5 Unspeakably Bad Historical Practices That Never Went Away

5

Debtors' Prisons Are Still Going Strong

The phrase "debtors' prison" conjures images of Dickensian squalor, colonial indenture, and orphans continuously begging for more despite the fact that you just ate, you little dick, give it time to settle. Time was, if you couldn't pay what you owed, you went to a debtor's prison and stayed there until you'd labored your debt away or had a rich uncle die or something. Now cut to modern America. Debtors' prisons have returned with a vengeance -- they've only changed the way they operate. For the worse.

Henry NichollsWe don't house them in friggin' castles anymore, for one thing.

Turns out that state and local courts can handily supplement their budgets by smacking poor defendants with more hidden fees than your local Wells Fargo. They obviously abuse this ability, because humanity's chief strength is finding new ways to be awful. It is now, in effect, a crime to be poor. Here's how it works: Take a criminal mastermind who's guilty of heinous violations like "parking tickets" and "lapsed car registrations" -- fees the defendants were unable to pay because they were too poor in the first place. Now proceed to throw these poor people in jail for not having enough money. Then slap them with a bunch of fees and charges for having inconvenienced the state by taking up so much valuable jail space. Cue a never-ending circle of financial hell until the day they die.

If that system sounds ridiculous, so do the fees that they use. There are at least 20 different fees a court can punch you with. In places like Oklahoma, the number goes up to a ridiculous 66, including (but far from limited to) "sheriff's fee or pursuing fugitive from justice," "courthouse security fee," and a fee for applying for a freaking public defender.

Hulton Archive/Getty ImagesHistorical depiction of all that punching.

This is not a tiny handful of petty criminals stuck in some bureaucratic nightmare, either. In Rhode Island alone, 18 people a day are thrown into the modern equivalent of debtors' prison for failure to pay fines. And to ensure that the poor can't mooch a 50 off their cousin to stay out of prison, these aren't nickel-and-dime fees. Even the most basic mandatory ones like "victim penalty assessment" ($500) and "DNA database fee" ($100) will leave you hundreds of dollars in the red. The average legal financial obligations slapped on a defendant is a ridiculous $2,540, in a day and age when most Americans couldn't cobble together $400 in a crisis. Oh, and the annual interest rate is 12 percent. That's like shitty credit predatory car loan interest.

4

Segregation In Schools Didn't End Until 2016 -- And They're Still Fighting For It

Ask any high school student about segregation, and they'll tell you it was institutionally sanctioned racism -- "separate but equal." Was. Everybody knows it's over ...

In the north.

Ask that same question in a place like Mississippi, and the answer might be different. Because the last time a judge had to bitch-slap a Mississippi school over blatant racial segregation was in May of freaking 2016. In many places, the end of segregation was gently encouraged by the presence of the National Guard. However, they couldn't be everywhere at the same time. The school district of Cleveland, Mississippi looked around, saw no National Guard troops, and figured "We'll ride this racism thing to the end of the line. See where it goes."

The Wall Street JournalThis image is not from the 1916 edition of The Wall Street Journal.

3

Sweatshops Still Operate All Across America

Sweatshop labor isn't restricted to Asia. It's a worldwide problem, operating in exotic locales like ... Los Angeles?

David McNew/Getty Images"Hey, palm trees are exotic."

2

Current Voter ID Laws Are Worse Than Old Poll Taxes

This last election was rife with news stories about voter ID laws. Essentially, a bunch of states recently started passing laws mandating that some folks (generally minorities) show valid forms of photo ID before they'd be allowed to vote, in order to combat fraud at the polls.

How is that bad?

It sounds like a common-sense response to a very real threat. Back in the day, they made it really difficult for minorities to vote -- like the poll tax, the prerequisite voting payment straight from the heyday of Jim Crow, specifically aimed to mess with poor black voters.

Bob Daugherty/Associated Press"But look at the fun parades they got out of it!"

But modern voter ID laws are worse. When adjusted for inflation, they literally cost more than poll taxes did. With the poll taxes, you slapped a bunch of money on the table and that was that. Voter IDs may be technically free, but in practice, they eat away both your money and your time. You have to find out what the ID requirements are and how to meet them. You have to purchase the required birth, marriage, naturalization, etc. certificates, and deal with the possible fees from legal help you might need in acquiring those. You need to travel to the necessary agencies, wait in the necessary lines. And, worst of all, you need to acquire a semi-presentable photo of yourself that isn't a Facebook photo of you on a toilet drunkenly eating ramen. All of this can cost you anything from $75 from to $1,500. Hey, guess how much the poll tax was when it was outlawed in 1964? $1.50.

Oh, Louisiana.

1

Anti-Sodomy Laws Are Still Going Strong (Despite Being Unconstitutional)

We've already covered the 2003 Lawrence v. Texas case, which struck down discriminating anti-sodomy laws and ushered in a new era of equality for gay people in this country. But the defendant in that case never actually repealed the law that the Supreme Court struck down. Texas happily kept its anti-sodomy law on the books as a "Fuck You" to the progressive agenda, which consists of "stop screwing people over, thanks." To this day, a total of 12 states still have anti-sodomy laws on the books. But still, it's not like they're used, right? Even at the time it was being argued, Texas' anti-sodomy statute was just a rarely enforced, antiquated middle finger to the ghost of Harvey Milk.

Now, Louisiana, on the other hand ...

Scott Olson/Getty ImagesDamn it, Louisiana.