Culture is a broader category that extends beyond race and ethnicity to include any group of people who share common lifestyle characteristics which are passed on to members of the particular group, e.g. socioeconomic status, sexual orientation, geographic location. Traditional or ‘chattel slavery’ (slave trade) involves the buying and selling of people, they are often abducted from their homes, inherited or given as gifts. (O-Donnell 1992)
Its only the past hundred and fifty years or so that attempts have been made to put racism on a scientific footing, before that discriminatory practices were usually justified or condemned on religious beliefs, ‘whites’ were seen as the offspring of Adam and Eve which in tern were classed as the advantaged. (O-Donnell 1992)
The roots of racial division lie within the expansion of the European empire during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, after the Second World War the British Empire expanded to the Far East which is when the occupation of India, Pakistan and large parts of Africa along with several islands in the West Indies took place. The exploitation of Africans (mainly West Africans) was a key factor in laying the foundations for the future racial conflict. Slave traders were mainly from Britain, Spain, France and Portugal; they kidnapped Africans and transported them to the southern USA where they were forced to work on sugar, rum, tobacco and cotton plantations. (O-Donnell 1992)
The shipping of millions of Africans to work as slaves on sugar and cotton plantations in the United States and the Caribbean ended in the early 1800s. But far from being confined to history, other forms of slavery still continue. Millions of men, women and children around the world - including many Africans - are forced into servitude.
Human trafficking and slavery is one of the fastest growing crimes in the world. So serious is the problem that the United Nations has made 2004 an anti-slavery year.
In West Africa, children are trafficked between countries, often sold by their own parents, to be used as servants in the houses of richer people and on agricultural plantations. In some countries like Mauritania and Niger, people are born into a class where they are viewed and treated as only being suitable for slave labour. (O-Donnell 1992)
In many states racism went beyond mere segregation; in the Deep South negroes were commonly murdered, out of simple malice, and the killers whom were ‘white’ were allowed to go free without arrest, trial or penalty. Indeed, in some cases the culprits actually boasted of what they had done and were more popular as a result. (Haralambos and Holborn 2004)
This discrimination required the support of a legal system, for if blacks were to be excluded from certain places and opportunities it was necessary to have a definition of a Negro, they were allocated separate parks and beaches and inferior facilities; on public transport and restaurants they were forced to sit apart from ‘whites’ and their children were only to attend segregated schools. It was decided in Louisiana in 1904 that an ‘appreciable amount’ of ‘Negro blood’ made a person a Negro within the law – without satisfactory defining ‘appreciable amount’, this meant that if you were found to have black ancestors then you were classed as Negro and treated accordingly. (O-Donnell 1992)
As well as being classed as cheap, black labour was also used to undermine the power of trade unions and then to divide black and white working class people along racial lines. In the nineteen sixties the major cities of the north and west USA were torn apart by racial conflict and race riots, this caused a class system in society. (O-Donnell 1992)
Slavery still exists today and is now labelled ‘forced labour’ it’s a global problem and people in ‘forced labour’ jobs turn up in the most surprising places –a lap-dancer in London, a fairground worker in Germany, a farm-worker in Ghana, or a child in a textile factory in India all could have been forced in some way to do the job that they do. The sex industry, agriculture, construction and domestic service across the world are seen as being the worst type of forced labourers (Haralambos and Holborn 2004)
Bonded labour affects twenty million people worldwide; this is where people often become bonded labourers by taking or being tricked into taking a loan. Forced labour is where many people are illegally recruited by individuals, governments or political parties and forced to work. Child labour means millions of children work in exploitive or dangerous conditions; children are also forced to work in the sex industry, early and forced marriages affects women and girls whom are married without choice and forced into lives of servitude. (O-Donnell 1992)
Mainly due to racism, black disadvantages and segregation in employment and housing have emerged, a black underclass has been created in Britain, and about half of the non-white population are mainly employed in semi-skilled and unskilled manual jobs, women are also linked with the racial in equalities. (O-Donnell 1992)
Slavery itself was finally abolished in Great Britain in 1833, though not after much resistance from certain parts of the British Empire. For much of the rest of the 1800s, British and American ships operated their anti-slavery patrols, gradually crushing the African slave trade. It was a mostly British effort; in one ten-year period the British captured or sank 554 ships as against 24 by the Americans. Today, the slave trade still goes on in some countries. (O-Donnell 1992)
Sometimes "whites" are used as slaves; sometimes "blacks", it is a question of power. So as I said I disagree with the statement ‘the slave trade has no relevance in Britain today’ due to the fact that it still very clearly carries on today, its just named differently, however still going just as strong as it did then if not more so. Slavery still exists in its various forms. Employers can work their people to death on ridiculously low wages, often in unsafe working conditions. They strip the workers of their liberties by trying to tell them how to live without providing shelter, food, clothes or medical care. Slavery still exists, because some people always have and always will feel superior to others and feel entitled to "own" others.
Bibliography
O-Donnell Mike, A New Introduction to Sociology, third edition, 1992
Haralambos Michael, Holborn Martin and Heald Robin, Sociology Themes and Perspectives, sixth edition, 2004
