no subject

[lotesse]

Listening to the audiobook of The Warrior's Apprentice in lieu of the news -- was startled to hear Miles muse on being complicit in "the white slave trade" through mercenary financing arrangements. "The white slave trade"?? Startling partly because color-word race descriptors aren't often used in the Vorkosigan Saga; ethnic modifiers like "Eurasian," meaning what exactly I can't think, are employed, but not black/white/brown.

Why not just "the slave trade," Lois? "White slave trade" at this point mainly makes me think of conservative loonies yelling about illegal immigrants kidnapping white women, like Trump talks about. I know WA was written a long time ago, but I can't imagine that connotation wasn't already present at the time. Either way, the idea of a "white slave trade" only makes sense if, as in the US context, black people are the "default" enslavable humans, and slaves of other colors are unique enough to remark on. Which makes absolutely no sense in the Vorkosiverse.

Sometimes I like the way that the earlier books show Miles, Ivan ect as more realistically privileged upper-caste men, with various kinds of immoral behavior and illegitimate assumptions. Sometimes it rubs on me. I wish that, as they'd grown up, their author hadn't been falling more and more into pleasantly conservative literary tropes; if they'd done more as adults to correct themselves, I really would like it, all the way through.

Comments

[starlady]

"White slavery" has been a dogwhistle for at least 100 years, probably longer. I suspect "Eurasian" is…nothing good, actually.

[executrix]

The "white slave trade" means what is now known as sex trafficking--i.e., people (not necessarily white) compelled to engage in prostitution, rather than people who are literally chattel slaves.

[chthonic_cassandra]

Yeah, 'white slave trade' came into common usage around the turn-of-the-century, and at that time was fear mongering about Asian immigrants kidnapping white women, and also anti-sex work language (see also: Estelle Friedman's Redefining Rape). Theoretically it's talking about trafficking, but if anyone uses that term to discuss trafficking then you knowing they're being racist.

[ilthit]

I think there were sexploitation b films in the 50s about "white slave trade" in which the context was specifically that it is only scary because it is white people getting kidnapped and enslaved. I suspect she was thinking of sensationalist mostly fiction when using that phrase, which in no way makes it better, and really there is no good context for the phrase.