Prostitution: Where Racism and Sexism Intersect

Black women find themselves in a unique and extremely difficult position in our society. They are forced to deal with the oppression that arises from being Black in a white-supremacist culture and the oppression that arises from being female in a male-supremacist culture. In order to examine the experience of being Black and female, this paper attempts to describe that very difficult, tight space where Black women attempt to survive--that space where racism and sexism intersect.

Late in the spring of 1992., America was glued to the television watching East Los Angeles go up in flames in response to a courtroom verdict that acquitted four white police officers of the savage beating of an African-American man.⁽¹⁾ When the verdict was handed down, white America learned what Black Americans have always known: who counts, and who does not. From one end of the country to the other, whites and Blacks marched together to protest the brutality of the L.A. police force and the racism of the criminal justice system that protected and exonerated the officers. Of course, I too was outraged.

Yet, while liberal America paraded banners and sported T-shirts reading "Justice for Rodney," while Black radicals and academics alike proclaimed that the Black male was an endangered species in America--done in by the police ⁽²⁾ done in by drugs, ⁽³⁾ or done in by himself ⁽⁴⁾--eleven Black women were quietly being murdered in Detroit.⁽⁵⁾ Eleven Black women were strangled. Eleven Black women were sexually mutilated. The bodies of eleven Black women were dumped in abandoned buildings under piles of trash in a period of nine months

I had to ask myself. Where was the outrage? Why wasn't the community up in arms? Clearly there was a pattern here. All of the women were poor. All of the women were Black. All of the women were used in prostitution. There was no reason to believe that the killer would not strike again. So, I had to ask myself, where was the outrage? One Black male is beaten up by four white police officers and every Black community activist in the country, including the Reverend Jesse Jackson, is crying out against racist violence and the culture of poverty that precipitated the L.A. riots.⁽⁶⁾ Eleven poor, Black women are murdered and mutilated, their bodies are thrown away like so much trash, and the only thing we hear, besides the deafening silence, is a local Baptist minister mourning that these women "were already among the walking dead."⁽⁷⁾ Where do racism and sexism meet? If you ask me, they meet in a trash pile, in an abandoned building, in Detroit.

Racism makes Black women and girls especially vulnerable to sexual exploitation and keeps them trapped in the sex industry. It does this by limiting educational and career opportunities for African-Americans in this country.⁽⁸⁾ It does this through a welfare system that has divided the poor Black family. If a mother works, or her children's father contributes to their support, her check and food stamps are cut by that amount.⁽⁹⁾ Thus, poor Black women are left alone to find for themselves and their children on inadequate Aid to Families with Children ⁽¹⁰⁾ grants.

Racist stereotypes in the mainstream media and in pornography, portray Black women as wild animals who are ready for any kind of sex, any time, with anybody.⁽¹¹⁾ Additionally, strip joints and massage parlors are typically zoned in Black neighborhoods,⁽¹²⁾ which gives the message to white men that it is alright to solicit Black women and girls for sex--that we are all prostitutes. On almost any night, you can see them slowly cruising around our neighborhoods, rolling down their windows, calling out to women and girls. And we got the message growing up, just like our daughters are getting it today, that this is how it is, this is who we are, this is what we are for.⁽¹³⁾

Many people have said that prostitution is tolerated in the Black community.⁽¹⁴⁾ They are wrong. We do not tolerate prostitution; it has been imposed upon us. It has been imposed upon us since the days of slavery, when the master came out to the field and chose whichever Black woman he wanted to have sex with.⁽¹⁵⁾ Light-skinned slaves, known as "fancy girls," were sold at high prices in the marketplace and later "rented out" or sold to brothels.⁽¹⁶⁾

Today, middle-class white men from the suburbs drive through the ghettos of America to pick out whichever Black women or girls they want to have sex with, as if our cities were their own private plantations. No, prostitution is not tolerated in the Black community any more than African-American slaves tolerated it on the plantation; it is imposed upon us.

Once a Black woman gets into prostitution, it becomes harder for her to get out than for a white woman. Racism in the courts results in Black women paying higher fines and doing more jail time than white women.⁽¹⁷⁾ Racist probation officers and child protection workers can create nearly impossible case plans for Black women, setting them up to fail and resulting in their being returned to jail or losing custody of their children.⁽¹⁸⁾

The lack of culturally sensitive services designed by members of the Black community, for women in the Black community, keeps women trapped in prostitution. Black women who are seeking to escape abusive and exploitative situations are forced to go to white agencies for help. This creates a double bind. First, there is a strong taboo in the Black community about talking to outsiders, particularly whites, about problems within the Black community. Second, even if women overcome that obstacle, white-dominated agencies are ill-equipped to understand and deal with the problems of poor Black women.

