Conservatives on Marti Abernathy

Understanding Migrant Sex Workers' Struggles: Reading "Not Your Rescue Project"

Fri, 13 Dec 2024 04:04:38 +0100

I'm reading "Not Your Rescue Project: Migrant Sex Workers Fighting for Justice" There are books that I get a hold of that I have to read more than once, and this is one of those books.

"When most people think about migrant sex workers, they think of them not as humans, but as objects of grave moral concern. Not as powerful and capable community members, but as social problems."

You can insert the homeless, sex workers, transgender people, or any other oppressed minority there, and it still works. The people at the center of any of these issues aren't the main focus of the saviors. They are seen as objects to save. The debates rarely include real voices of the people involved.

Like other working-class people, migrant sex workers suffer poor working conditions under capitalism. When migrant sex workers face exploitation at work, this is labor exploitation.When they face abuse at work, this is labor abuse or violence against workers. When they are forced to sell sex (or to sell sex in ways that they do not want to), this is forced labor. Their problems are worker problems.

The book explains a lot of the history of anti-trafficking laws in the USA, and it's roots in white supremacy:

Chinese migrant women were also some of the first targets of anti-trafficking laws, under which they were subjected to immigration investigations on whether they were being trafficked “for lewd and immoral purposes.” In 1910, the US Congress passed the White Slave Traffic Act to target sex-trafficking rings and to protect white girls from forced prostitution that they were lured into by “foreign immigrant traffickers.”

and

They face racist immigration restrictions and hostility from white supremacist countries that view them as permanent outsiders and expect them to be servile and impoverished, performing the backbreaking jobs that white people don’t want, without a right to citizenship, labor protections, or full participation in democratic governance. White supremacy frames migrant sex workers as a social problem and as a dangerous threat to Western values, families, and border security.

and explains how the anti-trafficking industry is a tool of the state to enact violence upon migrant sex workers:

Criminalization through anti-trafficking policies allows the state to emerge as the great “rescuer,” while leaving migrant sex workers more susceptible to violence and exploitation. Mimicking the “white slave panic” of earlier eras, today’s trafficking discourses are framed in the language of “modern-day slavery.” This white supremacist saviordom is a gross and glaring appropriation of Black liberation struggles to enable the very thing that abolition is opposed to: increased criminalization and violence.

The premise of anti-trafficking laws is that because vulnerable women and girls are “trafficked” against their will, they must be “sent back.” Like the oxymoron of feminist jails, these are supposedly “feminist deportations.” This state violence is gender-based violence. And ironically, this kind of coerced “rescue” seems a lot like actual trafficking. The purpose of anti-trafficking measures, then, is not to support migrant sex workers but to increase policing and to restrict the free movement and labor of migrant women.

That migrant sex workers suffer under capitalism in the same way that all working class people do.

Under conditions of poverty, limited opportunities, and social inequality, workers make choices about their best options. This includes migrant sex workers. Other labor activists do not need to prove that workers are capable of consenting to their labor, even though capitalism forces everyone to work to survive.

It’s not that sex work is necessarily good, it’s that it can often be better than other work. The jobs available to low-income racialized migrants in other sectors are some of the worst jobs in the world. Work in agricultural, manufacturing, construction, warehouse, and domestic labor sectors is notoriously poorly paid, punitive, relentless, exploitative, and dangerous.

When the alternative is deportation, arrest, and poverty, millions of migrants are coerced into brutally exploitative labor contracts. Migrant worker activists including, Harsha Walia, have described these conditions as modern indentureship, and in some cases, “systemic slavery.” The conditions of these work permits are deceptive, coercive, and unfree.

And discuss what a danger that "anti-trafficking" NGOs are to migrant sex workers:

In reality, anti-trafficking nonprofits do not combat human trafficking, violence, exploitation, and coercion in the sex industry; they facilitate, enhance, and expand state violence.

They are aligned not with a social justice movement fighting gender-based violence and “modern slavery,” but with right-wing and carceral feminist movements that are opposed to racial, social, and economic justice.

The anti-trafficking industry must be delegitimized, defunded, and abolished. It is designed for social control, and because it is founded on white supremacy, sexism, and state violence, it cannot be reformed.

and how SWERF/TERF feminism is and has always been a right of center operation that has held hands with conservative evangelicals.

