White supremacy and antiBlackness impact every industry and workforce, both inside and outside of the US. As a stripper, working to pay for college and an unpaid internship, I learned early that the sex industry, which generally evades performative social norms, is no exception.
As Cardi B noted, “I always loved my skin complexion. Then I noticed that the Russian and the white girls was making more money than colored girls or a girl like me and [it] started making me feel like…damn you’re not even good enough. Have you ever been to a strip club in New York? Do you know how hard it is for a dark skinned Black girl in the strip club? All these women they want to talk about how they feminists everyone want to talk about the feminists and how they support each other but low-key they be judging and it’s like I don’t get it.”
White supremacy and its agents act as gatekeepers for how refined an institution is and therefore, how deserving of equal pay and respect its workers are.
Strip clubs aren’t devoid of classism and segregation. There are white strip clubs and Black strip clubs, where white is deemed upscale and Black is considered ghetto. When wealthy men frequent white strip clubs, they expect relatively high prices for VIP suites and champagne. However, when they “don’t feel like spending money”, they go to Black or Latinx strip clubs, sometimes giving the dancer on stage one dollar for her time.
I found I made the most money in white clubs, where I was able to have a conversation with a patron and sell him a lap dance or a bottle of champagne. The white managers and owners of Black strip clubs favored light-skinned Black women with plastic surgery. Since I do not have these features or light skinned–I found I was often accepted as the token Black woman at the white establishments (and told to be grateful for this status). In retrospect, I traded blatant colorism among my own community for casual racism among white people.
At the time, it didn’t bother me. I had goals beyond stripping and I didn’t expect strip clubs to be beacons of decency. It didn’t matter if white strip clubs were racist and Black strip clubs were colorist—they were all run by white men who made their wealth on the backs of women. Some clubs were joyous, and some clubs were dangerous, but everyone was complicit in the perpetuation of conventional beauty standards and male patriarchy. Few people cared; we were there to get paid.
As I began to freelance and intern in a variety of industries to bolster my resume, I noticed Corporate America’s discrimation was both more subtle and overt. When recruiting and planning events, I learned to have only a few Black women present at any given time. I was told a large amount of these women would decrease the perceived value of the brand. If there are too many Black women present, they could turn a universal brand into one that is only for Black women. If there were more than two Asian women representing the brand, it turned the brand Asian.
Then, when I worked as an English language recruiter for a Cantonese tutoring platform, a similar pattern emerged with non-White, non-America, and/or none male tutors being rountinely rejected. It didn’t matter if the tutor was a graduate of Columbia University, or had obtained a Ph.D in Chemistry, or was from Hong Kong (the same city as the company’s founder), I was told they didn’t fit the criteria.
When I interviewed for more permanent positions, I knew I would be the only Black person in the office, if I was offered the job. Strip clubs might have implemented an informal “quota” system when it came to Black women, but no such rule existed in corporate America. I was more comfortable asking a floor manager or fellow stripper why there were so few Black women in a space than I was in challenging a senior editor about his company’s commitment to diversity. It seemed much safer, in both spaces, to conform to the status quo.
As I said, I was complicit in reinforcing these practices and never directly challenged racial bias. Advocating for more Black people in the spaces I was in seemed futile. Why should I risk financial backsliding as a consequence of challenging the status quo? What had my community done for me?
Life taught me not to depend on anyone besides myself. Being broke meant that an ideal community mindset took a backseat to survival always.
Though my experiences may seem unique, they aren’t anecdotal. Black women, regardless of their job title, are regularly dismissed, underpaid, underemployed, and under promoted. Black, Ivy League graduates, the beacons of Black exceptionalism in white America, were having trouble finding a job—what does that mean for those of us who aren’t?
I’ve seen the Black community rely on “respectability”, proper education, proper manners, and exemplary skills under the guise of combating white supremacy. It yields nothing besides undue stress and political leaders we hesitate to publicly criticize. The representation we seek will always evade us if we cater to respectability.
Black women are not protected. We are merely tolerated. This is especially true when we embrace, and dare to profit from, our sexuality. In every version of our “freedom” we are ostracized, both from our community and the world at large.
As New York City claims to be past the worst of Covid, the issues Black women face persist. I say Black women, not Black people, because Black women–and Black sex workers specifically–have been erased from the current conversation about Black lives and anti-racism.
The blatant discrimination sex workers face is an issue that needs more attention. Black liberation must include Black sex workers. It must be inclusive of trans women who are forced into the streets, strippers who go home with less than 500 dollars, and cam girls who make 1,500 dollars from a single OnlyFans session. All Black sex workers are worthy and deserving of respect.
When we say we are committed to Black liberation it must be in service of sex workers’ autonomy. Lately I’ve noticed how when sex workers are discussed, they are represented as either noble women doing anti-captitalist work or victims in need of rescue. But they are never nuanced beings. The fight for sex worker liberation is the fight for all Black lives, and until that is prioritized, erasure and respectability politics will persist. In every industry.
Reading Suggestions:
The Strippers Fighting for Justice, Zora Magazine, 2020
The Fragile Existence of Sex Workers During the Pandemic, The New Yorker, 2020
Night at a Drive Thru Strip Club, Youtube, 2020
Nuni is a writer based in New York City. She likes to writing about sex.
