This is a response to the above debate.
The editors of Beyond Trafficking and Slavery have convened a provocative debate on the question of human trafficking awareness campaigns. We are especially heartened by the commentators responding ‘no’. While some valuable points have been raised, there nonetheless remains a critical yet neglected problem of representation at work here. To date, none of the commentators have addressed the enduring structure of racial slavery. It is impossible for any anti-trafficking campaign to effectively address the problem of human suffering while it remains unaware of how it is haunted by the spectre of Africans in the ship’s hold and how it continues to parasitically feed off of the history and legacies of racial slavery.
As we have asserted previously (i.e., here and here) the modern world has been an ongoing crisis for black people. Contemporary anti-slavery politics, much like abolitionism of yesteryear, draws ethical sustenance from objectified black bodies for non-black ones, all the while consistently displaying a failure of solidarity with actual black people and their liberation struggles.
