22222222International Day for the Abolition of Slavery

By Aryana Goodarzi

December 2nd, the International Day for the Abolition of Slavery, is meant to confront how slavery and the racism from it still exists. 

The inherency of racism makes it systemic, not systematic in the way that slavery is a system but racism is systematic – it exists in the bedrock and founding of our political systems. Systematic racism is when a system is meant for people of one racial identity, like slavery. Systemic racism looks like the lack of people of color in politics, racial gerrymandering, or having the right to vote not determined on the basis of race yet Black people disproportionately cannot vote. On the International Day for the Abolition of Slavery, we must not discredit or diminish the ways in which the racist origins of slavery did not go when chattel slavery did.

“The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change.” 

– Audre Lorde