HackerTube

The Part of History You've Always Skipped | Neoslavery

Knowing Better4 HN recommenders · recommended in 4 months, 2022–2026
YouTube
documentary · general · evergreen · 2022–2026 on HN

A long documentary-style video arguing that slavery in the US effectively continued through convict leasing and the prison system until around 1942. It covers the constitutional carveout and the history of neoslavery.

Recommended in threads on prison labor and American history as a thorough account of the post-Civil War period.

11 comments from Hacker News

@1MachineElf2023-07 · in “The Negro Motorist Green Book”

YouTube's algorithm recently recommended me a video which presented a compelling case that US slavery truly ended in 1942. It included references to this book. Here's the link, for anyone curious: ▶ this video

Recommends View on HN
@pixl972022-08 · in “Sorry, your wife is Indian, landlord won’t rent to you”

>classed as being marginally racist, usually they do not really mean the things they say. As someone that moved to a very very racist part of the US in their teens (near a sundown town), this is by far the most scary statement you could write. I believe you would be far more concerned if you understood the enormity of it when you look at it in the converse. This person you mention that creates an exception 'for one of the good ones' will also create an exception for their buddy when they lynch someone and they just forget to tell the police about it. I recommend 'Neoslavery' by Knowing Better as a little chunk of more recent American history a lot of people would like to erase. Racism runs very deep in some places. ▶ this video

Recommends View on HN
@abvdasker2022-07 · in “US Doesn't Care About Financial Crimes”

There's no reason for scare quotes given the specific carveout for slavery which exists in the Constitution. If you have an issue with that verbiage, take it up with the 38th United States Congress and Abraham Lincoln. > do murderers get to walk free? You're arguing against an extreme position that nobody actually holds. Most reasonable people would probably point to criminal justice as implemented in many European countries as exemplifying a more humane model which produces better long term results. The carveout for the enslavement of incarcerated people also created a perverse incentive which played out predictably in the wake of Reconstruction's failure. If you're interested in the long and painful history of this fact here's a useful resource: ▶ this video

Recommends View on HN
@lofatdairy2022-06 · in “US prison slaves produce $11B worth of goods and services”

Knowing Better on YouTube produced a really good documentary answering "when was the last slave freed?" [^1]. His argument is that it didn't end until 1942, a mere 80 years ago. A big part of the reason why was the prison system and legal system, which was structured around criminalizing blackness, and using this to fulfill an economic need. Articles like this make me think perhaps 1942 may be a bit optimistic, after all, we still rely heavily on prison labour without allowing incarcerated people to earn sufficient funds to support themselves after their rehabilitation, and we're still fighting the war on drugs that started under Nixon. That said, I'm not sure how non Americans feel about US politics being discussed here, since I rarely see news about domestic issues in other countries. [^1]: ▶ this video

Recommends View on HN
@mapt2026-05 · in “The Cost of Safetyism”

Modern loitering laws in small-town America, post-Civil-War, were typically originally intended to enslave the entire population of black men remaining in town, or otherwise drive them out. ▶ this video It took most of a century for the economy to really convert everything over to an hourly-pay model. This is not the only reason, but it is the dominant, proximate one that enshrined the practice. Places with less black-white racial animus were comfortable adopting animus for other minorities, or for the poor in general. Post-Civil-Rights, loitering laws (and a panoply of other practices ranging from swimming pools to mortgage approvals to cul-de-sacs) were exploited not to enslave, but principally to simply eject categories of people. For a take on the origins of the Anglo cultural tradition of persecuting the poor in general, this goes a lot further back - link