On February 7, 2013, Mississippi officially ratified the 13th Amendment. That's right. Eleven days ago.
Apparently, they had voted to ratify the amendment in 1995, but someone forgot to file the paperwork.
It took Dr. Ranjan Batra, an associate professor of neurobiology and anatomical sciences at the University of Mississippi Medical Center, to set the wheels in motion for the state’s eventual ratification of the amendment to abolish slavery.
Dr. Batra saw the film, "Lincoln," and wondered about the rest of the story. He did some googling and discovered that Mississippi had “ratified the amendment in 1995, but because the state never officially notified the US Archivist, the ratification is not official.”
What’s the real story here? I can think of a few possibilities, some of which have already hit the media cycle (11 days after the fact, mind you):
- Steven Spielberg film about the Great Emancipator inspires ordinary citizens to assist their state in correcting clerical error, setting record straight (CBS News, TPM Livewire)
- Mississippi is embarrassing enough as it is, but now they have to go and embarrass themselves even more (MSN.com, Washington Times)
- Move along, nothing to see here (everyone else)
It’s not often that I think Fox News has the best coverage of an event, but this time, I think they help to highlight the real story, even if they do not fully cover that story. Their coverage begins: “File this under ‘I thought they did that already.’”
Indeed. To quote another famous American: “There are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say there are things that we now know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we do not know we don't know.”
And then there are things we do not want to know we do not want to know. The fact that Mississippi had not officially ratified the 13th Amendment until 11 days ago is one of those things. The information was there on the interwebs for anyone to see, but you have to look it up.
So what does it mean to know this now? What might it mean to want to know it?
I’ll hazard a guess.
The official abolition of slavery in the state of Mississippi on February 7, 2013, does not mean that Mississippi is an unfortunate backwater, nor it does not mean that “we finally got it right.” It means that the logic of slavery is still operative in this country, and that it operates through collective not-knowing and collective not-wanting-to-know. Mississippi is not the exception, it is the rule.
Speaking of which, before we go cheering for the 13th Amendment, we should read it in full:
Section 1. 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.
Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
Even when we abolished slavery in this country, we did not abolish it completely. We held it in reserve as an exceptional punishment for those who have been duly convicted of a crime. We still hold it in reserve. And we use it to punish people of color who are subject to more police surveillance, longer prison sentences, and more death sentences than white people. Not just in Mississippi, but also in Mississippi.
The real story is that slavery has never been completely abolished in this country, and the ratification of the 13th Amendment, however late, and however ridiculously under-reported, is not going to solve the problem.
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