It’s a profound point he makes. Even more profound is to consider the fact he’s addressing these grievances with the President of the United States, one of the few people who have the power and influence to shine a light on the matter and do something about it.

"The four gentlemen that wrote the 13th Amendment — and I think the way the universe works, it’s perfect. We don’t have 13 floors, do we? You know, so the four — the four gentlemen that wrote the 13th Amendment didn’t look like the people they were amending. Also at that point, it was illegal for blacks to read — or African Americans to read. And so that meant if you actually read the Amendment, you would get locked up and turned into a slave." ― Kanye West

I focus in on the 13th amendment in this article because of recent news events. Kanye West a popular hip-hop artist and fashion designer spoke in front of the president at the oval office and said the following.

To break that down some; the amendment removed the mantle of slave master from slave owners and gifted it solely to government. When citizens become duly convicted, the judgment removes their civil rights and they suffer a form of civil death while also becoming state property or property of the state (an owned thing if you will).

The effort to abolish slavery was a slow and steady movement both among the people and several acts of legislation. The 13th amendment was the last and most unfortunate of these legislative efforts because of the caveat: "except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted."

"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..." ― 13th Amendment

The unlucky thirteenth amendment to the US constitution brought slavery back to the fore in 1865 while pretending to outlaw it. If I had to describe what the amendment did, it created a centralized system of slavery imposed not by man but by the government. Let us observe the relevant text below.

There’s a common myth that the US abolished slavery. I would say most people resonate with that statement as if though it is factual and think of America as a “free country.” The truth of the matter is that this is far from the case and it has been so for some time.

Many of you reading this are in staunch disagreement with me right now and may believe all prisoners deserve to be forced to toil for paltry, or substandard wages to survive. You have every right to believe this if you so choose. I think the big question though is: Did the thirteenth amendment outlaw slavery or did it legalize it in specific cases? The truth is, it did both.

I would say most people are in favor of prohibiting slavery, it’s the noble thing. However, legalizing slavery in special circumstances? That’s a whole other topic, and it’s disassociated with the good deed of abolishing the horrible practice when you consider that laws differ greatly from state to state.

We all know the justice system and many of the laws on the books are antithetical to the American way. One need look no further than the United States Declaration of Independence which says the people are “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Yet, God forbid a man chooses to self-medicate with alcohol (1920 - 1933) or a marijuana cigarette. Put him in a cage, make a slave of him! We know these things were, and are, wrong. We know there is a myriad of laws on the books that create criminals out of people who commit victimless crimes. That knowledge alone should be enough to bring one in favor of abolishing slavery in American jails.

"The Nixon White House had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana, and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did." – John Ehrlichman (White House Domestic Affairs Advisor 1969 - 1973)

What of the hardened criminals though, murderers, rapists, and downright evil people? In those cases are we justified in bringing about conditions where people are put in cages like animals and forced to labor for 20¢ an hour? Just so at day’s end, they can almost afford to buy an overpriced package of ramen noodles for $2.00?

To that, I would reemphasize the notion that the correctional system is for rehabilitation and if you put a man or woman in a cage like an animal and starve them that’s on a par with training pit bulls to become as vicious and as cruel as their namesake lends them. This negative reinforcement creates the condition whereby when setting prisoners free they become like ticking time bombs.

The convict will exit prison with the notion that instead of having paid their debt to society – society owes them a debt and they will find themselves back in a cage not long after first committing an even more heinous crime than the one that got them there in the first place. That’s all fine and dandy for the private prison industry. They will make a small fortune off of this person’s life, and the lives of those they ruined when they failed to adequately rehabilitate the prisoner in any meaningful way before sending them out through that revolving door.

However, if dealt with appropriately and not treated like animals, prisoners can be empowered to change and at the conclusion of their sentence no longer be a burden to society, but instead, rehabilitated.

On this article, I focused on prisons in America because I live in America. Yet, I don’t want to create a perception that this is only an American problem. I’ll leave you with a Wikileaks leak where two former prisoners in China discuss the horrible labor conditions of their involuntary servitude. The state incarcerated one of the women for three years because of her involvement in the protest of immoral land grabs.

Both reported that labor was involuntary, and consisted of light industrial work for private companies that made outsourcing arrangements with the prison. ― Wikileaks

On prison conditions in general, Zheng said they were "not fit for dogs or pigs." ― Wikileaks

I think America can lead the way to a more successful prison system. It may not be conducive to the profit margin of private corporations, yet at the least, it could fulfill its goal in rehabilitating people which would be a net benefit to society. There are a handful of countries now who have already led the way in treating their prisoners humanely and providing them with opportunities to improve their lot in life. If you ask me, it's high time that America does the same.