rumitoid wrote:
Here is the line in question: “No refuge could save the hireling and slave/From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave.
Well, of course it's racist! It says it right there. "Slave". See? He may just as well have used the 'N' word. As we all know, only blacks have ever been slaves, right? No Caucasian, Asian or Latino has ever been enslaved, right? Well, since you asked...
Out of an estimated 27 million modern-day slaves, the majority of people who are treated like slaves, perhaps 20 million, or close to 75%, are South Asians in debt bondage. Don't take my word for it. Here, read this:
http://www.racematters.org/moderndayslavery.htmAha! You say. But there's still 7 million blacks suffering the horrible yoke of unpaid servitude! Well, at least you can subtract 20 million from 27 million and come up with a good number but, um, no. The majority of those not in Asian debt servitude are Latinos and/or Caucasians lured across some border with false promises of good paying jobs and better conditions, and who were abruptly stripped of their passports and forced to perform as household maids or sex workers all across the world. Average price of a modern slave? $90. That's not a typo. Back in the heyday of black slavery in the US, the average slave sold for $40,000 (in today's fiat dollars), and that's no typo either. The modern day slave trade is a world-wide operation worth over $30 billion a year. Nope, that's no typo neither.
There are still a few black slaves in the world, though. In Mauritania and Sudan blacks are forced into domestic and agricultural slavery in Muslim households, for instance (women in the house, men in the fields...), but then, that's Muslims for you...
In the end, the use of the word 'slave' is not inherently racist. Just immoral.