Show Some Black-Ass Respect For Sex Workers
Welcome to the fourteenth installment of This Black-Ass Life! This week, we we’re talking all things Backpage .com and Black sex workers. By now, you’ve also most assuredly seen Beyoncé’s Coachella performance this weekend. Just know she’s signed off on us having the Blackest of weeks this week. So proceed with this Monday accordingly.
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l. The Facts
Backpage, a classified advertising website, which also included an adult section containing various sex work professions (escorts, erotic masseuses, strippers), was recently shut down by the U.S. government.
Lawmakers and “advocacy” groups were able to eliminate Backpage by conflating sex-work (two or more adults consensually exchanging sexual services for remuneration) with sex trafficking and sexual coercion.
This decision is going to further drive down sex work underground, potentially opening up sex workers to abuses. Sex workers are rightfully angry about this decision because Backpage protected them and provided some freedom from pimps.
Read “How Backpage Saved My Life.” Excerpt: “Backpage didn’t turn me into a sex worker, any more than Youtube can turn people in musicians or comedians. It was just the medium. A really good, really helpful medium that was free and accessible.”
Expanding a website like Backpage and decriminalizing sex work could actually allow sex workers to fully take control of their work.
Why is this important?
Police frequently target Black sex workers with sexual violence. According to one expert, policing sex work “facilitates sexual violence because it gives officers so many points of entry in harassment of women.” A recent example is Oklahoma City Department Police Officer Daniel Holtzclaw who was convicted of raping and sodomizing over a dozen Black women during routine traffic stops. Most of the women had prior sex work convictions.
Further, criminalization of sex work is a mass incarceration issue. Women of color are the fastest growing population behind bars and 82 percent of women in jail are in for nonviolent crimes including sex work and drug abuse.
Sex work and Blackness are not mutually exclusive. 400 years of institutional racism, disinvestment in Black communities and sexual violence toward Black women, have made sex work an "inextricable thread in the fabric of blackness in America.
What can my Black Ass do?
Unapologetically affirm all Black lives and center those who have been marginalized within Black liberation movements including Black women and femmes, Black queer and trans people, the differently-abled, Black undocumented people, formerly and currently incarcerated people, and YES, Black sex workers.
Here’s a list of ways you can contribute to and fundraise for sex workers.
ll. Other Things
Beyoncé did that.
I (Mitu) got this text from a friend that best sums up Beychella for me: “Beyoncé literally made White people bankroll a 2-hour performance that they had a shitty view of in the desert heat SPECIFICALLY FOR OUR VIEWING PLEASURE.”
Very Smart Bros Damon Young takes the time to explain why we don’t trust Karen’s potato salad.
Trust the babies: D.C. wants to give 16-year-olds the right to vote.
Taylor Swift apparently covered Earth, Wind & Fire and ok, fine.
Listen to the Temptations Cover of the Weeknd's “Earned It” to erase Taylor’s blasphemous cover from your mind.
Our Black-Ass song of the week:
Beyoncé literally performed Lift Every Voice And Sing. Does it get Blacker? Yes, it actually does. Watch her full performance here. It made me cry, it made you cry, it made us all cry.
Obligatory Kanye check-in:
Brockhampton-inspiring legend, Kanye West interviews his interior designer and shares plans for a potential philosophy book - ALBUM SOON COME.
Things we are looking forward to / things we are not looking forward to:
I (Mitu) am not looking forward to hearing anything Kim Zolciak has to say on the RHOA reunion.
I (Jumoke) am still looking forward to warm weather. Seriously, this is some bullshit.
lll. Text from a Black-Ass Pops
Heads up from my (Mitu’s) dad - apparently no matter how cheap you are, you should not choose Allegiant Air. Also, I think my dad was lowkey calling me cheap?
Stay Black and pledge Beta Delta Kappa. We’ll hit your inbox next on April 30.