In VICE’s piece on Libya’s Migrant Jails, it is inevitable to come to the conclusion that race plays a major role in the rehabilitation and care given to these migrants. When the reality of homelessness, war torn cities and political instability becomes a ‘dream’ for those being detained in Libya, it is hard to imagine what kind of conditions they must face day in and day out in those centers. We see a stark juxtaposition to the two camps that were highlighted in the film. The major contrast being the color of the detainees’ skin.

Here, I think of Giordano’s point – that the temporality that comes with the use of words such as ’emergency’ or ‘catastrophe’ completely strips away the weight of what these migrants have to face on a daily basis. In the first center that was shown, we see a man introducing his surroundings and life as the ‘new slavery.’ When we think of slavery, we fail to see it not just a period (that some would argue has passed), but as an experience. We can think of these men being slaves to many things; a major one being their skin color. For the staggering 92% of African men who will never gain refugee status; their lives don’t just end there at the detention center, or in the middle of the desert after a failed crossing. And even if they are apart of that small percentage that have a secure space somewhere in the EU, they will always live with the weight of this ‘catastrophe.’ Their lives are defined as catastrophes, and this one far from temporary. And so when we speak and respond to these crises, we need to see them as not just temporal, or something a state of emergency can fix, but as something that these HUMANS will carry with them. Whether it be physically, through scars or limps, or mentally, through the restless nights on forest floors or rebuilding their lives – they still remain slaves to the conditions their skin color has brought on them.

And this individual ‘crisis’ does not end when they receive a green light by the authorities; their thoughts and memories are forever etched with those near death and inhumane experiences they had to fight through. Not by any doing of their own, but due to the ignorance of those who do not see them as equally in need.