need a middle class income to afford middle class morality. There are parts of the world where large numbers of people have no hope of anything resembling a middle class American lifestyle.
Not only that, they likely don't even have hope of anything resembling a poor American lifestyle.
He is at least aware that what is happening was not quite right. It is concerning that he cared more about rich friends feelings than the woman sleeping in dirt but there isn't really enough here to label him a sociopath :)
Maybe my friend didn't approve of it? Maybe he did? I'd never be able to talk to my friend again.
I've got to say that slavery as a moral ill outweighs social awkwardness, and rationalizing the situation by saying that maybe it gives slaves' life meaning is an abdication of moral responsibility.
I mean, yeah, you could find meaning in that. I'm pretty stoic, I can find meaning in things like dying of cancer or whatever. But that doesn't make it acceptable to put someone in that position, since there's an implicit assertion that their life would lack meaning without this structure.
I think you should swallow your anxiety about this and discuss the matter with your friend, who essentially coopted you into participating in an abusive relationship by not informing you of this in advance.
I see a lot of ads in the highway rest areas against slavery translated in multiple languages. There is hotline phone number on them. Its so easy to report to authorities they even encourage you. Every time i saw them i thought slavery in our day and age??? Now i know better.
How likely would that be to lead to a better outcome than both the slaver or the slave being deported?
Any solution that grants immigration status to people (who are often, as the woman in OP's story, not even literate) "just" on the basis of them having been enslaved is probably not politically tenable in the US. The most you can hope for is some sizeable amount of damages to be paid, and depending on the legal framework of the source country they subsequently get expelled to, I wouldn't be at all surprised if the slaver could just reclaim the money once they are back.
if his friend was indian, the authorities would have been mightily puzzled. this is standard treatment for live-in servants, right down to the sheer meanness of making sure she "didn't get too comfortable" by way of an unnecessary phone call each morning.
Feminism is the idea that women have the natural right to make decisions for their own lives and pursue those decisions to the best of their abilities. Taking part in the detention and mistreatment of a woman is orthogonal to being a feminist.
Idealism, well I'm assuming she's not an adherent of the philosophical kind and aspires to some sort of 'ideal' which I would have a hard time reconciling with slavery.
So in conclusion, I reject your charges of No True Scotsman. Some things are cut-and-dried.
I usually refrain from telling people who they are instead of what they do, but your friend is not a feminist or a left-leaning idealist if they have a slave, full stop.
Yes, please, do something about this. Talk to your friend. Call the cops. Leave an anonymous tip and try to follow up. Something. Custom, law, and your own sense of right say so.
Billy isn't the villain—but is he the role model you aspire to? If your kid learns your online identity some day and they stumble across this, is this the end of the story you want them to hear?
This sounds like a question you would be asked to think about in an ethics class. The kind I would probably dismiss as so unrealistic that it's not worth taking seriously, so I'd give some canned answer that I think is supposed to be the correct one. I don't know what I would do in that situation either to be honest.
One reason is I almost never hear from this friend since his relocation to another part of the world. Another is they have enough issues going on, personal issues requiring a lot of work, and being told they are a slave owner would not help.
Perhaps most importantly my friend is not the direct slave owner, if that is indeed the relationship. It's my friend's dad, a guy I've barely even met. Perhaps if he was around, and caning her as I walked into the kitchen, I would have said something, who knows? But I was receiving his hospitality through a third party, and I am a foreigner to their country and customs.
Did you ever read the article and wonder why Billy or his family didn't do anything? They probably felt it was so alien they didn't know what to do.
You also gotta ask yourself, if you owned a slave, why you would allow that slave to be the only attendant when a western family comes through town?
> You understand that you are now complicit in her abuse, yes? You understand that you are an accomplice to this crime?
FFS, you literally know next to nothing about the situation. Why do you feel like you're in a position to self righteously adjudicate him as being a criminal? None of us, not even lordnacho himself, know enough about his friend's housekeeper to legitimately make claims like that (or casually throw around terms like slave).
Seriously, the housekeeper's situation may not be too far off from the archetypal startup employee working 18 hour days and sleeping under his desk. None of us know, and none of us should claim to know.
>Seriously, the housekeeper's situation may not be too far off from the archetypal startup employee working 18 hour days and sleeping under his desk. None of us know, and none of us should claim to know.
Do you really believe that some 23 year old fresh out of college programmer working 18 hours days by choice in hopes of either a significant payoff or at least experience that will anyways lead to a very well compensated job is at all similar to a women who is sleeping on a mat in the kitchen of an empty house full of empty rooms who is then woken up every morning by a phone call explicitly designed to be demeaning so that she can start her menial, low payoff, worthless experience work?
