as small as a world and as large as alone

2:19am September 22, 2014

gradientlair:

Rest In Peace: Angelia Magnum and Tjhisha Ball

[content note: anti-Blackness and media violence, misogynoir, violence on sex workers] Angelia Magnum (18) and Tjhisha Ball (19) are young Black women from Tampa, sex workers, who were found brutally murdered in Jacksonville. It is devastating to me that the post-mortem media violence (i.e. most of the few media outlets that reported the story are using their old mugshots; but they were murdered; they are the victims in this case) continues for yet more Black people. As I’ve stated before, Black criminals are treated like monsters. Black victims are treated like criminals. This further complicates, in addition to the dehumanization and criminalization of Black bodies, because they are Black women. Black women regularly go missing and at times are killed; our stories are underreported or shaped as “criminal” even when we are victims. We are underreported in our own communities, let alone nationally. This even further complicates because they were sex workers. People are sickeningly complacent or worse, violently accepting/proactive about the violence sex workers face. I’ve seen comments ranging from victim blaming to “well that’s what they get” kinda comments. The criminalization of sex work itself remains a problem. The violence of misogynoir, and anti-Blackness itself is sickening. It is the media as much as it is society itself.

In Black Teen Girls Killed (But Do You Care)? by Jamilah Lemieux on Ebony, she mentioned that some family didn’t like that they were in sex work and feared the violence they’d face.

It isn’t unreasonable to expect for a grieving family to wish that their dead loved one hadn’t worked in the sex industry, one where women are often subject to increased abuse and harassment at the hands of clients, employers and law enforcement alike. Thus, there should be no judgment from any of us about Ball’s lament about her daughter’s work. But what I fear will happen here is a general sentiment among media makers and the public that because these women were sex workers, that their deaths are not cause for outrage and fear.

As she alluded to, I’m not interested in shaming their families while they grieve; whatever fear and/or ignorance about sex work they had, they’re dealing with the repercussions of terrible violence right now. The socialization that makes people engage in victim blaming is ubiquitous. Doesn’t mean they’re not accountable for those views; means I’m not going to write a criticism right now of grieving Black families. However, how people think about sex work, about Black women, about Black people always needs examination and deconstruction. People need to think about why these deaths don’t matter to so many. I am hurt (and terrified really) that these two Black women could not live and thrive as Black sex workers (as strippers, or any other work they did/wanted to do), as Black women, as Black people, without intersecting oppressions and unspeakable violence. They were young Black female sex workers and this does not make their lives any less valuable nor should’ve granted them what some see as a socially acceptable death sentence. I hope the truth—however painful—comes out about what happened to them. They deserved better than to be dumped under an overpass. 

1,733 notes