A lot has changed since the “Just Say No” era. Drug use and abuse is no longer a sensationalist taboo. With shows like Intervention and Celebrity Rehab it’s almost commonplace, if not a tad mundane. And although these recovery shows actually highlight the negative aspects of drug economies, namely addiction, shows like Weeds and Breaking Bad portray regular middle-American protagonists adopting the drug trade as a viable and long-term means of self-employment complete with high returns, adventure and intrigue.

Take Walter Hartwell White, our mild mannered disillusioned high school chemistry teacher, the lead character of the AMC drama Breaking Bad. Down to his prototypical surname White is televisions every man. After discovering a diagnosis of terminal lung cancer he becomes intent on securing his family’s financial future, especially in light of his wife’s late-term pregnancy and his sons Cerebral Palsy. In light of these circumstances Walter turns to drug dealing.

Played by actor Bryan Cranston, who became a household face playing the father in Malcolm in the Middle, this character eschews our stereotypes of the hard-nosed drug-dealing criminal. Walter White morally deteriorates as the series progresses but the spiral is steady and sympathetic. The audience follows along with him on his decline, until we too are wondering how we became embroiled in all of this deception and murder.

The title of the show takes its literal meaning from the Southern colloquialism, which refers to the point where someone has taken a turn off the path of the straight and narrow. A fine metaphor for a show that chronicles a bizarro television drug culture where it’s the white man who must succumb to his dark impulses. Walter White teams up with his former student Jesse Pinkman who are both highly skilled chemists, both white men in a fantasy world where they have no future, lack privilege, and run out of options outside of drug dealing. In this universe of opposites Jesse and his young, middle-class, white friends are the constant targets of law enforcement and gang violence. Jesse’s friend Badger is arrested while selling meth in a sting operation and his other friend Combo is killed by a rival gang for selling meth on their territory.

It’s men of color that wield the bank rolls and the power and it is the rag-tag white man that struggles to play the game. Walter does this by working his connection with kingpin Gus Fring, a Black Puerto Rican man who is willing to pay $1.2 million for 38 pounds of Walter and Jesse’s distinguished blue meth. He later offers to pay Walter $3 million and provide a state-of-the-art production facility for three months of his services. Walter has officially made it and now his audience lives vicariously through his testosterone fueled rampage, bracing ourselves for the end.

We similarly have followed Nancy Botwin, the bread-winning mother of Weeds, from humble beginnings as a haphazard pot slinger to the cutthroat pusher of season seven who has by now become involved in numerous deaths and served a prison sentence. Criminal activity is the norm rather than the exception. When she is faced with an economic challenge, such as raising money to support her youngest private school bills, we can practically envision her flipping through her mental Rolodex of illicit pay dirt. Botwin’s default is to lie, cheat, embezzle, manipulate or blackmail her way to get whatever it is she needs. She cuts a deal with the Securities and Exchange Commission to spy on her love interest, the CEO of the company she works at so that she can get out of the halfway house she is confined to. She maintains an affair with her ex cellmate so that she can control her and then deceives her about plans of escaping away together to get rid of her. She unscrupulously discards people, relationships and the law in favor of her self-interest, which is now only precariously related to that of her family.

But it wasn’t always this way. When she first got into the game she was often an unwitting or coerced accomplice. She struggles to find her position in a world dominated mostly by men of color who she intermittently fears, loves and lusts. There is Conrad, her Black Adonis, her partner in crime with whom she shares an attraction that defies the boundaries of their cultural divide – him from the hood and her from the suburbs on the brighter, whiter side of the tracks. Conrad goes as far as to go against the word of of his aunt-matriarch Heylia, who forbids him to work with the white devil, and he puts his life on the line for her when he urges her to flee and save herself when danger looms.

Conrad is not the only colored man who is hopelessly drawn to protecting to this damsel in distress at the expense of their own interests. When Nancy makes the mistake of selling in her rivals college campus territory and he confronts her in-person, Alejandro is powerless to her quirky white woman wiles. Rather than putting her out of business they have sex in an alley and then he is emasculated by his passion for her to the point where he sends her gifts and provides protection for her operation by beating up campus security.