> in hopes of either a significant payoff or at least experience that will anyways lead
You're moving the goalposts. It's not about whether they have equivalent opportunities, it's about whether they're slaves. The overworked-and-sleeping-on-a-mat-programmer and the overworked-and-sleeping-on-mat-maid may both simply have paid jobs with shitty bosses. People here are jumping to the conclusion that being worked hard + sleeping on a mat = slavery, when clearly it doesn't.
I think there might be some conflation between this story and the article posted. We and the OP don't actually know if the person was enslaved by forced labour.
All they know is that they slept on a matt in the kitchen.
If they were being paid adequately, I would not call it slavery. Poor labour practice, certainly, and distasteful in the extreme but not the same thing as forced labour and bondage.
> I think there might be some conflation between this story and the article posted.
Yeah. My sense is people are angry at what the OP described, and their anger has clouded their judgment. They're twisting ambiguous stories like lordnacho's into a version of the OP's, so they can play-act their sense of righteous superiority.
Was she a slave? When travelling in Vietnam (and probably plenty of other places) its pretty common to find the staff at little hotels all sleeping on mats on the floor in the kitchen. Its not a big deal - to get to the fridge you might need to step over and around them. None of these people are slaves, though they are certainly lowly paid workers.
Is it unusual to have this arrangement in a private home? I don't know.
The opprobrium from other commenters seems a little steeped in our own western views as to what's right and wrong, and I think your plan of digging more into the situation sounds an appropriate one.
This is why US government employees and employees of contractors get mandatory training in how to recognize human trafficking.
In this situation, at the very minimum, you need to ask "Do you feel your employer treats you fairly? I will keep your answer confidential."
If the answer is "yes", then your moral obligation is satisfied. If the answer is "no", you may have to dig down through "uncomfortable situation," potentially to "friendship-ending argument about unethical behavior."
Well obviously, if there is an ongoing crime being committed they will speak. Even lawyers, priests, and doctors will speak if there's an ongoing crime being committed by someone who they'd otherwise hold confidence to.
You can discuss your own observations without ever referring to your conversation with the housekeeper, or even admitting that a conversation happened.
So you're trying to tell us that your feeling of uncomfortness is the only thing stopping you from growing a spine and standing up for such an inhumane treatment, that apart from you nobody else can witness?
Have some decency and confront your so-called friend. How can people be rich and not have the decency to give the person feeding you and your family a freaking room.
And I really had to constrain myself from using expletives in this reply.
Seems like he's so hypnotized by being rich adjacent he couldn't ask some questions about something that weird.
HN is the closest thing I have to a portal into the private lives of people with nigh infinite money, and eeeevery so often I read something like the gp that makes me want to gulag the rich and seize the means of production.
Now I know there's evil people at every income level, but infinite money really increases the ability of a person to project evil. My intuition tells me this story isn't even that exceptional. I bet the evil rich hedonism spectrum has some real nightmare fuel.
> makes me want to gulag the rich and seize the means of production.
I feel the opposite way. This sort of thing rarely happens in the west, but quite openly happens in other places, and that fact makes me want to help fix the inequities in OTHER countries that cause this, not tear down my own country.
Specifically (and proselytizing to a degree) it makes me more determined to give a significant portion of my income to https://www.givedirectly.org/basic-income so that at least some of the poorest people on the planet can be empowered to make their own choices.
> your feeling of uncomfortness is the only thing stopping you from growing a spine and standing up for such an inhumane treatment
> Have some decency and confront your so-called friend.
I think your advice falls into the "much easier to say (from a great distance) than do" category.
The people who unfailingly and immediately know and do the moral thing, regardless of personal cost or expectation of results, are often literally saints. The rest of us muddle through; being uncertain, un-confident, and only occasionally recognizing and mustering the strength to act against an injustice.
> I think your advice falls into the "much easier to say (from a great distance) than do" category.
What of it? You still don't allow people to remain in a state of slavery when it is within your power to free them with just a phone call to the police. It doesn't have to be easy to do to be unacceptable not to do.
You know, I have a life threatening genetic disorder. This is the root cause of my homelessness and the one thing I most need to get my life back is an online income adequate to support myself. I am an active participant on HN and I appear to be the top ranked woman here.
I assure you, no one on HN is valiantly trying to help me solve my financial problems. In fact, I am routinely treated dismissively by people claiming they are not being dismissive and crap like that.
