About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

1 Mich. J. Gender & L. 81 (1993)
Prostitution: Where Racism & (and) Sexism Intersect

handle is hein.journals/mjgl1 and id is 87 raw text is: PROSTITUTION: WHERE RACISM & SEXISM INTERSECTt Vednita 7klson* Black women find themselves in a unique and extremely difficult posi- tion in our society. They are forced to deal with the oppression that arises from being Black in a white-supremacist culture and the oppres- sion 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 t This paper is essentially the speech that Ms. Nelson presented at the Michigan Journal of Gender & Law Symposium entitled Prostitution: From Academia to Activism, held on October 31, 1992, at the University of Michigan Law School. Most of its speechlike characteristics have been preserved so as to maintain its authenticity. * Vednita Nelson is Advocacy Director of Women Hurt in Systems of Prostitution Engaged in Revolt (WHISPER), Minneapolis, Minnesota. She has extensive experi- ence working with incarcerated women and women-in-transition by providing individual advocacy, employment counseling, and emotional support to women reentering the community. Currently, she facilitates WHISPER's Education- al/Support groups for survivors of prostitution. Ms. Nelson serves on the Women of Color Health Alternatives Network and has conducted workshops at state confer- ences organized by the Minnesota Coalition Against Sexual Assault and the Minne- sota Coalition for Battered Women. i. People v. Powell, No. BA035498 (Super. Ct. Los Angeles County, Cal. 1992).

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Purchase Access

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most