From
The Guardian
Unpublished data reported to the Guardian by a local trafficking prevention project, Proactive Outreach for the Health of Sexually Exploited Youth, counted 133 minors who had been trafficked or were suspected of having been trafficked or exploited over the course of 2014.
The youngest child to have been trafficked between 2010 and 2012 was 12, according to a 2013 review of Milwaukee police records by the Milwaukee Homicide Review Division, while most of the 77 young people identified as trafficking victims in that period were between 15 and 17. The vast majority were African American...
While young people face obstacles being heard and supported, O’Leary said, Milwaukee’s “embedded” pimp culture throws up other barriers to escaping it. “In the same way that there are cop bars, there are pimp bars, and people know it.”...
O’Leary described a thriving underground economy, in which people depend on different aspects of the sex trade directly or indirectly. Providing security, driving people, and doing hair for women who work at clubs were all kinds of informal employment O’Leary listed that can be enmeshed with the sex trade. Likewise, when pimps are brought to court, O’Leary said that their supporters will often fill half of the room, which can intimidate a victim’s family and friends
And now comes the kicker of the piece. Now I want you to keep in mind the underlined section above.
Wisconsin was recently found to have the highest African American unemployment rate in the nation. Fewer than half of the adult African American men in Milwaukee, a majority black city, are formally employed.
Adding further to a dismal economic picture, In These Times reported that the city had lost 80,000 jobs in manufacturing since the 1970s while median wages dropped by nearly 22% in the decade between 1999 and 2010.
And this here:
State Representative LaTonya Johnson of Milwaukee has introduced a “safe harbor” bill that would decriminalize sex work for minors, but she acknowledged that even if the bill were to pass, obtaining the funding needed to put the necessary social and health services in place would be “an uphill battle”.
Lets work our way backwards. Less that one half of the adult males are "formally employed" meaning that less than 1/2 of the adult black male population is engaged in work that generates tax revenue. LaTonya Johnson thinks it would be an "uphill battle" to get funding. Where would this funding come from? WHO would this funding come from? Certainly not out of the pockets of the less than 1/2 the adult black male population that is formally employed. What about the informally employed? Well apparently a good number of them are the
cause of the problems.
Backing up we see something very sad. The community can create jobs that supports PIMPING but cannot create jobs that provides for stable families and neighborhoods free of crime. Think about that. It may be the case that pimping is a (the?) major job creator in this town. How sad is that?
by this idea of addressing and changing the deep, deep economic inequality that exists in our system. We address it by actually reducing the incidence of sexual violence.”
But WHY is there a "deep economic inequality" in the first place? Lets ask the Garvey question:
Where is your steamship line? Where is your factory? Where are your men of big affairs?
Is not the "deep economic inequality" largely to do with the lack of creation by the residents of that area? Factories don't just fall out the sky. Jobs in those factories do not appear out of thin air. People had to come up with an idea, finance it and manage it. If the means of addressing "deep economic inequality" means getting non-black folks to "create jobs" for black folks then that is an admission of inequality of ability.
This is the reason I wrote the piece for Mayweather. It's time for black millionaires and billionaires to start putting money into black communities. And I'm not talking about shelters and non-profit entities and all that non wealth building BS. If black folks cannot or will not employ themselves (Ahem Tidal. Ahem Harpo....) then for those who can see, we look mighty foolish.