Given that context, it is incredibly difficult for me to read the many remarks on HN in this thread by people claiming unequivocally that they would know the right thing to do by this woman sleeping on the kitchen floor and they would absolutely do the right thing when my experience suggests the exact opposite is probably true of most members here.
Maybe some folks could get down off their high horses and quit making me just spastic today. It would be a kindness, though probably more of a kindness than most of the incredible hypocrites here are capable of.
I'm sorry for your troubles. But being confronted, in person, with a situation that you think is domestic slavery and being asked on the internet for money by a stranger are two different things.
I'm sorry for your troubles. But being confronted, in person, with a situation that you think is domestic slavery and being asked on the internet for money by a stranger are two different things.
I am not asking for money. And you are just proving my point.
Here is another viewpoint - it's not clear what you wish for when saying
> 'I assure you, no one on HN is valiantly trying to help me solve my financial problems.'
I gather you have financial problems and are working hard to fight them. There seems to be some relation with the people on HN that don't help, but how? Did you ask for help and nobody offered? Is it sarcasm and people are actively hindering you in your job? I am confused, and I can see how someone could understand that you're asking for money. (I'm female, in case that matters.) So, I also concur that your way of expression is a bit unclear.
Or because of how you phrase things, maybe. I won't rule out that I'm prejudiced -- it's all but a certainty that I am, to some extent or another. But despite that, I don't normally think women are asking me for money on the internet.
I am the highest ranked woman on HN because women are generally not all that warmly welcomed here. So if you don't think women are asking you for money on the internet, maybe it is because you are mostly talking to men.
It is hard to ask for anything at all when silenced by the general behavior of men online. I offend in part because I fail to shut up, in spite of the sometimes horrible treatment I receive through no fault of my own.
I routinely hear men here tell each other that their high karma is evidence of competence. No one says that about me -- except me. When I say it, it gets ridiculed.
I routinely see men here ask for help with making their businesses profitable. They are not misinterpreted as begging for money. When I do it, I am accused of panhandling or ignored or it otherwise typically is not very helpful.
It would be nice if you would just stop digging your grave deeper. Your first remark was just sort of dumb. But you get more offensive with each iteration of telling me it is somehow all my fault that I can't get taken seriously no matter how hard I try, a thing I have been doing for literally years, which is part of how I ended up the highest ranked woman here.
The next closest openly female member is many, many thousands of points behind me, yet I am far from the bottom rung of the leaderboard. So all the evidence suggests that, sadly, I get taken more seriously here and get more respect than most women who basically don't bother to open their mouths, even when they have serious tech jobs.
I have many thousands more karma than the only female cofounder of Y Combinator, Jessica Livingston. She currently has 3521, which is hundreds more than she had the last time I looked. https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=jl
You felt it was appropriate to interject in a conversation about slavery to wonder why none of these people online haven't helped you out financially, which a typical person would construe as asking for money, despite being a woman with the highest internet points (or something). Maybe I don't frequent HN enough to know who's who, but your replies to obstinate read like the ramblings of someone with mental problems (I don't mean that as an insult).
You felt it was appropriate to interject in a conversation about slavery to wonder why none of these people online haven't helped you out financially, which a typical person would construe as asking for money
No, that is not what I did. There are comments here comparing the woman sleeping on the kitchen floor to homeless people. There are multiple comments here where people are getting up on their high horse swearing that if confronted with such a situation, they would a) unequivocally know "The right thing to do" about it and b) absolutely do the right thing. They are berating this person on the internet for their moral failure in doing nothing when that individual doesn't even know the full details. But when then confronted with a homeless woman who participates here regularly, none of these supposed paragons of virtue is stepping up to valiantly go to bat for me -- which is exactly what I expected, given my long standing experience online.
No one owes me that intervention. But the people berating this guy for not automatically knowing the right answer and not immediately rescuing the woman from presumed slavery are quick to tell me I am somehow in the wrong and somehow asking for something from them when I point out the obvious example that, no, it isn't always immediately clear and obvious how to help and, no, they wouldn't valiantly rise to the occasion and feel compelled to rescue some pathetic woman from her plight just because it came to their attention like some of them are claiming.
Those are incredibly easy boasts to make when talking to some guy on the internet about his supposed moral defects. But no one here is going to back up those boasts by doing whatever it takes to extract me from my plight AND, on top of that, I am going to be inundated with accusations of mental health problems, panhandling the internet, etc for pointing out that all these supposed paragons of virtue absolutely will not have all the answers and absolutely will not go the distance involved for every case of injustice they casually trip across in the world, such as my situation.