The problem can be as simple as a language barrier. Black women who use ghetto slang as a form of expression are viewed as "stupid" because many social workers have difficulty understanding them.⁽¹⁹⁾ On the other hand, the problem can be as complex as "appropriate parenting skills." To spank or not to spank has become a bone of contention between white, child-protection workers--and often white, battered-women's advocates-who view spanking as child abuse, and African-American mothers who believe it is an appropriate and necessary form of discipline.⁽²⁰⁾

A deeper problem is the failure to understand Black emotional pain, the pain that African-Americans experience due to their inability to acknowledge, take pride in, and be at peace with their own individual African-American identities. The root cause of Black emotional pain is white racism. Other causes are the subtle and overt ways that Blacks have internalized the values of the white culture: straight hair is "good" hair; thick, tightly curled hair is "bad" hair. Light skin is "good"; dark brown or black skin is "bad." Programming developed by and for white women is not necessarily useful to Black women, even when provided by a Black professional who has adopted the agency's approach to problem solving. For example, traditional "talk" therapy or groups that require disclosure on the part of the client have proven unsuccessful with African-Americans.⁽²¹⁾ Additionally, class differences between the middle-class Black professional and the poor client can often foster distrust.

An African-American underclass has developed in the United States which has at its core a culture shaped by the legacy of slavery and which is defined by drug and alcohol abuse and addiction.⁽²²⁾ The Black underclass includes second- and third-generation welfare recipients, has gangs as a social institution, and has an underground economy built on drug traffic and prostitution. Today, the Black underclass includes increasing numbers of the rural poor, as well as those who were raised in large urban environments.⁽²³⁾

The Black underclass, along with some members of the poor of other races, makes up the culture of poverty. Its members share a common system of values and behaviors. They lack access to legitimate economic resources and adequate medical treatment, forcing them to resort to emergency room health care.⁽²⁴⁾ They are alienated from most social institutions except those that perpetuate the cycle of poverty and despair: welfare, corrections, and the underground economy.⁽²⁵⁾ Most Black women used in prostitution were born into the Black underclass. They lost their childhoods to the streets. Many came of age in juvenile detention centers and matured in adult correctional facilities. They raised some of their children in-and lost some of their children to the culture of poverty, and if we do not do something quickly, they will raise, and lose, their grandchildren too.⁽²⁶⁾

So what is the solution? That depends on what we see as the problem. If we see the problem as helping Black women get out of prostitution, then we will continue to design "helping" programs for individual women. That is not a bad thing to do, except that the culture keeps creating more prostitutes, who need more programs to get more help. The feminist movement, as I understand it, is supposed to be a liberation movement. Instead, what we have today is a "M.A.S.H. unit," which, while it is somewhat helpful to some white women who have been victims of the ongoing war on women, is woefully inadequate to heal the deep wounds of misogyny that are infected with racism.

From my perspective, the problem is rooted in that very difficult, tight space where Black women attempt to survive, that space where racism and sexism intersect. The liberation of Black women then requires two courses of action. First, the predominantly male leaders in the Black community must commit to ending violence against women with the same vigor that they apply to ending racism. They must begin to realize that we, African-American women, are just as vital to their survival as they are to the survival of the African-American community.

Second, white women must make a concerted effort to end racism, beginning with an examination of their own racism, and from there to work within their own communities. Feminist organizations must be willing to take active stands against racial injustice in society. Few, if any, feminist organizations condemned the treatment of Rodney King and the subsequent exoneration of the officers who assaulted him. How can. mainstream feminists claim to care about African-American women and racism, yet not take action when our sons, partners, and fathers are subjected to daily harassment and abuse by the police? How can mainstream feminists claim to care about Black women and racism when they fail to speak out against the white men who pay for the right to sexually abuse our daughters and sisters, or against the police who target these same women for arrest and imprisonment, while their abusers, the johns that prey on our community, go free? It is time for white feminists to stand beside US, to fight racist and sexist oppression, and to take the same risks we do. The mainstream feminist community must actively fight to end both systems. If not, the cry "sisterhood is powerful" will remain an empty slogan for Black women.