You can't be a victim, I claimed it first

Back in the late 1970s, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram hired an older reporter. I do not remember his name, nor the newspapers he had worked for before the Star-Telegram. 

The reporter pitched an idea to editors for a series on Mexican families who indentured themselves to be smuggled across the border and then work a specified amount of time for the farmer or rancher who brought them north.

I was a state and local news editor at the time and sat in on some meetings. I knew in outline form the series the older reporter was preparing, but none of the details. I did not disbelieve his stories; certainly indentured servitude was a possibility for illegals at the time, and why wouldn’t a family exchange work for entrance into the United States? The family worked, got paid, and the kids went to school, just like other kids.

At the meeting in which editors discussed the reporter’s stories, one of the upper-level editors asked the reporter, “Are you making this up?”

Her disbelief was evident. That was the 1970s, and involuntary servitude no longer existed.

Hers was a liberal, upper middle class belief. More than a belief, her opinion was a certainty. What she believed was the way the world was, and her more important beliefs were of the way the world should be.

Once in a while you will find unicorn and rainbow Texans, and when you do, their existence is more surprising than finding the same beliefs in non-Texans. We birth Texans are supposed to be grounded in the reality of nature and of people.

It has taken a long time for people to sort-of believe, but slavery exists today in the United States. In each state. Maybe even in every county.

Maybe in your town.

Slavery isn’t called slavery today, though. For some reason, slavery has been cleaned up and is now called human trafficking. Maybe that fits the ears better. Maybe people don’t want to admit the existence of slavery. Maybe, even, the more liberal and Progressive parts of society have laid a claim on slavery and determined the word applies only to black people, African-Americans, some of whose ancestors were owned by white Americans. That makes more sense. A self-proclaimed victim cannot share victimhood with another group. Politics demands a different term for other enslaved people.