Plantations Were Slave Labor Camps

enslaved cotton workers

 

“Plantation” is a genteel euphemism for slave labor camp. Let’s change the history books to say so. Michael Todd Landis:

Why should we continue to employ wording that is biased, false, or laden with myth? Compromise, plantation, slave-owners, Union v. Confederacy, etc.: these phrases and many others obscure rather than illuminate; they serve the interests of traditionalists or white supremacists; they do not accurately reflect our current understanding of phenomena, thus they should be abandoned and replaced.

Via PNH’s Particles at Making Light.

Douglas Adams on The New

Khoi Vin:

Douglas Adams, in his book “The Salmon of Doubt,” wrote that “I’ve come up with a set of rules that describe our reactions to technologies.” The rules are:
  1. Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works.
  2. Anything that’s invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it.
  3. Anything invented after you’re thirty-five is against the natural order of things.
I’m as guilty of this as anyone, I must admit. Youngsters: it will happen to you, too. Via cdixon.org.

Words to live and work by in a university.