The free slave paradox

What is it about?

“Runaway slave” and “free slave” express the same content, yet one is readily understood and the other is not. The difference exposes a cultural blindness to some of the outdated ways in which oppressive language still operates. By exposing how the expression presents interdisciplinary issues from semantics and semiotics to English literature, the article advances an argument against its unexamined use and proposes an alternative.

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Why is it important?

From racism and classism to misogyny and homophobia, academics today refuse to introduce or discuss characters and people in terms expressed through oppressor interests except for one, namely, “runaway slave,” an expression that I argue is as semantically suspect as it is oppressive when advanced beyond self-identification.