Some of the maid where indeed expected to also do "night duties" if asked. It was not a racial power stuff. It's was more a problem with a sort of "cultural prostitution" witch was everywhere in Ethiopia. The maids where still primary maids and not prostitute, and to be fair, the same problem also did exist in Europe at the time of Agatha Christie (How many European maid had become pregnant and then fired ?).
I hate to break it to you but rich white people are generally far less likely to be a sexual predation risk in these situations because they often have more to lose, have easier access to consenting parties, and come from countries that stigmatize that type of behavior to a much greater degree.
But mentioning it as if white people are known for it or did it lots or have a specific history of it is quite racist. Bad things are committed by all races and slavery is certainly one of them. It's whitewashing the world's dirty secrets and then pinning them on the evil white man.
As I've said elsewhere, the context was already about white men employing people from black communities -- go re-read the GP's post, I wasn't the one that bought race into it. I just made an uncomfortable truth that some people apparently feel the need to defend by proxy with the usual arguments of "other people were just as bad", as if that somehow reconciles the atrocities that we committed (hint: it doesn't).
Honestly the "other cultures are just as bad" argument here strikes me just as poor as the "all lives matter" protest comment against the BLM movement:
> There is a difference between something being true and something being relevant.
> No need to racially charge it - sexually exploiting servants is a universal.
The topic of race was already raised in the grandparent post, I quote (emphasis mine):
> I have heard of the same in Ethiopia around the 90's. For white worker it was expected to:
While I'm sure exploitation happens in most cultures I'm mostly familiar with it happening in white culture and given that context was already specified and my education being based on that context I decided to keep my reply specific to that context which I already knew.
Sorry if I offended anyone -- I just figured being a white male myself it was more offensive to drag other cultures into the discussion when they were previously outside the scope.
> Curiously, you said “rich white people” forgoing the one prejudice that actually does predict sexual exploitation - men!
I didn't need to specify men because that context was already defined in the post I was responding to. To quote the GP again:
> This was OK if you where a man, a couple or a family. If you where a young woman... good luck with this.
Frankly though, moaning about other cultures doing it too feels a little like trying to pull others down so we don't look so bad instead of acknowledging our own failings. Maybe that's an uncomfortable opinion for people to hear but as the saying goes "people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones".
Bare in mind I'm not suggesting an entire race is frequently abusing their maids to this day. What I'm saying is there is recorded history of it happening. You only have to dig through some of the abuses that happened during the slave trade to see evidence of this fact. So we do indeed have a bad track record in this regard. It might be an uncomfortable truth for some of us to hear but it doesn't make it any less true.
https://www.economist.com/baobab/2012/04/24/maid-in-ethiopia