She is recently widowed and looking for love, incredulously finding it amongst the poor men of color that she fraternizes with in the drug trade. She is also at the helm of a quirky family navigating cookie-cutter suburban life that is all style and no substance. Her nemesis is Celia Hodes, the quintessential suburban bitch, the head of the PTA, the queen bee of judgment. We are rooting for Nancy to overtake Celia using whatever means necessary; Nancy’s victory is our own imagined victory against the conformity of suburban life, which strangles like a vice.

On Weeds the anomie of suburbia is taken to its logical extreme. Nancy endures the ostracism of the PTA wives even as her son falls victim to post-mortem mental illness. The kids at school call him “Strange Shane”, he draws pictures and makes videos depicting violence, he becomes prone to talking to himself. On top of all the confusion of keeping up with the demands of her professional and family life, when she does manage to gain a meaningful connection in the context of a romantic relationship, it’s not long before she discovers that her new lover is a DEA agent. Nothing comes easy to Nancy Botwin in love, family or business. We at home can relate.

The formula of housewife or schoolteacher cum drug dealer works because middle Americans can see themselves in the characters in the beginning. As the anti-hero’s ethics become more murky and the circumstances become more sensational they can imagine that this is how they too would operate in this seedy underbelly world, this mysterious and compelling world that they are denied access to.

Harmless fantasy for idle minds in the midst of an economic recession. More and more families are feeling the squeeze of keeping up with the Jones as Nancy does or paying healthcare bills as Walter does. The popularity of each show is best understood as an escape from the everyday. The everyday lacks big payoffs and steep turns in events. These days the everydays involve scaling back and becoming accustomed to austerity.

In watching these shows white America can think of how lucky Nancy Botwin and Walter White are in gaining entry into this colorful world. But even more so, how lucky these poor coloreds are that they are able to hustle to maintain their glamorous lifestyles untouched by the dips in the NASDAQ. And the good people of America who watch the shows intently know what they are doing is wrong. They know that it’s wrong to idealize the grey market that undermines the value of their honest hard work.

But it’s just a show and that makes it not real. This is prime-time television, it’s apolitical, these people don’t exist. Especially if we turn a blind eye when we see them outside of the television screen.

Survey from the rear                            A commander post
scan his final audience                        grope for options in the midst
the beautiful people                             the friendliest fire

The heat at its zenith                           Roaming for a bulls eye
the men reduced                                   human steeple
rows upon rows                                     praying for reprieve
notches on pews                                    snap back, back to
gaze forced forward                             the mind is ill equipped
turned toward the saccharine         imbued in the spiritual
alter of a progressive church          this is war, the military
forward enough to bury a gay        soldier, meek make no claims in their death

The dead was not a notch of mine              Your wife, her body not a tomb
I fuck his best friend                                        she says it aloud
a weak willed man                                             a perfect bride
up front with content woman, kids            disillusioned by a young corpse
gaze forced forward                                         struck like sun stroke
eyes narrowed in feigned acceptance      pupils burnt with nothing in view

• I was just curious
• I’m just trying to get to know you better
• It’s perfectly fair to ask
• You’re being too sensitive

To some these excuses will sound reasonable. To others they sound creepy.  It greatly depends on the persons involved and context.

Excuses aside, there are some questions that make the room measurably unsafe for those in question. There are other questions that are plain awkward. Whether these questions are innocuous or not, there is no question, they are oppressive questions.

1. What’s your citizenship/work status? Even if you’re offering me salaried employment, I prefer that you ask me this question in writing only after we have engaged in at least preliminary contract negotiations. But your drunk ass thinks it’s appropriate to slur over cocktails “So umm… you were born in Mexico??? How do you work HERE then? You gotum ah GREENcard or sumthin?” I know you understand that people die and/or are imprisoned over this very question. This is not your cue to chime in with your thoughts on immigration policy. I didn’t ask and I don’t care!
2. What with this whole “queer” thing? Hold on one sec while I get my Queer Identified membership card so that I can read you the universally recognized definition off of the back. Oh wait, first, let me ask YOU what’s with this whole gay/straight thing? You meet a person and you think “I am SO crushing on that person’s gender representation” or after getting to know some one better you say to yourself “I would really like to pursue a relationship with that person based on their sex organs“.  And don’t give this bullshit that Queer is a political identity. It’s not. It’s a way of being, it’s the way that I exist. It’s what I am, which has nothing to do with white hipster lesbians gentrifying Brooklyn brownstones and adopting Haitian babies. I am not gay, or lesbian or bi-sexual. I am queer but it hardly matters because I have no interest in fucking you. 
   
