Second Slavery

Abstract

This essay articulates the role of racist disrespect in the exploitation of laborers. It begins by distinguishing the concepts of slavery, wage slavery, and a postbellum “second slavery” to show that slavery and a postbellum “second slavery” share a normative core. In both social systems, Black and nonwhite laborers have insecure basic legal protections and labor rights. It proposes that this sort of precarious legal standing not only makes some laborers more vulnerable to direct and violent coercion in the workplace, but it also signifies the afterlife of slavery after legal abolition. Namely, race continues to mediate which groups are accorded legal standing in the workplace and have recourse against workplace abuses.