Self-Organizing Man

And the debate continues.  Gloria Lockett’s interview got me thinking again on this topic of racism and sex work.  She says:

I turned out to be quite an activist, but mainly because I knew that there had to be a voice for people who were working the streets and getting arrested—which meant mostly Black people. Those were people to me who were doing prostitution big time. It was horrendous to me, the white women who would turn two tricks a month and call that prostitution, when Black women were working the streets turning five and six dates a night. They were working six days a week in rain, cold, and snow. I felt it was important for me to be a part of COYOTE to let people know that Black women’s issues were different from white women’s issues.
       For the most part, white prostitutes work inside, and many of them get into prostitution because of power issues. Some were once in the professional world and felt like they were being treated like whores. Many of them have gone to college. Black women mainly do prostitution to economically survive. Most of them never had the opportunity for higher education. (emphasis mine).

I keep returning to Gloria’s observation about white women get into prostitution because of power issues.  My readings of Catherine MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin frame the issue of sex work as one of power, and one group existing in a disenfranchised position against another.

What Gloria’s comments remind me about, though, is the raced assumption undergirding much MacKinnon and Dworkin’s work. 

Which does not mean that Gloria Lockett did not experience sexism, but she, and other African-American sex workers, experience the power imbalance existing within sex work, differently from white sex workers.

Gloria continues:

I’ve heard some of my white friends say that they’re in prostitution because of the power. Well, for Black women it’s for the money. We are powerful people, we don’t need to get power by standing on no corner. [laughs] The writings are very white, and people need to know that. One of the pet peeves I have is that almost at every conference I attend relating to prostitution, people ask the question: How could you be for child prostitution?

I’ve heard some of my white friends say that they’re in prostitution because of the power. Well, for Black women it’s for the money.

       What about those 13-, 14-, and 15-year-old children? I don’t believe that children should work at doing anything, not less being a prostitute. I believe that after a person turns 18, they should decide what they want to do, but before then children should go to school. So, people always ask me about the children, and I ask, "Well, what about them?" I can count on my hand the amount of women who were under 18 when they started working. I just got jumped on at the last conference that I attended because of these "moral" people talking about child prostitution. I left the conference. You can talk about them if you want to, but where are they? If that’s the reason people won’t legalize prostitution, that’s bullshit because most of the women are not children when they go into prostitution. They’re 21 or older.  (emphasis mine)

What I’m coming to understand is that perspective makes all the difference when it comes to understanding sex work and what will and won’t work.

What I’m also coming to understand is that white feminist model that uses gender as the beginning point for understanding the conditions of women’s existence seems too simplistic.

I conclude with the words of Angela Davis:

This means that we need to think differently about our political strategies. We can’t strive for the kind of unity upon which people tended to rely in the past. We have to dispense with old ideas about Black unity or women’s unity. The kind of unity we need, I think, is unity forged around political projects as opposed to unity based simplistically on race or gender. My own hope for the future is not an abstract hope but is grounded in the notion that we have to confront the tasks before us. If we don’t do the work, we will be confronting a future far direr and far more dangerous than the present.