3. Did you lose/gain weight? You’re being fatphobic.
4. How do you make your money?  Call me an idealist but I honestly believe that the most important things to know about some one has nothing to do with how they engage with the violence of capitalism. The paid gigs that we, as poor people of color, have to take on for the sake of economic survival often range from humiliating to illegal to stigmatized and sometimes a combination of these. Of course there are many of us who work perfectly awesome jobs. But even for them, for all of us, our jobs are not who we are. Our jobs are what we do. Sometimes our jobs intersect with who we are inside and sometimes they do not. We have varying privileges as to how much choice we have in this matter. It’s a source of hurt, conflict and stress.  In short, all you need to know is that I keep it tight, aight?
5. Are you single? Wouldn’t you like to know who and under what circumstances I am fucking. If I was interested in cluing you in,  I would let you know the old fashioned way of putting a part of my body inside or strategically angled on top of a part of your body. The question you should be asking is Are you desperate? and the answer is, Not enough. Also, I find this question too intense. Like,  I dunno, do you mean to ask if I’m alone and what constitutes alone? Do you mean am I alone in the world? You’ve raised an existential mystery that I don’t care to resolve in the polite company of strangers.

Of course the answer to all these questions is:

Nunna yo fuckin biznaz.

Phyrecracker

You probably never heard of roughly one dozen teen moms from Detroit’s Catherine Ferguson Academy staging a sit-in to take a stand against the drastic cuts. This is odd considering that Detroit police deemed them such a threat that they deployed no fewer than five units, at least one equipped with a police dog, to contain the young subversives. As documented in this youtube video, the police also engaged alarms in the quiet neighborhood during the arrests, presumably to drown inhibit the ability of onlookers to make an audible record of the events.

The protest was problematic. It was orchestrated by a group called By Any Means Necessary (BAMN) that has a reputation for using youth as pawns in their public actions. As illustrated by this BAMN member, organizers are often non-local, adult, white and of a different class than those they place on the front line who are young, Black and vulnerable.

But this shouldn’t deny the agency of those involved in the Catherine Ferguson protest. As the fight for accountability at DPS heats up, these youth are looking for options to have their voices heard.

Catherine Ferguson is a school that caters specifically to the needs of pregnant and teen mothers. There’s daycare on-site. I’ve visited Catherine Ferguson and was blown away by the transformation of the school grounds into a fully functional farm complete with livestock and hands-on learning experience for the young women. The school is a clear success story and a leader in the country. It has a 90% graduation rate and 100% of those who graduate go on to 3 or 4 year colleges with the help of financial aid.

Beyond reason this school, a haven for so many, is on the chopping block. The student protesters not only want to save their school but they want to stop the closures all together. They want their schools to remain public in resistance to chartering and privatizing of schools that is increasingly making schooling a corporate affair. They want all of their cut programs reinstated including art, music, counseling and social workers. They want student control of curriculum to ensure equality in the quality of education across the school board.

These students sound more reasonable than administrators who are unceremoniously gutting the system. Perhaps we should let them take the reigns before it’s too late.

No one told the pimps, the booking agents, the drivers and most certainly the CLIENTS that could make this holiday significant for sex workers. The vast majority of women working today won’t know or experience this day for what it is. They will get forced to work, ripped off, manipulated, coerced as they would any other day. In extreme cases they will be raped, abused and murdered.

The red umbrella is a symbol of sex worker solidarity. It is also a sentinel of violence. This violence is common place and it takes diverse and insidious forms.