Feminist anti-trafficking organizations work with these extremist anti-abortion, anti-LGBTQ groups and with anti-trans feminists. One of the larger feminist, anti-trafficking and anti–sex work organizations in the US is World Without Exploitation (WWE), which leads campaigns against the decriminalization of sex work across the country and works in coalition with far-right Christian organizations, including NCOSE and Exodus Cry (whose founder describes Planned Parenthood as “Planned Assassination”).7 WWE is a US-based project of the Coalition Against the Trafficking of Women, the first anti-trafficking NGO of the modern era, which was shaped and formerly led by Janice Raymond, one of the leading architects of both trans-exclusive feminism and sex work–exclusive feminism.

Anti–sex work feminists are not “abolitionists.” They are prohibitionists who advocate for a type of criminalization and law enforcement that they claim is feminist.

Anti–sex work feminists do not join migrant sex workers in their campaigns for fair working conditions or safe migration, but instead organize against those campaigns.

They call for more rights for sex workers

Migrant sex workers must have control over their movement—and that means the power, resources, and information they need to reduce the risks and vulnerability that accompany different stages of migration.

No migrant workers, including sex workers, should be forced into exploitative temporary work visas, nor should they have their mobility tied to any employer.

and call the trafficking non-profit industry for what it is... an arm of the state who perpetuate harm of migrant sex workers, not rescue them.

In a time of escalating fascism, this book urges us to refuse right-wing, fear-mongering moral panics. Lam and Gallant drive home that the issue we should be concerned with is not trafficking or victim narratives (what they say function as “a concealed form of state violence”) but, rather, the control of migration, the criminalization of sex work, the exploitation of labor relations within capitalism, and the circuits of empire that manufacture vulnerability.

It was an eye-opening read from people organizing on the ground, helping, collaborating, and listening to migrant sex workers.

Drag isn't a Gender Identity, it's a Performance

Thu, 28 Jul 2022 09:08:19 +0100

When I was a small child, the local morning television children's shows often had events where they would read children's stories or sign autographs.

In 2019 when I started writing this post (it's pretty much sat in my drafts since then), there was a problem with performers reading to children. Well, it was only a problem if they're drag queens. Now it's gotten to the point where people are calling parents that take kids to these events "groomers" and that drag is inherently sexual.

What kind of 80's Footloose fever dream is this?

It's like saying that musicals are sexual

"because Chicago." Art is sexual when its content is of a sexual nature. There's nothing inherent to drag that makes it sexual. It's just a type of performance art.

Proud Boys think they're some sort of cultural heroes by attacking Drag Queen Story Hour. But in reality, they're just the Reverend Shaw Moore (the fanatical pastor who gets dancing banned in the movie "Footloose").

Why I'm Angry at Conservative, Corporate Media

Thu, 30 Oct 2014 17:16:37 +0100

In a Twitter discussion with LBC radio presenter, Julia Hartley-Brewer asked me:

@Martiabernathey that's a LOT of money and a BIG %. What are you so angry about? — Julia Hartley-Brewer (@JuliaHB1) October 29, 2014

I AM angry. I'm angry because corporate conservative media outlets are engaging in a propaganda war against the poor. She and her station posted this:

A single mum of 5 says she shouldn't be forced by benefits cap to leave Westminster to move to Milton Keynes. Agree? Call 0345 6060 973 @LBC — Julia Hartley-Brewer (@JuliaHB1) October 29, 2014

and

A single mum of 5 was made homeless after resisting her Council’s attempt to move the family 50 miles away. Should they be allowed to stay? — LBC (@LBC) October 29, 2014

I posted a response, saying that I thought this was just an attack on the poor. She responded by saying:

@Martiabernathey so you think taxpayers should foot the bill for her £52,000 annual rent in Westminster?!!! — Julia Hartley-Brewer (@JuliaHB1) October 29, 2014

Since her housing benefit is .0003% of the benefit budget, the problem isn't one of impact. In America we call this dog-whistle politics.

"Dog-whistle politics is political messaging employing coded language that appears to mean one thing to the general population but has an additional, different or more specific resonance for a targeted subgroup."