The only thing I asked for in my remark was for people to get down off their high horses in regards to how they are talking to this guy. I am not expecting anyone to rescue me. I am only pointing out that the expectation that this individual is obligated to rescue this woman sleeping on the kitchen floor is a crazy, ridiculous expectation. Such situations are almost never solved by making a single phone call to the police and poking it at may even do enormous harm to the woman's already not enviable life.
It is easy to be a high handed braggart claiming moral high ground on the internet and trying to bully someone else into "doing the right thing" while ignoring the fact that it is rarely clear and obvious what that is and it is never easy to actually right a tremendous injustice, even when you do know all the details. Such things come at quite a high cost, if they can be pulled off at all.
> it is within your power to free them with just a phone call to the police
Maybe not. Sounds like the situation was in another country. Who knows if the police there would care or not. And applying the term "slavery" to the story in the comment is jumping to a conclusion that provides more moral clarity than there may actually be. We don't know enough to say if the situation is that of a shitty employer or that of a slaveowner, and our only source of information doesn't even know himself:
> I will talk to this friend in person next time I'm in that part of the world, which should be soon, about this incident, and get the full story of how their housekeeper lives.
I only say that to emphasize that this stuff, in reality, is probably a lot harder to deal with than some people seem to think.
> Who knows if the police there would care or not.
That's not a reason not to call.
> We don't know enough to say if the situation is that of a shitty employer or that of a slaveowner, and our only source of information doesn't even know himself:
Well, if police were to check, all the "friend" would have to do is provide proof of salary and most everything would be fine if it was a mistake.
I think you're pretty mistaken in thinking any proof would be available or required. All these maids are typically paid in cash.
Unless the person has bruises, or complains that they're not being allowed to leave---the police would ignore the situation.
Compounding this effect is that most 'maids' are distant relatives in the western sense---being 3rd cousins or nieces through marriage to the hosting family. When push comes to shove, the host family just claims truthfully that they are all a single family, and the sleeping conditions of an adult who isn't being forced to do anything is really no ones business.
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As an edit. What I'm describing is the traditional lifestyle of West African maidservants. All maids are relatives, since no one trusts anyone who isn't related to them to live in their house.
The world is a big place though. I wouldn't be surprised if maidservant lifestyles in Asian countries or Middle Eastern countries was much different.
Middle Eastern countries even use foreign-born servants, something that'd be seen as the height of insanity in someplace like Ghana.
> I think your advice falls into the "much easier to say (from a great distance) than do" category.
That may be true, but that doesn't change the fact that it's the right thing to do. The parent's language was perhaps a bit more inflammatory than it needed to be, but sometimes you need someone outside the situation to be more objective and remind you -- possibly rudely -- what needed to be done.
I hope I would have the wisdom and fortitude to do the right thing in that situation, but I won't know until and unless I'm put in it.
> Have some decency and confront your so-called friend.
Sounds like you haven't been in this situation.
You know, there's often a gap between how good we think we are, and how good we are. I feel terrible about it, and the subject comes up now and again of whether we should say something, and my wife and I feel bad.
It's easy to tell people what they should do, I do it all the time as well, even to myself.
It seems there's an opportunity to meet my friend in person soon. I'll use it to ask about what exactly happened. It's not the kind of thing that comes across well electronically, you really need to be there in real time looking at the reaction. It also needs to be managed properly because this friend is in a somewhat fragile state for completely separate reasons. The last time we met this other issue meant nothing else could even be discussed.
But the key takeaway for my kids is his parents aren't perfect. Hopefully he will have learned that in other ways by the time he's old enough to understand this situation.
Perhaps the situation you find yourself in is so egregious that it is "worth" the risk of losing a friendship, possibly troubling your friend even more, and you yourself going through much emotional distress leading up to, and during the conversation.
I've been accused by a friend for not doing enough in a much less egregious situation (but also in the category of morality and equality), and understand the social difficulty in broaching such a topic, especially if you don't know them well.
It's easy to say "do the right thing" on an internet forum to a stranger, especially if you yourself haven't been in this social situation where you know what the right thing is in a vacuum, yet our survival instincts push us towards not stirring the water. I think your reaction thus far is completely rational given such an alien situation (which is where I found myself in the past).
I just want to say that your internal turmoil is being discounted too much by other commenters. I hope that you can find internal peace and understanding of where you stand and what you believe in for yourself, not because someone tells you that's what people "should do", before doing or saying anything, because that is the only way we can sustain both our moral and emotional health.
I upvoted your comment because I think it's the kind of positive, supportive remark seen too rarely online. I say this with complete sincerity.
However, part of your response gave me pause: "I just want to say that your internal turmoil is being discounted too much by other commenters."
