In a message dated 11/5/2003 12:44:40 PM Eastern Standard Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:

<< The word "enslaved" has become the preferred term for people found in that
 status on the same theory as the term "undocumented aliens" has become the
 preferred term over "illegal aliens." Human beings are inherently neither
 "illegal" nor "slaves." Human beings are sometimes classed as being
 "illegal" or as "slaves." In either case that is deliberate action of an
 outside agency and has no bearing on the inherent quality of that person.
 Therefore, the term "enslaved" is considered to be more accurate than the
 term "slave." >>

Frankly, I fail to see how this and the other explanations which have been
offered for a preference for the term "enslaved" person over "slave" accomplish
anything or in what way there is any essential difference.  I find the
arguments totally unconvincing and beside the point.  A person who has been enslaved
is a slave.  Enslavement produces slaves.  If you want to differentiate
enslaved African Americans from enslaved Romans, enslaved Native Americans, or any
other group, the term might be useful, but "African American slave" or "Roman
slave" work just as well.  Saying a person was "enslaved" in no way circumvents
the notion that a slave is someone who might be considered inferior by the
non-enslaved population.  In the ancient world, as well as in Africa and other
parts of the world in more recent times, people who lost battles were enslaved
because the victors could get away with it; they became slaves because, quite
literally, they were losers and slavery was often the consequence of losing.
The Romans enslaved "barbarians" because it was economically advantageous and
psychologically satisfying--if they considered their slaves inferior as human
beings because they were losers and barbarians, that's historical fact (or at
least our assumption based on available evidence), but it doesn't, of course,
mean they WERE inferior.

Although I think there's an obvious political agenda behind the use of the
term "undocumented aliens," it is clearly more accurate than "illegal aliens."
People are not illegal, but they can do illegal things.  An American citizen
who commits a crime is not an illegal citizen, just a citizen who has broken a
law.  I think "undocumented alien" is a useful term because it can include
persons who have deliberately broken immigration laws as well as those who have
inadvertently broken the law, and others who are undocumented through
bureaucratic confusion, etc.

But I don't see how you can get around the linguistic fact that enslaving a
person produces a slave.  No one, as far as I can tell, said anyone was
"inherently" a slave (the word in itself contains no such connotation, so I don't see
why that's an issue), but you could say that the child of a slave usually
inherited that condition.  I'm a college graduate, but that in no way means I'm
"inherently" a college graduate.  I simply went through a process that produced
a college graduate.

David Haberstich

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