The sex worker identity is so powerfully subversive that even to write about it constitutes grounds to ostracize.  At the same time, appropriation of whoredom is rampant, especially today. It’s a day to atone through social networking sites for all the stigmatization you’ve meted out on sex workers personally, organizationally or politically.

The day does nothing to address the socio-economic nature of sex worker violence. Red umbrella works as a symbol because it’s universal, it doesn’t exclude or differentiate the experience of white, middle and upper class hoes. Violence amongst sex workers is ubiquitous, however, the willful ignorance of the particular experience of poor, racialized and dis/abled workers who live with a slew of overlapping oppressions, is reflective of a broader omission amongst the mainstream feminist movement that is well documented by women of color media-makers. This isn’t about oppression olympics ,it’s about real life. The more poor you are the more likely you experience violence because of the proportionate limitations on options and resources.

If you really need the money you increase your likelihood of forgoing thorough client screening, for instance. You have to live with the fact that any client could be the next craigslist killer no matter what. However if you are able to get a solid reference from another provider, screen his phone number or call his work phone to confirm his identity, then you’re breathing a lot easier for your next appointment.

Your personal finances as a sex worker also dictate the safety of your work environment. A high-end worker will stay at the luxurious and secure Westin while a newbie ho will post up at the Red Roof Inn swarming with cops, creeps, pimps and other such predators. Women with little or no internet access, skills training and funds most often end up working the street.

This is not to say that the day does nothing to promote a unified stance against sex worker violence. The dedication of day to commemorate violence against sex workers is a clever media move. It is both sensationalistic, sexy and important, even if the latter point is often relegated to a side-note. Every city and town boasts a long list of sex workers who are missing, mostly indigenous and Black, women of color, poor… Red Umbrella Day creates a media window and policy opportunities to bring attention to these atrocities.

For most working women it’s another day to make a living. Sex workers aren’t completely unlike secretary’s, after all, they clock into work on the daily. The rule is to plan for the worst but don’t get too stressed about it. Try to have a good day on the grind, try not to go missing, try not to get arrested. Try to stay well enough to do it again tomorrow or whatever the next day is, that you need to hustle.

Phyrecracker

Think of her, isolated and mired in madness, and find yourself incapacitated with grief. Flee to her without any discernible plan, simply out of lust to see her again and know she is alive. Allow others to take responsibility for her defense. Trust lawyers. Sacrifice assertiveness to self-doubt. Fail to realize you will be required to appear in court on her behalf. Fail to prepare or even to pack appropriate clothing for such an occasion.  Use the witness stand at her bail hearing as you would a psychoanalyst couch. Tell the truth and tell lies when you should be telling lies of omission. Misappropriate your evasive nature. By the time the “justice of the peace” delivers his unfavorable ruling, succumb to exhaustion and a wrongheaded belief that finally the end has come. For her, for us.

Rest. Watch television dumbfounded. Kanye West toasting douchebags on the VH1 Music Awards will prove especially useful. Blame yourself unabashedly. Wallow in your hubris. Sort, file and itemize all the wrongs you have done her. Once that task is complete check it off your list and move on.

Fight. If people will call you a bitch you might as well adopt the breeding of a pitbull. Fight fate as a full-time occupation. Overstate your importance and agency in the situation. Transform the most dire circumstances into hope. Take note that the seriousness of her charges make the case attractive to some of the best attorneys in the country, even on legal aid. Call every single one of these attorneys. Call every community agency, case worker and discharge facilitator that could possibly help. Commit every piece of advice, offer of support and referral to resources to memory. Carry them with you and weigh their competing solvency while waiting in line at the grocery store or enduring awkward pauses in conversation. Spend a minimum of your time attempting to address your awkwardness in social situations.

Restrain yourself. Stop verbally abusing the guards when you arrive for your regular visits. They will use this as an excuse to limit your access to her and they may fuck around with her on the inside. Recognize their power is real even as it is gravely unjust. Recognize your desire to attack is a protective impulse born of your own selfishness. Temper these impulses. Imagine your anger funneled through a magnifying glass, concentrated into a burning energy force, an unlikely destroyer.  When the phone cuts out prematurely during your visit yell loud enough for sustain your conversation with her through the filthy plexi-glass divider. Lament the absence of physical contact in private. Use the little time you have to see her to strategize and sooth.