I would offer that we cannot underestimate the internal turmoil, stress and emotional trauma of the aforementioned "housekeeper" (slave), who sleeps on a mat in the kitchen, and that any internal turmoil by those of us with freedom pales in comparison.
Immediate, unambiguous action is the only moral response to slavery.
"Hey, when I was at your place, [housekeeper's name] was sleeping in the [location] - is that normal? Does she get a room? Surely there's a spare room for her?"
"I need to keep rooms spare for when friends visit."
"When does that ever happen though? Come on man, they would understand if they had to stay nearby or squeeze into a room. [Housekeeper] is there every day. She is a gem and works so hard. I couldn't do that to someone. I think if you have a better supported employee or helper or whatever, they're more likely to be happier around your family and feel naturally interested in their role."
"She doesn't mind."
"I bet she would, but do you really think she'd feel comfortable raising that with you? You should do the right thing. Think about how valuable a comfortable room is to you. Everyone should be able to appreciate that and not sleep on a mat."
Agreed. What I've been discovering lately is that, the first time you speak out and experience that intense awkwardness (making waves, creating conflict, etc), it's hard. Then it gets easier. It's like standing up for what's right is a muscle that needs exercising.
I understand your reasoning and try acting decently (even though I probably fail often). Of course it is easier to point out mistakes instead of changing oneself to the better. I think it is commendable that you were so open about your thoughts, which empowered a stranger like me to take a moral shit on your behavior in this specific situation.
I have some acquaintances with weird/antisocial/borderline illegal behavior and never addressed it directly with them, just avoided them.
I've had some acquaintances do some weird, antisocial, definitely illegal things. I can't recall a time when an acquaintance has done something that appears as evil as the situation we're discussing.
Best case interpretation that I can make, ignoring the floor mat. They were micromanaging when their employee wakes up despite their daily responsibilities being temporarily reduced (home owners were away).
If I had a friend doing even the above, I'd at LEAST ask "explain to me how this isn't you being a dick." That's just getting to know them. Don't you want to know the people you're friends with?
I have confronted and ended friendships over things like former friends talking to service people like they are somehow better than them or own them. I can't look at someone the same after that type of behavior. Your friend literally owns a person.
yeah, i get you, and i'm not saying i'd necessarily do better. though i'd hope i would[0]. but just because you acted in a way that others would find relatable, or because others might act in the same way, doesn't make that action right. sometimes we need to call each other out on the hard stuff.
if you feel that bad about it, you should probably bring it up with your friend.
0 - also, i'd hope that my character judgement is good enough that i wouldn't be close friends with someone like that. though of course, people change, we don't always choose who we like, etc etc.
You feel terrible about it because you haven't done anything about it even though you know its wrong. If you heard about it second or third hand then it would be better not to judge because you don't know the facts, but you've said that you do know this person doesn't even have a bed, sleeps on the floor, and gets a wake-up call every morning.
There is no question in my mind that I would confront anyone I knew engaging in the situation you're describing. Among my circles, injustices always seem to be a third person. Mostly bosses. Boss doesn't give you a day off despite a month of notice. Boss dicks you around on hours or a promised promotion. The people I consider friends are folks I can talk to about morality. I've grown as a person based on the critical things some friends have told me.
Never anything in the same time zone of FRIEND MISTREATS LIVE IN HELP, MIGHT BE SLAVE, I DIDNT KNOW WHAT TO SAY. This whole thread is hysterical to me. This is a parody of real life, right?
I hate to edge in on godwin territory, but this has reminded me that our society has not grown at all in the last 100 years. We've accreted a card house morality that collapses for SO MANY people at the slightest breeze. Can't let a slave come between friends am I right?
> There is no question in my mind that I would confront anyone I knew engaging in the situation you're describing. Among my circles, injustices always seem to be a third person.
But there should be a question in your mind unless you've actually confronted something like this yourself (with all of it's associated complexity). Until then, your certainty is only a fantasy.
Sure, a fantasy. I doubt you can be convinced, but let me try.
I was always sure that if someone broke into my home, I would confront them - lethally - if necessary, despite any complexities. Dignity is important to me, and I'm willing to take risks to keep it. When I was a sweet summer child I used to think that was the default state of adulthood.
Well, recently someone did break into my home at 3am. Coincidentally I was sleeping on the couch right in front of the front door. My eyes opened to the sight of a strange man in dark clothes standing inside my home. I went from half asleep to awake and armed faster than I've done anything else from deep sleep. If they had shown me any signs of aggression I'd have shot them. Fortunately for both of us they panicked and fled.
