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Chapter 59
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In the same way the strong subculture in the black
ghetto is a thorn in the side of better-off blacks who try to
integrate themselves into white society, because the pathological
picture of this subculture is constantly used against them by
whites. |
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Sensitive to this aspect, the upper ghetto tends
to view the lower ghetto with a sense of shame rather than as
proof of their common oppression. So strong are tensions between
the upper and the lower ghetto that I often had to choose sides,
which was not difficult after all I had seen of the suffering in
the lower ghetto and the resulting contempt from both the upper
ghetto and from whites. |
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The more I began to understand the lower ghetto,
the more I understood the very dynamics of oppression in our
system. The lower ghetto is for many of us an incomprehensible
world of criminals, pimps, prostitutes and addicts which frightens
us. Since they live in a closed system, their acts are desperate
and disclose a pattern of absolute contempt for the rest of
society, of which they know they will never become a part. |
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But if we do not understand them we do not understand the
oppressive and violent sides in ourselves, which we see reflected in every
single picture in this online book. |
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The pool rooms are their meeting place, the
Cadillac their status symbol, the brotherly handshake and the
sophisticated "jive" talk their communication. It is important to
understand and respect this culture rather than send it to prison
- imprisoned as it already is in a cruel and dehumanizing closed
system. |
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"Backstabbing" may be as common as the brotherly
handshake. But when you have learned these rules and a certain
technique for survival in this culture you cannot help but get to
love these people more than any others in society. |
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For to meet humaneness in the midst of brutal surroundings will always seem
more overwhelming and encouraging than to meet it in more safe surroundings.
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When this underworld is a source of irritation for
society's better-off citizens, it is not least because it
constitutes an enormously exaggerated and distorted mirror image
of themselves. |
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This online presentation is not about blacks or "black culture". It is about our own state of mind in all its present brutality! Without will-power or help to heal our own
human pain, we (oppressors) are
constantly in our thoughts projecting it out on others - and are then paralyzed
with guilt and fear, with which we hurt and further ghettoize our victims.
Here on the bottom of society we see ourselves blown up in a
ghastly caricature: our competitive spirit, our race for status symbols, our
backstabbing, our sexism and not to forget our master-slave relationship. |
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Wherever in the world the master-slave relationship exists there will be
within the slave-culture further divisions into new master-slave relationships.
Where any such relationship exists between people you will know that these
people are not free, for such a relationship can only exist in a closed system. In the underclass such slavery
is seen most clearly in the relationship between pimp and prostitute. The black
prostitute is totally subjugated by the pimp and cringes mentally at his feet
in deep veneration.
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The pimp, however, is not only executioner, but
also a victim in the greater system in which he becomes the new
slave driver who sees to it that the merchandise is delivered to
the slave master, - the white man. His tool is no longer the whip,
but the pimp stick made from twisted coat hangers. Even though the
pimps, like the capitalists in the larger society, can seem quite
inhuman, it is important to remember that they, like the
capitalists, do business according to well-defined rules and laws
which are beyond their control. |
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These laws are laid down in "The Book," an
unwritten "Adam Smith" or business manual which has been passed
down from pimp to pimp for generations and which almost can be
seen as an extension of such manuals as it describes the under
system in the larger economic system. Woe to the pimp who doesn't
follow the regulations! Just like the larger capitalists, they
have their daily board meetings with the other pimps, where they
not only discuss how to keep wages down, but also exchange
technical details concerning the manipulation of their "ho's."
