Sex Work, Drugs and Whack-a-Mole: Someone is Always Going to Jail

Division is a tool of the Master (Martinez & Gutierrez-Perez).

We must all hang together, or surely we shall hang separately (Benjamin Franklin).

The war against sex work and the war against drugs are the same war. The systemic issues that homeless people face are the same systemic issues confronted by people who are not able-bodied. The outlaw, the queer-identified, the neural atypical, the non-Christian, the young and the old, the poor and the mentally ill--all of us are struggling against the same system.

That system is designed to keep us in our place. It is designed to ensure that the vast majority of resources remain under the control of just a few. It is designed to shame and punish anyone who cannot conform to strict rules of conduct. It is a system of domination (bell hooks).

It is also designed to keep us busy fighting each other, lest we join forces and change the status quo. It is no accident that 1% of the US population controls 40% of US wealth.

Just think about that. If you chop the US's value roughly in half, four million people share the smaller half (40%), while the other 378 million unequally fight over the rest. It only works if we remain divided against ourselves.

My interview with Justice Rivera of Reframe Health and Justice is available 9.28.2020.

Some of her fabulous work is linked below:

Justice's (Magalie's) digital story Youtube link.

"Casualties of War: The Wars on Drugs and Trafficking"