Listen, goddammit. As her wounds heal she will improve in communicating what she needs as long as you nurture much needed quiet. Scour for quotes, poems, song lyrics and readings to feed her redeveloping sanity. Make it a point to write her daily. Avoid feelings of guilt when it becomes impossible to keep this up as a daily practice. Or, better yet, confront the feelings head on.

Use Facebook for the powers of good, for once. Relay to friends and allies what has happened with tact and discretion. Most people will want to help but many of them are betrayed by their proclivities toward gossip and other such trifling behavior. Exploit everyone within your reach for their wisdom and presence. Encourage all of them to also send letters. Inundate her with best wishes.

Organize. View all of your past experiences in community advocacy as preparation. Take advantage of the arbitrary and fickle nature of justice and lay your influence on it by bringing a slew of reputable people to court for her appeal. Mix in the non-reputable to pad your numbers. Remember appearances are paramount. Feign respect for the procedure and authority of the court. Silently vow your revenge.

Phyrecracker

Not a single one of the poets in this room has read my work, not even the ones that I call “friend” or “lover”. My poetry is straightforward in a way that would be disconcertingly inferior to the poets at this reading. That is, if they gave a flying fuck about my poetry, which they do not.

The first poet introduces his next poem as a story about his grandfather. He then proceeds to read for fifteen minutes about willows and each breath of fog. I wonder if even this poet’s own grandfather knows what the fuck he’s talking about. I wonder if his grandfather would say, “Yes, that’s exactly how I would describe my dementia, like a goddamn fucking cloudy breeze or piece of shit tree in the wind.”

I respect the poets in this room who are able to do what I cannot. They are able to make their professional lives as poets. They are able to perform as apolitical props of the art world.

The final reader is much more entertaining and current than those previous. He slips in a reference to Prince, which I find in hindsight insidiously sexually repressive. He makes a joke about supporting the autonomy of sex workers through his tips. But he would never want his daughter to become one.

I do not laugh nor do I clap as others do. I do not chuckle even. The nature of sex work is that one gets paid very handsomely to, on rare occasion, get degraded. Everyone has their limits and those limits are best made clearly. Some do not kiss on the lips, some do not do greek, Most do not ever take dick without a condom. It is only in the company of career poets that boundaries are rendered irrelevant, violated with out appropriate lubricant or protection.

It hurts.

I guess I’m supposed to be ashamed.

But I’m not.

I wonder when was the last time any of these poets wrote something that actually moved someone. A real person. The kind of person who works a job that this poet prick would never want his daughter to work. He would rather her starve, I guess, or live off of his pretentious means.

Both of you with mundane first names, at first i thought: That couldn’t be my Dave, or Mike, or Slim or what ever the fuck your name, a four-letter word seared on my reputation and my pride.

But look! This social media tool is so efficient. I can just click on your dumb-ass name or hers, it hardly matters because you both display the same corny ass avatar of a couple smiling and happy and ready to get married forchristsakes.

You got rid of your dreads and you’re wearing a handsome and seasonal sweater. You are holding a boring woman. You are embarking on commitments we swore against on the rusty listening shores of Belle Isle. There is an appalling fake nature scene in the background of the pic.

Ultimately it’s for the best i found this out in public and on the internet where people are watching and you are beyond reach of physical or verbal violence.

i could click “comment” to contribute a string of incontrovertible slurs or salacious stories of your infidelity. i could ruin you with one message sent to your fiancee who is also on my list of “friends”. i could initiate a personal electronic intifada with one ominous statement, “You know i know what he likes, don’t you?”

Instead i navigated deactivation. Put my account on freeze. Euthanized the vapid curiosity that, at its peak, had me surfing your profile near constant until our next meeting.

Phyrecracker

Enough
(of this!
pomo fuckin bull

- shit.”

Phyrecracker

Phyrecracker