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In the same way they establish their employees'
working hours which they call "git down-time." You can usually tell which ho's
belong to a "mack-man" and which are "outlaws" since all the organized ho's get
out on the street at almost exactly the same time every night, while the
independent "outlaws" come and leave as they feel like it. I always felt
immensely close to these ultimate losers in the multiple layers of
exploitation, the black prostitutes, who often in my journey gave me
hospitality (although naturally they were only the "outlaws"). |
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As I was one of the few men in their lives with
whom they did not have either a sexual or business-type
relationship, they could express towards me that humanity which
had not yet been destroyed by their harsh exploitation. One reason
we got along so well was no doubt that they were compelled to know
every detail of "the system" in the lower ghetto in order to stay
free of pimps, while I as an outlaw (or vagabond) in the greater
society had gradually acquired a certain knowledge about it as
well in order to survive in it. We had therefore in widely
different ways arrived at a common outlook. |
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As the parallel between the super-structure and
the substructure was so evident, it was usually easy for them to
see the inner dynamics of the combined system which caused their
double oppression: racism and sexism. For the relationship between
pimp and prostitute is in many ways just a wildly exaggerated
model of the relationship between man and woman in the
lower-ghetto (or even in society at large) in which one of the
man's many "hustles" consist of obtaining "broad money" from
defenseless women in return for protection against her being "hit
on" by other men's sexual aggression. In such a society a woman to
a horrifying degree sees a man as at best a mere object for
obtaining money and luxury. She is often very straight-forward
about her desire to "marry a rich man." |
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This fast ghetto-escape to affluence and security
was shocking for me as I had rarely seen such selfish traits in
Danish women - perhaps because in a more egalitarian welfare state
such exploitation between the sexes doesn't make sense. The
prostitution involved in buying women with status and wealth shows
especially clearly in the American upper-class and underclass.
Within its closed system the underclass has been instilled. with
the same admiration for "sharp" pimps and "righteous hustlers" in
fine "threads" as people in the larger society are taught to have
for successful maverick capitalists. |
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Such flashy pimps and hustlers apparently "making it" are
dangerous role models for ghetto children attracting them to the
street institution at the age of 8 or 9 years old, but, like the
nouveau riche capitalist, they are also pitiful erratic figures
continuously manipulating everyone with no time to become lax or
their empire will collapse. I learned quite a bit about this side
when I was working in a church helping to make a union for
prostitutes, which would not only protect them from brutal police
attacks, but also against pimps.
It is my hope that this chapter will inspire more support and
understanding for the work of my dear friend,
Margo St. James,
the national leader of the hooker's union COYOTE, with whom I
later lived. |
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Among the prostitutes who made the strongest impression on me was
Geegurtha who was in the midst of a struggle to get out of this slavery. When I
first met her she had just been in prison and was almost totally
destroyed by narcotics and violence. |
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Her daughter was born an addict, but was saved
through blood transfusions. During the five years Geegurtha was a prostitute she saw
nothing of her daughter. But through an enormous effort Geegurtha has become
"uphabilitated." |
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The motherly love she has since given - expressed
in this photo which I love so much - is so moving and miraculous
for me, when I recall Geegurtha from those days when she was a wreck. She became manager of the
clinic which once helped her, and majored in psychology in college. |
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I was deeply moved by this sunshine story with all
the odds I had seen against black motherly love. |
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And fatherly love fares just as badly. This man,
who let me share his bed in a one-room shack in Florida, was
shooting up the first thing in the morning. Because he was unable
to kick his habit, his family life had deteriorated and he was in
deep pain from not being allowed to be with his child. |
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Another mother I lived with had also been an
addict, but was now "clean" and put all her motherly love into
giving her two children a good religious upbringing. But when I
came back a year later, I was told she was sentenced to 25 years
in prison for armed robbery. |
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Although the family always prayed together, it was
not allowed to stay together. Such tragedies of people trying to
take the fastest road out I experienced again and again in the
ghetto. |
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Most people understand why a prisoner with seven
years left of a sentence takes the chance and escapes instead of
patiently waiting to get out of hell in a legal way. Not until I
one day nearly became ghettoized myself instead of living the
privileged vagabond life in ghettos, was I able to feel how the
closed system functions exactly like a prison in which you have
neither the psychic surplus nor the means to invest in a
seven-year education which may bring you out of that stifling
oppression in the conventional way. |
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All ghetto acts are therefore desperate and with
short-term goals determined by the fact that you already live in a
prison. For such people no prison or any kind of punishment will
be a sufficient deterrent. |
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