Michelle Obama reminded us last night that the products of slave labor surround us. Labor makes things, and those things persist through time. The work of enslaved African Americans and other oppressed people is built into our cities, our wealth, and yes, the White House too.

The poignant, climactic scene of Octavia Butler's incredible 1979 novel Kindred, in which a time-traveling African American woman's arm becomes irreparably merged with a wall as she travels from the antebellum past to her present-day home in 1970s Los Angeles, is a powerful image that makes us acutely aware that us that the past is always surrounding us, always present, and that human bodies in the past worked and suffered in various ways to make the things of today that we tend to accept as given.

It was, therefore, altogether fitting for Michelle Obama to bring up the facts of the past to remind us of their legacy. But there is a problem here. Slavery is not just a thing of the past; it exists right now, in various forms, around the world, including the United States.

Malaysia, for example, has long been cited as a country that turns a blind eye to slavery. A study published in September of 2014 by Verité.org found rampant forced labor, indentured servitude, and slave conditions in Malaysia's electronics industry. The summary of the study states:

But if you are reading this on a tablet, smartphone or computer monitor, then you may be holding a product of forced labor. Verité’s two-year study of labor conditions in electronics manufacturing in Malaysia found that one in three foreign workers surveyed in Malaysian electronics was in a condition of forced labor. Because many of the most recognizable brands source components of their products from Malaysia, this means that virtually every device on the market today may have come in contact with modern-day slavery. http://www.verite.org/research/electronicsmalaysia

In other words, the computer monitor off of which Michelle Obama read her speech yesterday, when she reminded us of the sad reality of slavery past, may itself have been a product of slavery right now, today, in our present world.

Malaysia is one of the signatory nations in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). After Congressional rules stipulated that no trade deals would be possible with countries designated as "Tier 3" for human trafficking, the U.S. State Department responded by simply switching the designation of Malaysia from Tier 3 to Tier 2, although no convincing evidence was presented for the change. As an article from The Intercept put it:

There is little evidence that anything has changed for Malaysia’s foreign workers. Just a couple months ago authorities discovered a mass grave of 139 Rohingya Muslims, who fled discrimination in Burma and were sold into slavery upon their escape. Trafficking enforcement remains weak; in April, U.S. Ambassador to Malaysia Joseph Yun criticized the country for doing too little to stop slavery. The Wall Street Journal found persistent forced labor abuses on Malaysian palm oil plantations in an article published Sunday. The State Department’s 2015 report reads almost exactly like last year’s with a few words changed, the way middle school students avoid plagiarism for book reports. But they allege that, while “the Government of Malaysia does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking … it is making significant efforts to do so.” https://theintercept.com/2015/07/27/blocked-trade-pact-failure-trafficki...

It is more than appropriate, it is necessary to remember that slave labor was used in the construction of the White House. But it is a bitter irony when that reminder comes from the spouse of the man pushing a trade deal that seems intent on giving a pass to, and enabling profits to be made from, slavery not from two centuries ago, but from right now.