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@nazokiyoubinbou @AlSweigart if you carefully read the 13th amendment of the constitution of the United States, you can see that it explicitly allows enslavement of humans. Can you guess what the southern states made illegal as soon as they had to "free" their slaves? Unemployment of course.

Thus began America's long history of vagrancy laws continuing till today. Unsurprisingly the slaves (who were illiterate as black literacy was illegal in southern states) had to sign contracts continuing their former work conditions as "employees" of plantations, and the ability to enforce vagrancy laws on (poor) white people means that even more humans could be enslaved than before.

It's also worth noting that while the 13th amendment specifies enslavement for convicts, in practice it is enslavement for the imprisoned. Did you know that due to various intimidation tactics (like mandatory minimum sentences) and insufficient access to representation, more than 95% of people accused of crimes take plea deals rather than go through trial by jury?

Interestingly, since prisons tend to isolate, abuse, and not skill train their inmates, who would often be barred from holding a job anyways as criminal histories are a major focus of background searches during applications, many of our formerly enslaved find they have no legal means to make a living and thus turn to other methods such as theft or drug dealing (don't even get me started on how drug laws are used to enslave as many Americans as possible), a clear net negative to society and all working class individuals.

Fun fact, just this election cycle California (notoriously blue leaning) failed to pass (by popular vote) a law to ban slavery in their own state. This, combined with recent trends towards electing fascists and finding new ways to criminalize all who are not straight cis white men, means you should be very extremely concerned indeed.

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