You're right, the action itself wasn't a thing I deliberated on or decided in that moment. I told myself I'd do it, but the way I responded in that acute moment was instinctual and adrenaline fueled.
There are actually some weak parallels between a home invasion and finding out your friend might be a slave owner.
I can understand why some people would respond to a home invasion with submission. For some folks, that doesn't even touch their personal definition of dignity, the function is life > stuff and I can respect that completely.
Yet, when you see your friend possibly engaging in slavery, and mistreating them to boot.. it's like home invasion with the personal stakes all lowered. Your life isn't on the line, just potentially the life of the victim and your friendship. Not only that, but the time frame is extended from do-or-die adrenaline to days of deliberation if you want. I'd have to work real hard to come up with some complexities that shake my confidence on how I'd react here. Basically the maid would have to be skeletor or a war criminal. I really wish more people were backing me up on this. I'm pretty blown away.
But yeah my knees would probably buckle and i'd let them continue with their evil so things wouldn't get awkward. Lol nope.
For what it's worth, this entire thread is making me feel like I'm taking crazy pills. Typically, I appreciate the nuanced, thoughtful, and introspective discussions we tend to have here.
In this case? Like, what the fuck is there even to discuss here? This is black and white. You free the slave and deal with "social inconveniences" or whatever. Jesus Christ.
We have someone sleeping on a matt, and getting a daily wake up call to do their work.
Work which presumably they are being paid for---we don't know if they're not being paid for the work.
Now in the USA, sleeping on a matt in the kitchen is some kind of terrible situation that no one would live with but....
In my country, I slept on a matt as a child. I wasn't poor. We had a house, food, private schooling, etc. but kids under the age of 7 slept on a matt. It was just the way things were done.
Even today, I have relatives who sleep on matt's despite being totally capable of buying western style beds.
Now as for not having a room of their own, I don't understand the attachment to a private room as opposed to simply a lockbox or a place to keep your things. Private rooms seem like a luxury that one can do without, not a must have.
Disclaimer:
Our families maids have private rooms, and beds (which ironically they endlessly complain are too hot compared to the breezy floor mats they're used to). They also have savings accounts, and pension funds because the family matriarch is a western trained banker and believes that in the absence of good governance, private individuals have to take better care of their employees livelihood.
So much this! I am appalled at this thread possibly full of non-asian people who think having a room and board househelp is slavery.
They are free to quit and renegotiate salaries. Their children are free to do whatever they want, infact we help in their education and give them gifts. If anything it tends to be a more empathic employer-employee relationship, albeit with shit salary.
There is real slavery however, bonded labour, forced child beggars. Seeing this not being mentioned at all, I don't think we have many asian people here, just westerners speculating.
I think we don't have enough information to decide either way. The guy who visited his friend's house seems to think everything wasn't above-board there. Maybe he's wrong, but the responsible thing to do is follow up on it with the friend, promptly. It doesn't need to be an accusation, just an "I noticed something odd; can you tell me what's going on?" type thing. And if the explanation isn't satisfying, you get the authorities involved, immediately.
Regardless, just because something is culturally acceptable (like Lola's slavery back in the Philippines), it doesn't make it right.
"free the slave" is not always trivial, though. Simply taking them out of the house moves them from a mat in the kitchen to sleeping on the street without a mat. They need a place to live, friends and family, and confidence to look for a real job.
Modern slavery is rarely keeping someone physically locked up (though sometimes it is). It's often more a matter of keeping the slave socially isolated and with too low confidence to dare to walk away.
I don't mean that they like their situation, but it's often what they're familiar with. Setting them free requires support and commitment.
And it's not as though my reaction would be to open a door and yell "Run! You're free!".
My first reaction would be to confront the friend about the situation. Next steps would happen next. Ignoring it because it's challenging, awkward or complicated is wrong. It just is.
Absolutely. It's an attrocity, but at the same time, I'm not sure I'd know what to do about it. In a society not equipped to handle this, I fear they might simply lock up the "owner" and set the slave free, but that's unlikely to do the slave much good in extreme cases like this.
Setting them free is great for people who have family that can take them in, as is often the the case when the slavery lasted a couple of months or years at most (which is probably the case with adolescent girls pressured into prostitution, for example). But in cases like in the article, where someone has groomed to be a slave from a young age, and has lived that life for decades, been moved to another country even; the family that owns them may be all they have. You've got to free them, but that might take away the only thing they still have, and sever the connection with the only people they know and care about.
It's a seriously fucked up situation.
But yes, when you know someone who seems to have a slave, that is absolutely something to confront them about.
