http://www.lifenews.com/2014/02/14/like-slavery-abortion-gives-one-person-ownership-of-another/
Last week I finally got to watch the acclaimed film 12 Years a Slave, which tells the story of Solomon Northup, a free black man from upstate New York, who was kidnapped and sold into slavery in Louisiana.
It’s a harrowing and unflinching film that doesn’t spare the viewer – and rightly so.
A scene from the film 12 Years a Slave
Slavery, a practice largely brought to the United States by the Dutch and British empires, was legal in that jurisdiction (and beyond) for two hundred years. The cruelty endured by the men, women and children forced into slavery at that time has, with some exceptions, largely gone untold on film.Steve McQueen’s movie upends all that by revealing the horrors of slavery in unsparing detail, and the impact is devastating
The scenes of pitiless exploitation, sexual abuse, starvation, humiliation, and savage beatings are so profoundly disturbing that their imprint is unforgettable.The cruelty and degradation is almost unimaginable, but it happened again and again, and it was given legal sanction, not because slave owners truly believed those held in slavery to be less than human, but because it was economically advantageous for them to do so.
In the role of malevolent slaveowner, Edwin Epps, the actor Michael Fassbender gives an unsettling portrayal of a deranged, sadistic and horrendously violent man. History shows there were, sadly, too many like him, and too many others, who turned a blind eye to the suffering of their fellow human beings.
However, the violence seen in screen isn’t the most shocking thing about the film. What’s most
disturbing is that Epps and others were protected by the law, and that nothing in the law could have stopped Epps, or any slaveowner, from b
