BRAND X

All [we] see of the ‘sending countries’ (Haiti, Ethiopia, and Vietnam) are images of run down surroundings inhabited by destitute, ‘third world’ people of color who clearly are not equipped to take care of their children, let alone themselves. The brown children, held ‘captive’ and ‘caged’ in decrepit institutions that turn kids into ‘creatures’, need to be ‘saved’ by white adoptive parents who have the love, money, connections, and power that these third world children’s parents and countries lack.

These brown children, under the watchful eyes of white adoptive parents, grow up to be well-adjusted, educated, happy, funny, super cute kids and teenagers living the American dream. How dare the government and the Hague Convention slow down the international adoption process by supporting a broken system that keeps “10 million children” from a “forever family” in The United States of America, the greatest and most prosperous country in the world[…]

Stuck is propaganda, and leading the propaganda is Juntunen. While careful to disassociate himself from the Christian conservative base that champions him, he is every bit the Evangelical politician that many have come to distrust.

“Don’t you know that slavery was outlawed?”
“No,” the guard said, “you’re wrong. Slavery was outlawed with the exception of prisons. Slavery is legal in prisons.”
I looked it up and sure enough, she was right. The Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution says:

“Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”

Well, that explained a lot of things. That explained why jails and prisons all over the country are filled to the brim with Black and Third World people, why so many Black people can’t find a job on the streets and are forced to survive the best way they know how. Once you’re in prison, there are plenty of jobs, and, if you don’t want to work, they beat you up and throw you in a hole. If every state had to pay workers to do the jobs prisoners are forced to do, the salaries would amount to billions… Prisons are a profitable business. They are a way of legally perpetuating slavery. In every state more and more prisons are being built and even more are on the drawing board. Who are they for? They certainly aren’t planning to put white people in them. Prisons are part of this government’s genocidal war against Black and Third World people.