Yeah, I'm with you on this. This doesn't even need to be accusatory in the first place, just something like "hey, when I was staying at your house I noticed that your housekeeper was sleeping on a mat in the kitchen: just was wondering what's up with that". The guy could decide based on the answer if it was legit ("that's weird; she has a room... it's the third door on the left on the second floor; I'll check on her and make sure she's ok") or suspicious ("oh, she's strange and I think she likes it there") and if it made sense to press more.
I really _really_ hope I'd confront this "friend" if I were in that situation. It's definitely the right thing to do.
Confronting suspicions about friend mabey being a slave owner is 100% something I would do and I assume most people would. But mabey im naive? Peoples rationalisations for gross unethical behavior in this thread are indeed troubling.
When this story hit HN earlier today, I was taken aback by how so many of the responses basically were of the hand-clasping, oh-what-a-touching-story nature.
This is fucking slavery. There is nothing to admire. Treating slaves-in-all-but-name nicer after the fact does not make it any less repellent.
One human being owned another, and had final say regarding all aspects of their lives. It is abhorrent in all forms, and should called out as such. This isn't something that a sad-face emoji or hashtag campaign fixes, and isn't something that should wait until a more convenient time lest anyone be offended.
Jesus Christ, this may be one of the most vile things I've ever seen on HN.
Phew thanks for making yourself known. This could be bias, but the blob of people on the internet seems to have become a lot more casually sociopathic over the last 15 years. Sure back when folks used to troll for laughs, but it always seemed like a mask to get a rise out of people.
I've only noticed people recently openly talking convincingly and casually about weird shit like this.
Either
A) The world has always been a much worse place than I realized
B) Society is morally decaying
C) Kids these days have perfected some artisan grade, gluten free, premium master craft trolling.
I sympathize with the idea that we don't know what's going on, even based on that guy's post, so it might be a bit premature to point fingers and declare that, without question, this is an instance of slavery. Because really, that's the case. We don't know enough. And maybe the guy who visited his friend doesn't know enough to call it either.
However, the thing that gets me is that this guy had a moral responsibility to find out more, promptly, and he hasn't done it. I'm glad that some of his follow-up posts suggest that he's going to do so soon, but it's waaaaaaay overdue, and that's pretty messed up.
I mean....the world is a far better place now than it was 200 years ago. Society has always had weak morals as a whole. It was the few and strong willed that built American society -- with a heavy disdain for the decision making capability of the proletariat. If anything what you see on the Internet simply isn't real. It is a fake and dangerous to absorb ideals from. Some of it is real, but which part?
It's just always been easy to close our eyes to it, but western shops are full of products created through slavery. A couple of years some people (at least in Netherland) drew attention to the fact that nearly all chocolate is grown by people who are effectively slaves, and there was no way to eat chocolate while being sure you didn't support slavery. A lot has been done to improve that situation (at least in Netherland; no idea about other countries), but the same is still true with other products. If your smartphone is not a Fairphone, chances are that some of the materials used it in, have been dug up by slaves. Cheap clothes are often made in sweat shops, often by children who should be in school.
The public face in western developed countries may have been freed from the appearance of slavery and oppression, but that's just a thin veneer. Slavery, child labour and really awful working conditions are still appallingly common, and are a big part of the reason why so many products in our shops are so cheap. And most people close their eyes to it because it's easy to ignore, and we like cheap stuff. And when we do see it, it's so easy pretend it's not really slavery, because once you take up that fight, it never stops, because there's so much injustice that still needs to be righted.
And even in western countries, vulnerable people (illegal immigrants, young women, people with mental disabilities) are conned or pressed into all sorts of situations that are disgustingly close to slavery.
I could try to free the slave, but on the other hand, it might cause a bit of unpleasantness with my friend. So it's six of one, half a dozen of the other!
In some parts of the world a lot of people make do with a spot on the floor. I stayed at a guest house in India recently and the staff all slept on the roof or in the kitchen. Places are poor.
Sure, and that sucks. But we're talking about someone wealthy who has a lot of space. Making your live-in housekeeper sleep on a mat when you have plenty of space to spare as at best being a horrifying asshole, and if this guy is truly a "friend", I would hope he'd find out what's going on.
Yeah, all I could think of reading that was "If I found out my friend kept a slave (outside a consensual BDSM context), that person would no longer be my friend."
In some parts of the world a lot of people make do with a spot on the floor. I stayed at a guest house in India recently and the staff all slept on the roof or in the kitchen. Some places in the world are poor. Better that than on the street.
at least share this article to your friend and ask her innocently what she thinks. and then pounce on her for being a hypocritical evil b1tch. good luck. im just kidding but pls do it. lol.
