Constitutional Outcast-America’s Slave Laborers and the Complex Prison Industrial Complex

Ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, some of us are aware but most are not, that slavery has never actually been abolished in America. A few short months after old honest Abe declared freedom for the enslaved with the Emancipation Proclamation the U.S. Congress cleverly inserted the 13^th Amendment. This congressional act, without doubt or contradiction, rescinded the Proclamation. In January of 1863 the President issued the executive order that all slaves would be free. Consider that on December 6^th 1865, less than three years later, the 13^th Amendment was adopted. That amendment clearly repeals the Emancipation Proclamation yet no one ever brings it before the bar of justice. Read it for your self:

13^th Amendment: “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.”   

What does EXCEPT mean?

It means that slavery ‘can’ exist as long as the government can acquire a conviction. We are all suffering from extreme cases of myopia if we cannot see what’s going on in the prison system. Every State has the first-right-of-refusal to sell their goods and services manufactured by the ‘convicted’ laborers in their prisons. The States have not only bee manufacturing goods but they’ve also been manufacturing slaves since 1866 by manipulating laws that keep their prisons full of black laborers. So make no mistake, slavery is alive and well in America and has never been abolished.

Consider: The ‘Industrial Prison Complex” is aptly named and truly complex because of its enormity, with a labor force of more than 2 million, closer to 3 million as of this writing in April of 2013. It is big business, and not just the individual States; but the Federal Government has been totally complicit as well.

The Federal Prison Industry program called UNICOR has been exploiting black people and promoting slavery since the 1930's. When you click on the Clothing and Textile  

link understand that the Federal Government gets 'first-rite-of-refusal’ to sell their goods and services to all State, Local and Federal Government agencies.

http://www.unicor.gov/?navlocation=ClothingTextiles

Check the link on Furniture and remember that prisoners are manufacturing these items at the rate of fifty cents per hour. In some States prisoners are making no more than fifty cents per day, two cents an hour. If that is not a slave-labor-wage in 2013, you tell me what is. http://www.unicor.gov/?navlocation=OfficeFurniture

Click on INDUSTRIAL Products: http://www.unicor.gov/?navlocation=IndustrialProducts

Look at the list of goods prisoners are making; view the comprehensive video and keep in mind they are talking about prison facilities and prisoners. The propaganda is so shrewd that you would never dream this was a federal prison. They even have a couple of inmates lying about opportunities for jobs once they are released. I know they are lying personally because I couldn’t land a job anywhere. I ended up having to toss furniture around for a moving company and I was qualified to supervise at NASA, McDonald/Douglas and Lockheed/Martin

And here’s one more thing. At the bottom of the page put your cursor on Services http://www.unicor.gov/services/

and click on the little pop-up icon that says 'Comprehensive Video.' They say their program is "a best kept secret" well, I guess it is, hidden in plain sight. Ninety-nine percent of our population is not aware that this kind of slave labor, which they call 'unique labor’, is being exploited in the United States. And I bet you didn’t know that the next time you order that scarlet-red lingerie from Victoria’s Secret you might be speaking to a federal prisoner.

When you click Electronics Comprehensive Video below please understand that I am not referring to something I heard about. No one told me this is happening. This is something I did for 4 years of my life. I was literally a slave from 1978 to 1982. I manufactured cables and circuit boards that go into electronic devices from as small as a hand-held transistor radio chip to as large as cable connectors used in nuclear submarines and aircraft carriers. http://www.unicor.gov/?navlocation=Electronics

My friend, whether you choose to admit it or not, slavery exists TODAY in the United States of America, according the 13th Amendment of the US Constitution. READ IT! It is legal; the same as buying alcohol from your neighborhood liquor store. If you don’t believe it, just click this link...read it and weep.
http://www.unicor.gov/

The solution to this problem is community outrage that demands Congressional and Senatorial support to repeal the 13^th Amendment.  The same as the 21^st Amendment, in effect repealed the eighteenth and did away with Prohibition; we need to demand that our attorneys, scholars and politicians draft a bill that prohibits legalized slavery in these United States.

~Ty Gray-EL is an author, poet, playwright and activist and the Chief Creative Officer of Breath of Breath of My Ancestors, a Cultural Enrichment Ministry dedicated to raising levels of consciousness and self-esteem among African Americans. He lives with his wife on the outskirts of Washington, DC. He can be reached at www.breathofmyancestors.com