Trigger Warning, and also Political Stuff

On October 28th I was thinking about writing this post, going over what points I would cover in my head and stuff like that, when I came across this, which led me to this, which led me to not writing this post. I was afraid, because suddenly the thing that I had planned on writing about had become topical. It took me a few days to get over that, and I'm back and ready to tackle this. That having been said, if you're reading this and thinking that I missed something and would be way less ignorant if I saw it, post it, please.

This came up in my personal life before it also came up in the discussion/cute cartoon video I reference above. Before I say anything about anything I want to clarify:
*I do not dislike the discussion or the video mentioned, nor do I mean to suggest that I think the stuff being said here is wrong. I think that, for the most part, it is absolutely right.
*I do not mean to attack any single person here. The issue I have is with a trend and a phrase.

Here is my issue:
I have heard TAships called "slave labour for the university" often enough that I am certain that this is just a phrase that gets said sometimes. By that, I mean one of those things you say without thinking critically about. This is a problem, and it is a problem mostly because it is coming consistently from people within academia, the same people that I hold to the very high standard of trying to be politically correct because they understand the power of language. I am not (NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT!!!!!) aligning myself with the "Just Be Grateful" crowd that is mentioned over at Shitty First Drafts. In fact, I understand where the phrase, and the though process comes from. Academics work stupid long hours, are under the pressure to publish or perish (which means doing a shit ton of your research and writing in addition to teaching classes and doing hours of class prep and grading), and are expected to do all kinds of committee work (I've even probably missed things that are par for the course, I'm still in grad school so I can't speak to this reality yet) , all without any guarantee of job security, and, according to the discussions mentioned above (I say according because I can't speak to this experience, but I do trust these sources) are being expected to do more work for less money all the time. When the phrase in question came up in my personal life it came from a professor that I work for who was encouraging me to keep track of every hour that I worked, and to make sure not to work more hours than I would be paid for (at my school research and teaching assistants are allotted a number of hours per term, and must claim those hours throughout the term to be paid for them). I am certain that she did this 1.) because it is common for student markers to work more hours than they will be paid for in the interest of getting all of the marking given to them finished (I do not think that professors do this on purpose- it is probably really hard to keep track of the number of hours your TA has worked, especially since you can only usually estimate this, but it is really easy to know how much marking you have left), and 2.) to make sure that I don't get into this habit, which can only lead to worse and worse situations.
That still does not make it okay. Why? Because there are still people involved in slavery. Human trafficking is, as far as I am aware, currently the most commonly reported form of slavery, but there other manifestations out there. There are real bodies being affected by slavery in real, damaging ways all the time, people that are forced against their will to continue to work in bad conditions for little or no pay. .
Do you know they call it when someone leaves slavery? Escape. Liberation. Freedom. When someone leaves academia we call it leaving. This is the crucial difference.
Does this make everything in the university system okay? No. Does this mean that all professors, even those on contract work can pay their bills and live comfortably? No. In fact, I'm pretty sure that the system is set up to make grad students feel like working overtime as a TA is a privilege, because having the opportunity to do that work is really good for your CV and might increase your chance of work later. Maybe. If you do a good enough job, get a good enough reference, or make enough contacts. You know what you don't mean in your academic future? A contact that perceives you as lazy because you didn't put those extra hours in, and even if this isn't likely the way professors will actually view you I think that fear is still present and motivating. I know it is for me. Again, it is not slavery. I can leave if I want to. Professors can leave if they want to. They should be paid more, and have a more reasonable workload, (yes, yes, yes!!) but are not slaves.