I don't think people are arguing that it is bad this woman has shelter and a place to sleep.
I think people are arguing that the treatment of said woman, between the infantilizing phone call to wake her every morning to insist she doesn't "get too comfy", and her sleeping on the floor in a house that sounds like it had more rooms than people to live in them, is unnecessarily demeaning at best.
High contrast at short distances, indeed, is the problem for one of the above two points - sleeping on an open space on the floor when everyone else has their own bedroom and bed is at least one tier beyond "just" wanting to put yourself above those you employ to help in your home.
The other, though, is possibly the more damning to me - calling someone every day to insist they be awake at the same time even while you're out of town? At best, that sounds like an overly controlling homeowner trying to make sure the staff are keeping the house up, but that dynamic would usually imply (to my mind) a trusted person in charge of the staff in their absence, to contact, not the two persons combined in one.
The whole situation leaves a bad taste in my mouth because it implies that the people whose home this is do not think it necessary to treat this woman well, and that does not, in my experience, bode well for how they treat others whom they have no obligation to.
> that dynamic would usually imply (to my mind) a trusted person in charge of the staff in their absence, to contact, not the two persons combined in one.
Exactly. Although its a touch shameful, the first thing that went through my mind reading the story in the comments was "what kind of person has a mansion and only one maid?".
Multi-room houses aren't easy to keep clean. Add cooking, driving, and shopping on top of that and we have a situation where:
(a) Someone is being severely overworked
(b) Someone cannot keep up with the work, leading to frustration on the employers part and an unnecessarily bad relationship
Sorry man, but that's dangerous thinking. I might understand if all rooms in the mansion were occupied by family members, or if the house was small such that the housemaid didn't have a room to stay in. But having her sleep in the kitchen of a huge mansion is inexcusable.
It's inexcusable because it's expected that the housemaid gets his/her own private area. Remember, they are employees, and their job is to maintain the household. They are not "homeless" people skulking around the house.
I've lived in a country where live-in housemaids are quite widespread and this kind of behavior would definitely be out of the ordinary, especially among more affluent families. Yes, worse things can happen to housemaids, but I'm talking about the general case.
> I've lived in a country where live-in housemaids are quite widespread and this kind of behavior would definitely be out of the ordinary, especially among more affluent families. Yes, worse things can happen to housemaids, but I'm talking about the general case.
That's pretty typical of what I've seen in countries like Malaysia, Singapore and China. The maid gets the worst room and in many cases that room is basically an unfinished store room with just concrete. In China, it's usually a bit better, the live-in housekeeper is not locked in the house/apartment with no possibility to go out. Nor do they strip the houseworker before allowing her to go out to make sure she didn't steal anything.
I'm a loudmouth, it disgusts me, and I like to think that I have principles so I make my opinions about the treatment of those housekeepers clear. I've lost acquaintances over this and from what I've seen telling them that what they're doing is right almost never changes things for the housekeepers in question.
I strongly believe that the main issue in all those cases is that the housekeeper lives in the house, this is what creates the abuse, this is what causes the extreme dependence of the housekeeper with their employer.
I was travelling and a friend said I could use her house, because it was empty. This was perfect for me, since I had a wife and kid.
It turns out there was a housekeeper. She did everything for us, made us feel very comfortable, cooked, served, helped with the kid, etc.
Then one day I found out she didn't have her own room, despite the place being a multi storey mansion. In fact, she slept on a mat in the kitchen. And not only that, there would be a phone call each morning to wake her up, from the master of the house. He didn't want her to get too comfy while the family was out.
It was all a bit shocking. I still haven't chatted to my friend about this, because what on earth do you say? And otherwise ordinary western educated person -in fact a feminist, globalist, left-leaning idealist- who has a slave? What if I've misunderstood something? Maybe my friend didn't approve of it? Maybe he did? I'd never be able to talk to my friend again.
I got the housekeeper a present when we left, as she'd been so good at taking care of us. But naturally I didn't enquire any further into her relationship with the family.
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My main thought is there's a sort of Stockholm syndrome going on. Lola still had thoughts for her family back home, but she was so integrated in the new family it became part of her life, too. I guess it's a coping mechanism. Even slaves need meaning in their lives, and taking care of kids is meaning.
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Ok, enough of moralizing. Actually I find it comforting that there is at least some sympathy for my predicament. At least one or two of you think it is possible that they would behave similarly. Or at least acknowledge the awkward situation.
I will talk to this friend in person next time I'm in that part of the world, which should be soon, about this incident, and get the full story of how their housekeeper lives.