"You should be outraged that lazy people are getting over on hard working people!" That's the dog-whistle that British conservative media are sounding. If you actually read the story, the woman has lived in the area for 5 years and the reason rent is so high is because the housing market changed around her, not some special deal she has received. This does anger me, because this kind of political propaganda has an agenda, and that agenda is to incite class division. It's done to mask real issues that matter, instead blaming the poor, immigrants, and the disabled. The most vulnerable people are blamed for the ills of Britian, but as I said in my previous post:

You can logically argue what banking practices caused the financial crisis in 2008 that still haunts the global economy, but you can’t say it wasn’t the fault of bankers.

The underlying push by conservative corporate media is that the economic collapse that happened in 2008 was due to immigrants, or the strain of the housing or employment benefit budget. I asked Hartley-Brewer what the percentage of the benefit budget housing is and she said:

@Martiabernathey as a % of working age benefits, housing benefit is actually huge. Around £20billion a year. — Julia Hartley-Brewer (@JuliaHB1) October 29, 2014

But data from The Guardian will help put that amount into perspective: Around 20 billion? According to the Guardian data, it's more like £16 billion, but why quibble (if I was going to quibble, she still doesn't give a percentage)? By my crude math, that's about 12% of the total benefit budget. Pensions are about 44% (£74 billion) and paying interest on the debt is around £48 billion. If Julia is right, and the housing benefit is "huge", then you'd have call pensioner's pull on the economy as "gigantic" or "massive". With that being true, why doesn't Hartley-Brewer/LBC dedicate more time to pensions and debt reduction? I'm guessing they push immigration reform and benefit cuts for the same reason that UKIP pushes a false narrative about immigration. It might not be true, but it sure pushes buttons of angry, frustrated people. That in turn, brings listeners/voters. Talking about pensions and the strain they put on the budget would especially alienate (mostly older) conservative listeners/voters. Why do I care? Because the people who are the most vulnerable are used as scapegoats, while the rich and blameless continue to receive corporate "benefits"/"welfare".

Oligarchy lives.

That is why, Julia, I’m so pissed off.

update: (10/30 1800 GMT)

Because oligarchy media scapegoating has consequences:

Above is what British people think, verses what the reality actually is. Who is at fault? I’m looking at you, corporate, conservative media….

update November 09th, 2014:

Cost of benefit as a percentage of GDP:

Scroungers, Benefit Cuts, and the Tory Media

Tue, 28 Oct 2014 01:56:00 +0100

This morning I was listening to LBC radio and the radio presenter, John Stapleton (who was sitting in for James O’Brien), took a call from someone that said the Tories don’t care about benefit cuts and people in poverty: [soundcloud url=“https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/174327300” params=“auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true” width=“100%” height=“450” iframe=“true” /] Stapleton called the caller “harsh,” then parroted the government line. I had a brief conversation with him on Twitter, of which there was little response. I’ve noticed that when callers hit pay dirt on talk radio, the presenters don’t like to talk about it.

You can logically argue what banking practices caused the financial crisis in 2008 that still haunts the global economy, but you can’t say it wasn’t the fault of bankers.

When I read Howard Zinn’s “The People’s History of the United States of America”, I often wondered how people could be duped into supporting policies that actually suppressed them. I now understand how that can happen, because I’m seeing it happen globally today. In the United Kindgdom some will blame the floundering British economy on immigrants, some will blame the fiscal malaise on the NHS budget, but still others will blame the UK benefits system. The media willingly promotes this myth by producing shows like Benefits Street, that seek to build a narrative. But that narrative is simply fiction when applied to the majority of people claiming benefit. If you look at the benefits pie as a whole, a solid majority of it goes to pensioners. Do you see UKIP/Tories going after pensions/pensioners? If they really were concerned about the economy, they’d focus on the majority of the burden. But that wouldn’t win them any elections. Pinning immigrants against the poor, has always been a tool of the wealthy ruling class to keep the lower classes busy. This war is no different.

It’s hard to form policy around the actual data that shows the rich will get richer, and the poor will get poorer, because that won’t fire many people up. It’s all rather glum. It’s a much easier task to blame those who can least defend themselves. The poor, disabled, and the disenfranchised don’t have friends in places of power to advocate on their behalf, but the rich do.

Apparently they also have their mouthpieces in the media, as well.

Update: Another example of this use of poor to forward an agenda: