February 13, 2023 • 60 mins
During Part 1, my guest shares the life expectancy of survivors of human trafficking, why adultification is so common in Black children, and details from her upbringing.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome. You are now listening to the Professional Girl Professional
(00:37):
It's your girl, Ebena from the Professional Homegirl podcast, the
only place where you would hear interviews from women of
color anonymously on stories that were enlightened and expand on
taboo topics. Now, if you hear someone that sounds familiar,
mind the business that pays you child. Please support the
show by leaving a five star review by some merch
or simply share these stories with your Professional home Girl.
(01:00):
You never know these storylines can be someone else's lifeline. Now,
please keep in mind that all of my guests are anonymous.
So let's begin this week's episode. Y'all. He was literally
just keep keying. I'm like, let me start this conversation
with her, because I can tell it it's going to
be an amazing conversation. I am super excited to speak
(01:22):
with my guests today. She is an award when an
expert in the field of human trafficking, a feel she
comes to with five years of pain experience as a
survivor of human and labor trafficking. With her multicultural background,
she is committed to edge encouraging diversity and inclusion, making
a difference in the decriminalization of human trafficking, poverty, and
(01:43):
homelessness with minors. She is a doctoral learner, veteran wife,
mother of eight, and a comedian, which I can already
tell y'all got you funny hell, And most importantly, she
led the nation's first political campaign against human trafficking. So
to my guest, thank you so much for being a
part of the show. And how are you doing? Girl?
(02:04):
Doing good? And this this this cold? It's not sunny.
I was gonna say sunny. It was like cold and
cloudy day out in Houston. Textlas So all my Houstonians,
what's up y'all? Hey, just shout out to age Town. Yes,
aged Town, the city of their birth, beyoncey. Now, what
(02:27):
is the life expectancy of a survivor that makes it out? Oh?
You know what, that's a great question. I tell people
to ask that question all the time. Now, according to
uh most statistics, because of the amount of trauma I've
been through, I wasn't supposed to make it past twenty five.
I'm forty five years old with eight children, and I'm
probably gonna be, you know, one of the only survivals
(02:48):
with as many children as I do have. Because you know,
once you start getting pregnant by your abusers and things
like that, you know, you start looking at other options
other than uh foster care or adoption. A lot of
time girls don't want the pain of the memory to exist,
and you know they want to abort um. And so
you know, you get the way of tearing your body
(03:09):
with pregnancies because to be traffic needs to be traded,
you know, uh, not being able to go to the
doctor consistently. Um. And then on top of that, you know,
you gotta include what if you're on drugs or not,
you know, what was your health and mental h status? Uh,
you know, like before you were trafficking, and then after
you are trafficing things like that, you know you can't
(03:32):
get access to uh, you know, healthcare you know, on
time and things like that. To kind of curb some
of the disadvantages of the woman's body because we go
through things right, Um, we have ovariads and uteruses and
things like that. You know, you were walking around here
with cancer, you know, you wouldn't even know it. I
mean by the time you're about you know, in my situation,
(03:56):
and by the time I was nineteen, I had already
slept with fift men. So as you can imagine, had
I not had children in between times, I wouldn't have
been to the doctor. Uh as fast as you know,
somebody who had not been trafficed or had been able
to get there six months you know, check up. You
(04:16):
know that we um usually getting stuff like that. So
if I had to guess, just per my experience and
what I've gone through, UM, only one percent of survivor survived.
But if I had to guess, the life expectancy probably
would be, UM, I don't know, maybe three years out
(04:37):
of the game, maybe two to three years out of
the game life expectancy. And yeah, and also, like I said,
also depend on codependency levels. Are the drugs involved? Is
that alcohol involved? Um? And what what will it take
for you to stop? Because I don't think people count
that in when they're thinking about survivors. You know, you
do get addicted to the strip pole, you do get
(04:59):
addicted to the creek, you do get addicted to talking
to random people all the time and sleeping with random people.
So well, let me tell y'all, you don't look like
she'd been through anything. The skin is on, the eyebrows
on point, the hair is on point the teeth of
the white Okay, come on, now, come on. Well, you
(05:20):
know that was one of the advantages of being a stripper. Um,
you want to make sure that you know you're on point.
I worked with a lot of white girls, you know,
if I could just be candid, I worked a lot
of white girl clubs before I was even introduced to
black girl clup clubs. And you know, white girls when
they're stripping, they believe in the glamour like everything is. Oh,
(05:41):
it's a whole production. It's and it's so beautiful the
way everything is done, and it's so nice. You know.
Working in white girl clubs is they are so helpful
and supportive and just like, oh my god, you need things.
You know. It's just like you. I mean, like shout
out to my white girl friends, like y'all freaking rock
(06:02):
my girls that are stripping. Uh still, you know, hey,
I am a survivor, but I love you, sis. And
when you're ready to come out, I'm I'm I'm here
ready to catch you, sis. But I know that's a
very hard thing to do, but uh, it's glamorous. I mean,
you know, white girl clubs, it's all about the the boobs,
(06:22):
and the legs. Black girl clubs, ask ask ask as
you it's not enough ass and black girl club when
there's already asked in a black girl club, but in
white girl clubs, it's like, you don't need an ass,
you don't need none of that. You need posture and
(06:43):
you need positioning. You need to be able to acrobatically, okay,
romantically and mathematically work that motherfucker pole. If you don't
know how to work that pop baby, you're not gonna
make no money, okay, because that's where your money is at.
And then you gotta think about the class of the audience.
(07:04):
These are prestigious white men, prestigious a lot of times
conservative white men who do not want the ambiance of
the secular world in the strip club. Meaning I know
I'm coming here to be entertained by someone, but if
I had to choose who I'm gonna be entertained by,
(07:27):
I want them to be what I see in my imagination.
And so you have to meet that criterion. So you
can't come in there, you know, all flamboyant. You need
to be, you know, as feminine as possible, Like you
have to channel that whole feminine creative exactly it is
(07:50):
a total uniform. So how we all you know, black women,
I love us, but we are raw raw raw, Right,
you can't do that in no white girl club. You okay,
raw raw row and the white girl club. It's not
gonna work. Since it's not you can't have attitude and
the white girl clu it's not gonna work. It's not
the difference between black women and a white because I
(08:10):
used to go to troop clubs a lot, especially when
I was in college, and you would see the difference
between black girls and the white girls shop clubs compared
to the black girls and the black girl shroop clubs.
Like it's a complete difference. A man and even how
to man treat you, it's completely different. You can be
with one John and I'm just gonna call him a
john because essentially he's you know, they're they're all buying sex, right,
(08:33):
and so um, even even if it's the even if
even if it's the pictorial account, even if it's just okay,
I want your presence. Okay, you're buying sex, you're buying
the ambiance. And you can be with a john and
if that one girl isn't enough, or if that girl
and when we're talking about a white girl club, if
(08:54):
that girl says, hey, you know I want to bring
My name was Ginger when I was in the White
Girl Club, who's your name is? Club girl? Cash? Okay cash,
cash and seduction? Oh my god, horrible, horrible girl. So
every time when Ustra came up with that song said
(09:16):
that shot girl, that was my money song. Oh God,
God forgive me and the club, I said, okay, now, okay, girl,
that was my song. But see, you can't like the
ambiance and the Black girl club and slow songs is
not the same. Like you gotta give like anyway, I'll explained.
(09:39):
But when you when you went to John in the
White Girl Club, you can be with you know, uh,
Tricksy or whatever, and her name would be Tricky. That's
like a black girl. Then it would be like Trishia,
and Trishia will be like, oh my god, I have
this girlfriend. I think you really like herme, um, can
(10:01):
she come over? And he's like, oh yeah, you're cool.
You know, by the time one drink turns into five
drinks and now he got two girls and he's gonna
pay us both equally the same. That's how it is
in White Girl club, black girl club. It's a hustle.
Yeah's a hustle. I'm with my man. That's whoever that
(10:21):
man is, that's my man. And when I tell you
better have boundaries, right, don't touch him. If I walk
away and go to the bathroom and I see you
sitting with my man, that's an automatic fight. In a
black girl club, you're about to get You're about to
get your asswhoop because about this very territorial. So don't
touch my money, don't touch my man, right, right, that's it.
(10:46):
Why do you think audulfication is so common in black children, Well,
you got a couple of different reasons. Number one, we
grew up in the town where uncle Daddy was a relative,
and I have to go and tell black women uncle
daddy ain't no damn relative, meaning women back in the day.
Try to preserve the memories of our daughters and particular
(11:07):
particularly by monitor and measuring how many men we brought
around him. Now, that problem with that was if we
brought a man around, he might have not been necessarily
permanent man, but he would have to come around because
we had kids and there was no way we could
leave them along by themselves up to you know, a
certain amount of times, or you know, we didn't have
time to keep managing that babysitting. You know, I'm gonna
(11:27):
keep my kids so I can go with John or whatever,
Da da dada and stuff. So eventually, at some point,
if you're spending you know, three or five times or
uh three or five times a week, you know with
this man, you this man is gonna steal your children.
You understand what I'm saying, no matter how much you
try to keep it a secret. And so what ends
up happening is to preserve that child's memory and not
(11:48):
see you as dating so many men, especially if ever
less you didn't work out, you would just say, oh,
he's an uncle. Now problem what that was? Because your
child and you, you're nine, ten years old, you pretty
much figure out this person ain't your uncle. But because
you have not explained to me the relationship with this
human being, I'm thinking now and my interpretation as a child,
(12:13):
if that's my uncle. But I see you in an
intimate partner relationship with somebody who you're saying is my uncle.
That I think that I was supposed to date my
relatives too, m m okay. And so here you get
a sense you see what I'm saying. So here you
get a sense of adultifying. Not only that when we
grew up, because I'm thirty five, where we grew up,
(12:34):
and and and even now I have to check a
lot of moms with their languages. When when we're talking
to our daughters and we're coaching them about dating dating people,
we say they could be sixteen seventeen, and when the
first thing come out of our mouth is baby. When
you're dating a man, this is what a man supposed
to do. This is how a man supposed to treat you.
(12:55):
This is how man supposed to act. Well, what you
just told your thirteen sixteente to your old child was
everything how to date a man. You did not tell
her how to date a boy. So when she go
to school and she don't even think kids her age, right,
she don't want them because you just trained her to
date a man. Damn. You see what I'm saying. And
(13:19):
so the language has to be curved and curb telled
to the audience of today. These kids are the twenty
one century and they are past millennial stock. So you
you you have to make your language more attractive to them.
But you can't tell the fourteen year old girl what
a man is supposed to do, because when the boys
she dating at school don't measure up to the man
that you told her was supposed to act like in
(13:40):
her life, then she's gonna go want a man because
you told her how to be with one right. And
so here it is you see stages of adultsifying before
this is the culture of the household, before they even
stepped outside the house. M hm. And so here it
is you got the grooming stages of adultification meaning adults.
(14:02):
Of adultification means that our race, such as black Latina
and biopic Black indigenous people of color, have implicit biases
placed on us, meaning that we are we could be
fourteen or fifteen years old, but there's certain things that
we could go through and and if even though it
might be challenging, we can stand to go through it
(14:23):
because we're black and we've been through more experience as
opposed to a white girl going through the same thing
at fourteen, fifteen sixty, and she would be protected. If
a fourteen year old girl got raiped, we'll talk about
her being raped and you know, and and talk about
it in the family and things like that. But if
before teen yo white girl got right, Well, she's still
a version and we gotta preserve her. We don't do
(14:46):
that without black girls. And so you you see what
I'm saying. So you you see a lot of the
adultified we we say, you know what, chucking up, sucking up,
you're gonna be all right, take a lick and keep
on ticket. We got all of these different you know,
African colloquialisms that were born out of struggle that we
used today that are supposed to make us strong. And
(15:07):
it's not making as strong as it's making a struggle worse.
Because if it happened at fourteen and I never got
dealt with at twenty one, I don't I can't stand
the thought of me being raped. And because somebody took
control of my life, I'm gonna take a tron of
my own life and I want to suck the whole world.
I just want to have sex with everybody because because somebody,
somebody put me in, somebody saw me as a lesser
(15:29):
human being, that took advantage of me, and now I've
lost control. Mm hmm. Facts that do you think people
still confused prostitution with human trafficking? And if so, why
all the time. So so, for instance, I was prostituting,
but I was prostituted, big damn difference. I didn't have
(15:52):
any control over who I slept with and who I
didn't sleep with. I didn't make those deals. When you're prostituting,
you make your own deals. Now those people called rentegates,
now you got this new thing where they're like, you
know what, fucking don't even call me a prostitute, call
me a sex worker. Well, I got a big problem
with that being on this side, being on this side
of subportion because I'm a conservative. I'm I'm a I'm
(16:14):
a I'm a conservative, and I'm not gonna necessarily sell
my hardcore conservative because I do have some Democratic views.
You know, I do agree with both sides on on
some things. But I'm way more Republican than I am Democratic. Okay.
And I had to learn that about myself because I
really didn't understand I really didn't understand them some things
(16:35):
that were not distinguishable to me until I started writing
laws and getting the past and I'm talking hello, but
you see my you see my Abram okay, and Blue
Apraham Lincolnshire and on y'all right, Because he was our
first Republican president. But he also did for the slaves.
(16:57):
Whether it was a political move or not in or
whether you felt like it was a sympathetic move, it
was a move to make sure that he knew that
white people were gonna need to work with black people
if they were if he was gonna grows the nation,
and the decision was about the nation. And here we
are running the damn nation and we need Do you
(17:18):
think he was black, girl? I think Abraham Lincoln had
a little nigger. And here what you're talking about? Okay, ok,
go ahead. He had to all his partners was look
who his partners was. Dump you eat the boys. Come
on now. He wrote all this stuff on that was
his partner, his partner, and all his in our girls speeches,
(17:39):
he wrote all of them. I think he had a
little nigging him too. He was just you know yet, girl,
m on a lot of them. Did I mean the
man who ran our our money for the United says
America was a foreigner and he had and he was
from an island. When you think about Alexander Hamilton's and
nobody thinking about him being oh my god, we had
(17:59):
a foring to run our money. Yeah, motherfucker. You had
a foreign to running your money who was also jill
because his mama was just and his mama was considered
a whole because she had more than one baby daddy.
Mm hm, So you know, you have to think about
stuff like that. So his his daddy didn't raise him,
his his second it the his his mom's second husband
(18:23):
ended up raising him. And they were from the Islands
and stuff. You didn't think they had a little black
people in him. Then, I don't know what to tell you,
but I know right now, you know, because I am.
I'm a Hamilton and I speak on it all the time.
My husband is like the ninth generation grandson to Alexander
Hamilton's and there's no way that could have happened because
my husband all the way black, he black, masking and white.
(18:45):
He got all kinds of stuff in him, you know,
and he looked like it too. And I'm just like,
get your weird ass away from me. So I'm just kidding.
I love my husband, He's amazing. But that just go
to show our history and bury y'alls history. We don't
think about something like this. Go back to your point
you is making when you had an issue with prostitution
(19:07):
and sex workers. I do. I have an issue with
people using the words you know, not just yeah, I'll
say it like that, people using the word sex workers,
because I'm not demonizing anybody who do associate with the group,
because ladies, I get it. But here's the issue. To consider.
(19:28):
What you do is work. That means that you can
tax my pussy, and you're not gonna do that. You're
not tasking my pussy, you're not taxing my tivities, you're
not taxing my mouth, You're not doing none of that.
And you gotta understand for me to consider us any
type of sexual activity, for me to for somebody to
purchase me and it be a type of work, that
(19:52):
that means you're taxing a human being, which brings us
back to slavery. So because human trafficking is the second slavery.
So you're asking me to prom wrote something that I'm against,
So I can't do that for it to be considered work,
You're you are saying less, consider taxing human traffic, and
let's consider taxing slavery. Let's consider taxing people. And I
(20:14):
am against that. So I don't want I don't want
there to be a corporate institute about my money, what
my money is going to. If I'm giving you money
I don't want, and if I'm returning money to you
because you paying taxes on it, I don't want my
government paying money back to anybody or saying hey, you
get to get an e I c UH or earned
(20:35):
income credit for your kids because you were selling yourself.
Do you understand? And now you are a part of
the work workman's compensation. You're a part of you you
You are a part of just um. What else do
we have um? You know, like if you hurt yourself,
(20:58):
you get short time disability, need long term disability. You know,
those are things that you don't get when you work
as a strip of the strip club. You don't get
short term and long term disability because you're independent contractors,
your tendingty, nonemployee. You don't get that. If you want disability,
you need to pay for that outside your pocket. The
problem is strippers are not thinking about insuring themselves. So
why why does the economy, why does the taxpayers have
(21:20):
to ensure you? Why do I need to sure you
are What you're doing is dangerous. We get if you
want to do that, that's on you. You need to
take complete control in all the liability. But why do I,
as a taxpayer, need to take liability for you? And
I want people to think about that. So you want
me to to pay you money that's already progressive and untaxed,
only to pay taxes on it and it's your trading people,
(21:44):
and you want me to call that work. No, you
got me fucked up. Working at McDonald's is worth telling
people and pussy a work that's not work. And if
it takes just as much work as to tell you
is to take to sell pussy and people, it should
take that just much. You should have that same kind
of attitude about actually working in the corporate structure. I mean,
(22:04):
I don't get it. This is a rocket science. You're
either selling people or you're not, including yourself. This is
the reason why to stay to Texas. It's illegal for
you to sell yourself and it's illegal for you to
buy somebody. It's a felony. And we're the only state
that has this, and I thank you great State of
Texas for that that constitution because I believe that our
(22:25):
values should be a replication of how we treat our people.
And you either for slavey or you not so thank you, Texas,
but it's Texas. It's Houston. Still known as number one
city for human traffic. We are number one for human traffic,
and we got a bunch of ship going on. We do.
First of all, you gotta pay to play here. You
want to pay to play in the in the political
(22:46):
market here, and you want your business structure here. Then
you pay to play. That's all you need to do.
That's all you need to do. You pay, You pay
extra taxes, you pay extra whatever to the city so
the city can function and run the businesses as appropriate.
And it helps with the city budget and finances and
everything else, you know, and and and then sometimes in
(23:07):
some places certain things to turn the blind out to.
I mean, it is what it is. That's how it goes. Now,
tell us about your upbringing. We how was I raised? Well,
let's talk about it. I mean I went into foster
care at eleven years old because I was a victim child.
So I was actually raped by a neighbor and um,
(23:31):
he ended up serving in jail time. And I had
the same nerves and things like that to that nature.
And then at about fourteen, um my my grandmother was
granted SMC which is so manic conservatorship of me at
fourteen years old. Now I went back home, there were
no safety measures UM put in place. So here's the thing.
Once once the cases over with, you know, the Department
(23:52):
of Family protect the services. The only thing I don't
like is maybe, just maybe, and I know they don't
have enough time, there should be some type of follow up,
maybe like three month records, six month recorse to a
year to see, hey, what to kind of measure what's
the success level of us return to this kid home,
(24:14):
back to this parent or back to this relatives. How
else would you measure it right? How else would you
measure it it being successful that they made a good decision.
You understand what I'm saying. And I think that if
that was in place, then bout the six month marker
once my grandmother had died. Because my grandmother died like
six months after me being returned back home, UM, and
(24:35):
she she passed away from breast cancer. You know the
adults that were you know, that were in my life,
which would be in her children, m you know, they
they did not directly want to you know, control the
part of her state that dealt with her grandchildren, which
(24:56):
which would have made me dead. Niece and nephew at
that time, you know, they didn't want that, and which
is fine, But at that particular point, I believe, you know,
the state should have been able to step in and say,
you know, hey, well you guys are awarding of this thing.
I was a bandon, and so let's just get that
out of style. I was a bandit. I was sleeping outside.
I was living behind a Walmart. I slept in a
(25:18):
cardboard box for months. I took a bath in Walmart
bathrooms and this is before they were even eco friendly. Okay,
so I just slept on so many bathroom floors. It's unimaginable,
you know. And just having to live within the constraints
of a cardboard box, I mean, you can only imagine
(25:39):
what that felt like for me to just have to
be right to die. Um. But I mean I I
understood some level, you know, I understood some level of accountability.
And I had a lot of levels of adaptability just
because of the transition and of life I had experienced
before being homeless, which was fonds to care, which was
being removed from family's home. I think, not to cut
(26:03):
you off, how much accountability can you take us a child.
You're right, You're right, But what I'm saying is as
far as survival, accountability is for as survival. I knew
I needed to eat. I knew I needed to have
somewhere to stay, like I knew I needed to stay
in school. Do you understand what I'm saying? Like, you know,
even though my situation was bad, I think it really
(26:24):
could have been worse had I made just had I
had that fucking attitude, like you know what, fucking nobody
cares about me, right, you know what I mean? And
I didn't take that approach. And you know, because I
didn't take that approach, that actually pissing some people off
because they wouldn't have preferred me to make other decisions right,
to not end up in the situation. But I really
(26:46):
didn't have any choice. And it's it's so freaking hard
for people to believe that I didn't have a choice.
Another part, Yeah, I think life is hard. This is
not easy when you don't have support. That's so true.
It is so true. And I think too, you know,
the other part of adultifying is when other grown of
people start measuring their ability to manage your conflict. Meaning
(27:12):
I was hearing adult conversations of how they were gonna
manage my conflict on a long a long term uh
basis meaning I'm living with them. I'm CouchSurfing, but I'm
living with them for a couple of months. Everything is
going good, nothing bad has happened. I'm not a bad kid.
I'm not doing anything wrong. But the conversation with adults
(27:33):
are are and I'm hearing it. It is, well, you know,
you can't stay here too long because you might get pregnant.
And I don't think that I should have been in
a place where I had to manage that conflict. If
it was if I can't stay here too long because
I might get pregnant, that should have been a conversation
that I wasn't privy to. If you didn't want me
(27:54):
in your household um longer than longer than um necessary,
then then you know, maybe how about talk to a
school counselor and say, hey, I got the kid living
with me. What do you think you know I should do.
She's not a bad kid, nothing's going on wrong. But
should I contact the proper authorities? Her parents has been deceased,
(28:15):
but she's going to school from my house? What can
what can the school do and that's not what happened.
It was like to move me out of the structure.
It was and they couldn't find anything wrong. It was okay,
you can't stay here too long because you might get pregnant,
and I don't want that happening. But I didn't know
when they told you you might get pregnant. Who was
gonna impregnate you the men in the house. But well
(28:38):
not only just the men in the house. You know,
a lot of the people I was living with a
couch surfing with. There was your boys. M so all
my friends was like, you know, these were young boys
that I had grew up with, and they were just like,
all right, I'm gonna look out for you. You know
what I'm saying. It was easy for them to beg
their mama who was working all the time for me
to stay because I'm like a straight A students. For instance,
(29:01):
if if if it was a young boy who needed
help with his homework, because I was really good at
math and I was helping with the homework all the time,
I could end up, you know, spending a night that
particular night because I stayed over helping with homework, right,
And if I was helping them get their grades better,
getting their grades together and stuff like that. Then it
would end up me staying a little bit longer. It
(29:23):
took a stress off the parents me being around. But
the second part of the conflict would be, oh, when
y'all might end up in a dating relationship with each
other and you might get pregnant. So every time there
was a decent situation for me to build a strong
partnership with with kids who did have parents, it always
turned into it being you know, let me cut this
(29:43):
short because there's another conflict that can arise out of this,
which at that time, I wasn't even having sex having right,
But I wasn't having sex right, So that's what ended
up happening. Yo, Niggas is trash man, I'm telling you
people are just trashed. But I'm telling you two girls, yeah,
(30:05):
so sad. But because of you always hearing that you
thought that pregnancy was the key to not being homeless,
exactly exactly. I thought pregnancy was going to fix me
not having to pick my bags up, and it was
only a bag. Like when you are desperate and you
do not want to sleep outside and you do not
want to eat chicken out the trash can for that night.
(30:28):
You are like, look, what is gonna solve this problem?
Don't nobody want me? Okay, maybe I need to get
pregnant because if I'm pregnant, people will sympathize with me
more and it won't be so quick to put me
out their house. Right. Wow, that's adultified. Right. So you
had your baby and he was taking your baby to
see in your purse, and I thought this was crazy.
(30:51):
How the school counselor was telling you to drop out
get your g e D. But you wasn't even a
d yet. And that's I wasn't. I wasn't. I wasn't
even old enough. The unregistered myself out of school. So
less than ten days after I had my kid, I
was sued by the State of Texas. I think I
had like my kid, I want to say, ten days
(31:12):
in less than thirty days. So I had justin at
ten ten oh three, I turned uh sixteen October thirty
of and then eleven oh five is when I was
sued by the state of Texas. So I wasn't even
a mom for thirty days and here it is, I'm
(31:33):
sued by the state of Texas. So how did you
get out of that situation and transition into the strip club. Well,
that's the thing. I didn't get out of that situation.
That's how I ended up in a strip club. So
once once the lawsuit happened, I mean, I didn't have
an attorney, I was an the doctor, I was treating
like an at I wasn't taken into foster care again.
(31:58):
As a miner with a child old, I was treated
like a mother, and I was victimizing my child. Mm hmmm.
My child was listened as a victim the entire time.
Mm hmmm. Do you see what I'm saying? And so
I was listened as a mother, but my child was
(32:19):
listed as a victim. Yo. It's crazy how they treat
black women, men, or just black girl if you was
a different race, right right. I think what is insiduous
was at that particular time, which I didn't know anything
about having conservative views, was that being judged against conservative
(32:41):
views when I didn't grow up in a conservative household.
M hmm. And and that's the reason why we need
judges that look like us, because a lot of us
do not grow with conservative views. I knew, I knew,
I knew nothing about a conservative view. Absolutely nothing. I
knew nothing about a man raising his daughter, whether it
(33:04):
was black or white. I do absolutely nothing about that.
I knew that white girls grew up with in the
two parent households, right, but I did not know what
the extent of her being raised, her being reared by
her parents. I just knew that she had both parents.
Whereas I'm a black girl, I know that I'm either
(33:26):
gonna have one other other or neither. And in my case,
I had none of I had no grandmother, no mother,
no father. I was an orphan. And here it is,
I'm an orphan standing in court with and like I said,
it's not a white black issue because black people are
conservative and I absolutely love and I'm conservative today. But
(33:47):
I'm standing in court as an orphan, and I'm being
measured by the justice system by somebody's conservative views of
how they think I should have been raised as a
young girl. And that's not the way I grew up.
So I feel like I was punished by somebody's opinion
about how I should have been raised and what my
(34:08):
life should have been like before I had even got
a chance to experience life. So at that that and
I know it's true because that helped me to understand
why the judge made his decisions about the future of
my life because there was no expectancy. There was not
an expectancy for me to get my children back. My
(34:29):
requirement was to get a g D, find a job,
to get a big a bank account and put money
in it, because I needed to prove that I could
be fi dociarily responsible for my kids. Right and to him,
to him, he was already a statistic right. Right, I
was already a statistic right. There was no coming back
(34:49):
from that. I mean that expected why I didn't have
a right. It explains why I didn't have an attorney. Um,
it explains why d psn't asked for me to have
an attorney. You know, I didn't have an airline. Nobody
worked my case, nobody, you know what I mean? Like,
there were a lot of things done wrong, Um in
my situation. I don't. I don't think that the expectation
(35:12):
was was for me to be successful in that situation.
I think that I just made a bad situation successful
mm hmm. Facts. Now, how are you introduced to the
strip club? So, my home girl, why do you why
do you start smelling? Because I'm addicted to it. I'm
addicted to the strip club. There's no I have to
(35:34):
stay away from him and the erie to me now.
But I let me tell you something, And I had
the best time in the strip club. I will not
lie about that. Sin is always so much fun. I
love my singing. I love I said, and I'm not
saying it to brag on that. What I'm saying is
I don't. I don't want people to just feel like,
(35:56):
you know, I'm embarrassed about what it was that I
went through. I didn't. I didn't ask for the strip club.
That was what was impressed upon me, because it was
it was a way out. And when you are not
an independent person, you're automatically codependent. You were allied on
other people's ideas to facilitate the future of your life,
(36:17):
and that slavery. And I thought my home girl would
have been the best person to be able to advise
me because she had already had two children, and she
was already she was already stable. He was that statistical
anomaly that was that that was presentable to a court.
(36:40):
Here's my home girl, got two kids, she's in church,
she's doing well, and that's what it appeared to be
and then I started thinking, oh, I only have to
do this based on appearance. Let me just make this
stuff look good on paper. And they really got to
be like this, you know, behind closed door. You know,
you start coming up with all of these different analogies,
and y'all gotta remember I was a kid. I was
(37:00):
a kid trying to protect my kid, and I never
knew what it was like for myself to be protected.
My mama never protected me, right, right, So I'm trying
to figure it. I'm trying to figure life out for
me and this kid who doesn't deserve this bullshit and
who doesn't deserve to be separating from his mom. Mm hmm.
(37:21):
That's all I knew. All I knew was I ain't
gonna be like my mama. Right. My mama dropped off
the school in the eighth grade. I dropped out of
school in the tenth grade. There's a lot of things
I thought I wasn't gonna be like my mama, and
that I ended up being just like my mother. And
mm hmmm, I'll go ahead, No, no, I'm listening, No, no,
(37:42):
I was gonna say. I also read that her mother
passed away and she too was a survivor of human trafficking, right,
I could wish I could say that she survived. She
was actually murdered by um um, the guy who was
pimping her out and stuff for drugs, because my mother
was addicted to crack. Okay, m hm. And my mother
(38:03):
was the type of mother she would always tell you
the truth. She did chicken cold things. She looked you
in your face and she'll say, you know what, I
love crack one, and I love you, and I don't
think it's a good decision for you too, you know, uh,
not necessarily following the footsteps, but but to try to
uh redeem me or you know, trying to take me
(38:24):
away from it, because I'm going to choose crack. This
is where I'm at. And I knew that about my mother.
I said to that about my mother, and it's okay,
And that's one of the things, okay, No, I was
just saying that, that's one of the things that help
(38:44):
me to survive human trafficking. I mean, because at the
end of the day, you're born looking like your mother
and your father, but you die looking like your decisions
mm hmm. And and my preachesses come on, damn that's
a fact. And I had to think about, you know,
when I started having children, especially when I started having children,
(39:06):
a boy my dawns by to me and I was
trying to I had to think about, you know, and
I was having boys too. I was like, I had
to think about how I want to die, how do
I want to leave my children? What memory do I
want my children to leave with me? And you know
about their mother and stuff. Because when my mother passed,
you know, I got a phone call from Harris County
(39:28):
asking me to Hers County and hp D. I worked
at the county at the time. HPD asked me to identify,
you know, my my mother, that my mother was, who
my mother was, and all it was was bones. My
mother had already been buried in the papers uh cemetery
meaning meaning somebody who who who didn't have any money
and who didn't have any family, and on my mother's
(39:50):
tombstone and says unknown from her birthday to her depth day.
M hm. And that's how my mother is remembered. It's
like she was never even here unknown And so that's
how I came up with that theory. And I was like,
you know what, yep, no, when when I die, it's
gonna be a great death. It's gonna be a great
(40:12):
I'm gonna go out strong, and my children are gonna
know me, My children gonna remember me, and my children
be able to have a headstone that says that the
mother was here and who that mother was, and and
who who is survived by her, and they will be
proud of who their mother is. That was important to me,
right facts. I feel like also what your home girl
(40:35):
did was she recruited you because I remember watching one
of your interviews and you said that human trafficking starts
with recruitment, exploctations and fraud. Right, oh look at you,
not then my homeworks us Now come on now, yes,
get yeah, absolutely so my mother and listen, my she's
(40:55):
my sister and I love her. Yeah, she's my sister
and I love her. You know, I don't think that
she knew she was being pimped out. M hmm, okay.
I think that the guy who was older than the
both of us just saw an advantage. He took He
(41:17):
took an advantage, He saw an opportunity, and he took
advantage of the situation. You know, it was you know,
I had work in the strip club. And all I'm
doing is wagers said, I work at this, won't take
my ID go work in another one, because back then
you could do that. There was no checks and balances.
Today though, because of what happened to me, there's e
(41:37):
verified Seeing now you got to put your right driver's license,
social and your birth certificate in the system. So the
strip club has to hire the same way McDonald's and
everybody else highed. You gotta go to verify so that
the ship that happened to me, it can't happen nowhere.
So you can't go working one strip club and then
be working in another strip club. But then they don't
(41:59):
know that you were. They're both of them. Mm hmm.
You see what I'm saying, because back then you just
you just filled out a piece of paper and as
long as you was cool with somebody, you could get
in the door. Right that was it. Mm hmm. And
I worked at Gigs Cabaret. I worked at at and
Nicole Smiths Uh strip club where she got found at.
(42:23):
Oh rich man, man, you come on, come on, okay,
but you know and rich white men are. Let me
tell you something about rich white men. I would have
been around enough of them to know that they are
some of the most informative people you will ever meet
(42:43):
in your life. They are so helpful, they are happy
to teach you what you need to know. Oh man,
they want you to know. They want you to have
a better life. That's what's so fucking crazy about all
of this. But because people, I know when people are
listening to me talk, they listen at my story. But
(43:04):
not one time if I ever said anything bad about
my jawns except for the ones that I got pregnant by,
because that's bullshit. It's bullshit to expect. And I understand
the abortion laws today because listen, I am a pro
life And that's why the funk I have eight children. Okay,
I don't believe they killing kids. Don't kill them. I
don't care how they got here. Don't kill kids. That's
(43:26):
where I'm at. Talk about me. I don't give a funk.
But that's why I'm mad. I had all my kids.
What what I don't what I what I am against
is forcing girls to co parent with abusers. There's gonna
have to be some type of logical um sentiment, some
(43:50):
some type of legislative formation two two I mean to
coexist for somebody to be able to have to coexist.
That's gonna have to be a formality in the family code,
whether you're in Texas, California, Florida. I mean, like, I
don't give a funk where you at. Where the girl
(44:13):
who is having a baby by the abuser is not
forced to compare with them, that has to be some
type of limited, limited purview on parentage, how much that parent,
how much interaction and things like that, because you know,
I didn't kill myself and that was fortunately for me,
but I know some survivors who would kill themselves just
(44:35):
so that they don't have to look at their abuser anymore,
or kill they child or kill the child. Yeah, I mean,
it is what it is. And I think that's one
thing that that the law has not considered. And I'm
really really asking them, especially this legislative session, because we
(44:56):
are until I'm in Texas. Guys, that's listening when I
a legislators, and and that's something that that's you know,
gonna be put on the table um because we don't abort,
which is fine, but we're gonna have to have some
type of some type of just curve, you know, for
(45:16):
how these girls have their parents. You're fifteen year old
daughter gets pregnant by somebody who raped her, or by
somebody who pimped her out. You ain't gonna wanna see
that nigga, right, You ain't gonna want that nigga have
your address. You ain't gonna want him to come pick
that your grand baby up. You're not gonna want none
of that, right, And so we we we have to
(45:37):
consider the new family dynamics and how to deal with
toxic family bonds. Hmm. I mean, because that's the truth
right now, once you start trusting the situation with you
being in the strip club and your friend put you
(45:57):
on her boyfriend did tell as you that you can't
have your baby back until you started paying him two
hundred dollars a day, right, because I wasn't giving him
enough money, mainly because I was trying to meet the
judges requirements of keeping the money in the bank account, okay,
and so to my little nickel and now my money.
I was giving him what was left over, and he
wasn't having that ship. So he was like, you need
(46:20):
to up the anti meaning you don't even know how
profitable you are, but I do. I was young, you know,
I have my I had my titties piers my tendos
had been pierces. About fourteen years old. I had already
had my first tattoo, you know, I just like I
wasn't a bad kid. I had just gotten just a ship.
And he was looking at me like, you know, you're skinny.
(46:41):
You you know you you got these legs. You can
do it, you know, go forward and put yourself out there.
And if putting yourself out there not enough, then maybe
I need to take something from you to make you
put you know, put your hustle game on. Put you
on your A game all the time. And you know what,
because that na took my kids away from me. It
(47:01):
put me on my A game all day long. I'm
all day I'm on my A game about my motherfucking
children and and and they and they never stopped because
since then, it has always been somebody trying to take
my children or use my children against me for me
to not have them, you know what I mean. And
I didn't realize that that was my superpower. And today
(47:27):
I'm one of the first cases in the state of
Texas that were suited for child support about the men
they were trafficking me because the state placed me in
the house with the man that was pimping me out,
me and my children. Mm hmmm, how is it even possible? Well,
(47:47):
according to court documents, they knew I was living with him. Um,
they labeled him in my documents as my paramore, in
which a paramore as P A R A M. O.
You are you guys? It is a legal term. Uh,
you use for like a side piece. Uh, during a
divorce or in marriage. Right, you would have a pair
(48:08):
more like my husband had a pair more that would
be the name of side piece. But uh, it was
it's an illicit sexual relationship, so that was listed in there.
I was sixteen years old. You cannot consent to sex
at sixteen years old. And um was just the one,
just the one that was twenty eight years old. Girl,
you'll do it all my business years old, that's right, right.
(48:33):
So I was born in eighty seven. So by the
time in two thousand and so, he had gone to
jail for the first time in nineteen because before dp DFPS,
which the Department of Family Protective Services, before they even
place you with someone, they always do a background check, right,
everybody knows they do a background check. His background check
(48:55):
it's in my court documents. So he had already gone
to jail as a first time offender. In well, I'm
born in eighty seven, was six years old. Right do
the math, yo, these niggas child child you have listeners,
look at that niggas real sideways y'all. Don'ta be pre
(49:20):
judging people. Just know that this ship happens, you know,
like like it it's real and you know this this
would happened in the early two thousands where we didn't
have any rules, regulationships and laws that governed how we
treat people and the value that we have when people did.
The government know about human trafficking, absolutely, but the term
was used for international issue. It was never a time
(49:43):
that was used for the America's That's why when taking
came out, the first place they placed, uh, the identifying
mark of human trafficking wasn't in Paris, right because they
happen in our backyard, right, you know. But it made
people that that was the inclusion and made people think
(50:04):
that it only happens and other countries that only happened
internationally or how they say the military old coon is
overseas right. So yeah, now a pimp from the club
her what was going on, and he came to protect
you from the situation with the nigger at the house.
(50:25):
But he was no better. But that was that that
ended up being a nigga at the house. Right, So
the pimp, so the one, the one I ended up
being with. That's the one who had to fight with
the dude who I was living with, my homeworld's boyfriend. Right,
he had to fight with right, Right. Okay, So this
was the guy who took you to the hotel and
(50:47):
told you to make some money, and he pulled the
gun out on you. This is at the point I'm
being sex traffic the first part of my story. I
was just labor traffic. I didn't have to sleep with
my home girl's boyfriend, but I was. I was. I
was doing other stuff in the club to get the money.
I was lying about the drinks, how much the drinks cost.
I was getting the extra money from that. Yeah, yeah, child, girl,
(51:12):
I'm telling you because I knew nothing about the hospitality
industry and how it work. I knew absolutely nothing about
serving people and about service and about the attitude of service.
I knew absolutely nothing about it. I knew how to hustle,
I didn't care who was sucking who in the club.
But I always knew who was sucking who. Everybody trusted
me with that secret. So the champagne room, the boom
(51:33):
boom room, I'm your girl. I'm your girl that's gonna
look out for you. So if you need to fun
somebody in the champagne room, because you did hit a lick,
so you need to suck him up or you need
to do whatever. Well, then when he paid you your five,
then you need to pay me my money too. So
he get your five, you need to give me a hundred.
So you're gonna walk away with four because I just
made sure that you didn't get a called by the
manager and you didn't get caught by swap because we
(51:55):
had bus and so I made sure you was one
of the girls who always had an alibi by what
you where you was, and what she was doing right right,
That's how I made my money. So if a girl
make five, I'm good. She had to make five, because
you gotta give me a hundred I got because I
just looked out exactly exactly. Now you do you do?
(52:19):
You do about three or for them a night? You
you come out of that making a five dollars. Right,
That's how I cut throat it is. That's that's the
that's the club, though I don't I don't know what
the club is like now, but that that was the club,
you know, for me back then. And a lot of
the girls, because I was in the White Girl Club,
(52:40):
they knew my story, like they knew what was going
on and things like that. They would always just you know,
take care of me, you know, chuck me. Some of
them would just chuck me. I was the youngest one.
I was the youngest one of trip club. I was
the baby. I was everybody's baby. Wow, So they're gonna
look out for you. Yeah, it looks out that that's out.
(53:02):
You were trafficing for five years and at the age
of nineteen. You mentioned earlier that you slept with men
because of this. Did you ever look at men differently? No,
I looked at I look at marriage differently though, how so,
because you know, being married requires you to blind blindly trust,
(53:27):
It requires you to give to something that you may
not understand. Mm hmmm. Because you gotta remember, I was
sleeping with other people's husbands. What ain't ship stopping nobody
from sleeping with my right ain't ship stopping me from
feeling what I made those other women feeling sleeping with
(53:49):
their husbands. Mm hmm. Okay, So don't ever think I
walk around here and and and I'm just all, uh, shore,
I got my ship together kind of thing. No, I
hurt for them. I'm born for them. I'm I ain't
never apologize to God so much in my life, but
(54:11):
I do it all then. And I'm constantly encouraging other women. Hey,
get the bag, but don't sleep with nobody spels together
because if you did that, you ain't gonna keep that bad.
That's not your bag, that's his wife's bag. And you're
gonna pay because you're stealing. That's why the Bible say
this is he said my house. He said my house,
it's gonna be a house of prayer, not a deal
(54:32):
of robbers and thieves. I had to think about what
the funk that meant? What you mean Lord about your
house is the house of prayer? Meaning if I need something,
then I go to the Father. That's why Jesus is
my sugar Daddy. I'm gonna go to the Father and
tell Daddy God, this is what I need, X, Y
and Z to No, I but I'm not gonna parting
myself against his word, meaning giving the devil the opportunity
(54:55):
to use to to use my life and the covenant
God with me against the kingdom. That's not authority. That's
witch crowd. And I had to understand, Okay, prostitution is
witch crafd This this is like I was going down
a deep whole. I was like, I did not God,
(55:15):
who teaching this on this level? Right? Then I had to,
you know, reconvene because revelations to every the level tells
you we overcome the enemy three different ways, not one way.
It says by the power of our testimony, not loving
life to death, and by the blood of the lamb.
And so I had to really really think about, Okay, God,
if I'm gonna come out here and tell my story
(55:37):
and we're really going to do this, then people need
to be delivered. You. You can't just know my business.
To be knowing my business, you need to know how
I stay saved, how I stayed my black ass at
the strip club, how I stayed not sleeping with somebody
else's husband, how I stayed not selling my body but saying,
how I stayed doing exactly what I say to other
(56:01):
women to not do and that's through the word of God.
I'm not practicing which crap. You're not gonna get me
to do with my mouth. You're not gonna get me
to do it with my body. But but I will
remain in a covenant contract agreement with the father because
that's what marriage is. It's about the covenant, right right,
it is what it is. You know, that's what I said.
(56:21):
I was like, yea, I do a lot of things,
but I ain't missing nobody's household. Yeah, oh yeah, don't
do that, and don't and don't overstep your boundaries with why,
because why is a powerful why bibble says wife has
the authority to to get rid of unclean spirits. That's
even if it's through the husband, and even if it's
through you. I don't want nobody having that kind of
power over me. That's a lot of power, girl, not people.
(56:46):
I don't think why I was understand that because by
the time they find out they husband is in a
strip club and he fell in love with a stripple.
You know, a Tea Pain came up with that dumb
mans song, I'm in Love with a strip Say you
love that song? Until you find your husband with some
home and you're like, motherfucker, then you're gonna think about
(57:06):
how much you love this ship were singing. And then
you gotta understand too, most of the holes that's singing
a lot of these songs, they are all married and
ship you gotta ask yourself why because coming it brings
favor from God. You see what I'm saying. Party B
was a hope, but that my fucking married and before
she had our baby, she got married too, so right
(57:31):
but she but but but you know what I'm saying.
Valati's coming up and she's like that. You got a
lot of motherfucker's trying to pussy pop for a box
of chocolate. This We do not need you pop locking
and dropping it for the chocolates. Listen, I be telling
these girls, especially my little young my little young sisters.
(57:51):
I'll be like, listen, I said, you better stop looking
at these girls and trying to be like thing goes.
You don't know what they're doing, not at all, how
they getting to it and what they get even up,
I'm just getting to the money. Right. Everybody mad? Yeah,
Like you can't be you can't be looking at what
everybody is doing because they ain't your walk. Yeah, that
(58:13):
ain't your no for sure, And then you know you
gonta understand human trafficking covenants things like that. It is
not the type of demon, is not the type of
demon you want to play with. It's governed by a
loving spirit. And I mean, and we can go on
and on and on. Um, We'll have to bring me
in on another episode so people can get down to
the real nitty nitty gritty of the situation. But I
(58:37):
would explain it to you like this, the reason why,
the reason why stream clubs is such an illegal source
and the reason why a lot of trafficking happens out
of it. So the strip club is governed by two guards,
which is the astroist and the ball right, and the
Baba talks about this all the time. The astra was
a female goddess, right, she was always naked, but the
bill was resemblance of a foul write a penis or
(59:01):
a pole. So when you get girls that get naked
and want to strip and dance on the stage right
on this pole, then she is the replica of the asteroisk,
while the poll is the replica of the bout. So
when you get men coming to pay money right to
these girls because they feel like they're doing a good
enough job. That's what they like to see. They're actually
(59:23):
paying homage to these gods, but they're paying it with
money that says in God we trust, well, which god? Motherfucker? Right,
let's be clear. And so you got a lot of
men that's in the strip club that's practicing witch classing.
And they come into these clubs with you know what
(59:43):
they would would with coving it because they're married. But
then they leave with all these unclean spirits and they
bring them to their wife and they wonder why they're
having problems at home. Right, Okay, The Bible says that
the power of life and depth is in the tongue.
When you think on you think would come out your mouth,
But people forget they wear fucking shoes and then your shoe.
(01:00:04):
That's a little piece in the fucking shoe that's called
a tongue. So it ain't just about what the funk
you say, it's about where the funk you go to. Right,
You bring that ship right back home. You bring that
ship right back home, right,
Welcome. You are now listening to the Professional Girl Professional
(00:37):
It's your girl, Ebena from the Professional Homegirl podcast, the
only place where you would hear interviews from women of
color anonymously on stories that were enlightened and expand on
taboo topics. Now, if you hear someone that sounds familiar,
mind the business that pays you child. Please support the
show by leaving a five star review by some merch
or simply share these stories with your Professional home Girl.
(01:00):
You never know these storylines can be someone else's lifeline. Now,
please keep in mind that all of my guests are anonymous.
So let's begin this week's episode. Y'all. He was literally
just keep keying. I'm like, let me start this conversation
with her, because I can tell it it's going to
be an amazing conversation. I am super excited to speak
(01:22):
with my guests today. She is an award when an
expert in the field of human trafficking, a feel she
comes to with five years of pain experience as a
survivor of human and labor trafficking. With her multicultural background,
she is committed to edge encouraging diversity and inclusion, making
a difference in the decriminalization of human trafficking, poverty, and
(01:43):
homelessness with minors. She is a doctoral learner, veteran wife,
mother of eight, and a comedian, which I can already
tell y'all got you funny hell, And most importantly, she
led the nation's first political campaign against human trafficking. So
to my guest, thank you so much for being a
part of the show. And how are you doing? Girl?
(02:04):
Doing good? And this this this cold? It's not sunny.
I was gonna say sunny. It was like cold and
cloudy day out in Houston. Textlas So all my Houstonians,
what's up y'all? Hey, just shout out to age Town. Yes,
aged Town, the city of their birth, beyoncey. Now, what
(02:27):
is the life expectancy of a survivor that makes it out? Oh?
You know what, that's a great question. I tell people
to ask that question all the time. Now, according to
uh most statistics, because of the amount of trauma I've
been through, I wasn't supposed to make it past twenty five.
I'm forty five years old with eight children, and I'm
probably gonna be, you know, one of the only survivals
(02:48):
with as many children as I do have. Because you know,
once you start getting pregnant by your abusers and things
like that, you know, you start looking at other options
other than uh foster care or adoption. A lot of
time girls don't want the pain of the memory to exist,
and you know they want to abort um. And so
you know, you get the way of tearing your body
(03:09):
with pregnancies because to be traffic needs to be traded,
you know, uh, not being able to go to the
doctor consistently. Um. And then on top of that, you know,
you gotta include what if you're on drugs or not,
you know, what was your health and mental h status? Uh,
you know, like before you were trafficking, and then after
you are trafficing things like that, you know you can't
(03:32):
get access to uh, you know, healthcare you know, on
time and things like that. To kind of curb some
of the disadvantages of the woman's body because we go
through things right, Um, we have ovariads and uteruses and
things like that. You know, you were walking around here
with cancer, you know, you wouldn't even know it. I
mean by the time you're about you know, in my situation,
(03:56):
and by the time I was nineteen, I had already
slept with fift men. So as you can imagine, had
I not had children in between times, I wouldn't have
been to the doctor. Uh as fast as you know,
somebody who had not been trafficed or had been able
to get there six months you know, check up. You
(04:16):
know that we um usually getting stuff like that. So
if I had to guess, just per my experience and
what I've gone through, UM, only one percent of survivor survived.
But if I had to guess, the life expectancy probably
would be, UM, I don't know, maybe three years out
(04:37):
of the game, maybe two to three years out of
the game life expectancy. And yeah, and also, like I said,
also depend on codependency levels. Are the drugs involved? Is
that alcohol involved? Um? And what what will it take
for you to stop? Because I don't think people count
that in when they're thinking about survivors. You know, you
do get addicted to the strip pole, you do get
(04:59):
addicted to the creek, you do get addicted to talking
to random people all the time and sleeping with random people.
So well, let me tell y'all, you don't look like
she'd been through anything. The skin is on, the eyebrows
on point, the hair is on point the teeth of
the white Okay, come on, now, come on. Well, you
(05:20):
know that was one of the advantages of being a stripper. Um,
you want to make sure that you know you're on point.
I worked with a lot of white girls, you know,
if I could just be candid, I worked a lot
of white girl clubs before I was even introduced to
black girl clup clubs. And you know, white girls when
they're stripping, they believe in the glamour like everything is. Oh,
(05:41):
it's a whole production. It's and it's so beautiful the
way everything is done, and it's so nice. You know.
Working in white girl clubs is they are so helpful
and supportive and just like, oh my god, you need things.
You know. It's just like you. I mean, like shout
out to my white girl friends, like y'all freaking rock
(06:02):
my girls that are stripping. Uh still, you know, hey,
I am a survivor, but I love you, sis. And
when you're ready to come out, I'm I'm I'm here
ready to catch you, sis. But I know that's a
very hard thing to do, but uh, it's glamorous. I mean,
you know, white girl clubs, it's all about the the boobs,
(06:22):
and the legs. Black girl clubs, ask ask ask as
you it's not enough ass and black girl club when
there's already asked in a black girl club, but in
white girl clubs, it's like, you don't need an ass,
you don't need none of that. You need posture and
(06:43):
you need positioning. You need to be able to acrobatically, okay,
romantically and mathematically work that motherfucker pole. If you don't
know how to work that pop baby, you're not gonna
make no money, okay, because that's where your money is at.
And then you gotta think about the class of the audience.
(07:04):
These are prestigious white men, prestigious a lot of times
conservative white men who do not want the ambiance of
the secular world in the strip club. Meaning I know
I'm coming here to be entertained by someone, but if
I had to choose who I'm gonna be entertained by,
(07:27):
I want them to be what I see in my imagination.
And so you have to meet that criterion. So you
can't come in there, you know, all flamboyant. You need
to be, you know, as feminine as possible, Like you
have to channel that whole feminine creative exactly it is
(07:50):
a total uniform. So how we all you know, black women,
I love us, but we are raw raw raw, Right,
you can't do that in no white girl club. You okay,
raw raw row and the white girl club. It's not
gonna work. Since it's not you can't have attitude and
the white girl clu it's not gonna work. It's not
the difference between black women and a white because I
(08:10):
used to go to troop clubs a lot, especially when
I was in college, and you would see the difference
between black girls and the white girls shop clubs compared
to the black girls and the black girl shroop clubs.
Like it's a complete difference. A man and even how
to man treat you, it's completely different. You can be
with one John and I'm just gonna call him a
john because essentially he's you know, they're they're all buying sex, right,
(08:33):
and so um, even even if it's the even if
even if it's the pictorial account, even if it's just okay,
I want your presence. Okay, you're buying sex, you're buying
the ambiance. And you can be with a john and
if that one girl isn't enough, or if that girl
and when we're talking about a white girl club, if
(08:54):
that girl says, hey, you know I want to bring
My name was Ginger when I was in the White
Girl Club, who's your name is? Club girl? Cash? Okay cash,
cash and seduction? Oh my god, horrible, horrible girl. So
every time when Ustra came up with that song said
(09:16):
that shot girl, that was my money song. Oh God,
God forgive me and the club, I said, okay, now, okay, girl,
that was my song. But see, you can't like the
ambiance and the Black girl club and slow songs is
not the same. Like you gotta give like anyway, I'll explained.
(09:39):
But when you when you went to John in the
White Girl Club, you can be with you know, uh,
Tricksy or whatever, and her name would be Tricky. That's
like a black girl. Then it would be like Trishia,
and Trishia will be like, oh my god, I have
this girlfriend. I think you really like herme, um, can
(10:01):
she come over? And he's like, oh yeah, you're cool.
You know, by the time one drink turns into five
drinks and now he got two girls and he's gonna
pay us both equally the same. That's how it is
in White Girl club, black girl club. It's a hustle.
Yeah's a hustle. I'm with my man. That's whoever that
(10:21):
man is, that's my man. And when I tell you
better have boundaries, right, don't touch him. If I walk
away and go to the bathroom and I see you
sitting with my man, that's an automatic fight. In a
black girl club, you're about to get You're about to
get your asswhoop because about this very territorial. So don't
touch my money, don't touch my man, right, right, that's it.
(10:46):
Why do you think audulfication is so common in black children, Well,
you got a couple of different reasons. Number one, we
grew up in the town where uncle Daddy was a relative,
and I have to go and tell black women uncle
daddy ain't no damn relative, meaning women back in the day.
Try to preserve the memories of our daughters and particular
(11:07):
particularly by monitor and measuring how many men we brought
around him. Now, that problem with that was if we
brought a man around, he might have not been necessarily
permanent man, but he would have to come around because
we had kids and there was no way we could
leave them along by themselves up to you know, a
certain amount of times, or you know, we didn't have
time to keep managing that babysitting. You know, I'm gonna
(11:27):
keep my kids so I can go with John or whatever,
Da da dada and stuff. So eventually, at some point,
if you're spending you know, three or five times or
uh three or five times a week, you know with
this man, you this man is gonna steal your children.
You understand what I'm saying, no matter how much you
try to keep it a secret. And so what ends
up happening is to preserve that child's memory and not
(11:48):
see you as dating so many men, especially if ever
less you didn't work out, you would just say, oh,
he's an uncle. Now problem what that was? Because your
child and you, you're nine, ten years old, you pretty
much figure out this person ain't your uncle. But because
you have not explained to me the relationship with this
human being, I'm thinking now and my interpretation as a child,
(12:13):
if that's my uncle. But I see you in an
intimate partner relationship with somebody who you're saying is my uncle.
That I think that I was supposed to date my
relatives too, m m okay. And so here you get
a sense you see what I'm saying. So here you
get a sense of adultifying. Not only that when we
grew up, because I'm thirty five, where we grew up,
(12:34):
and and and even now I have to check a
lot of moms with their languages. When when we're talking
to our daughters and we're coaching them about dating dating people,
we say they could be sixteen seventeen, and when the
first thing come out of our mouth is baby. When
you're dating a man, this is what a man supposed
to do. This is how a man supposed to treat you.
(12:55):
This is how man supposed to act. Well, what you
just told your thirteen sixteente to your old child was
everything how to date a man. You did not tell
her how to date a boy. So when she go
to school and she don't even think kids her age, right,
she don't want them because you just trained her to
date a man. Damn. You see what I'm saying. And
(13:19):
so the language has to be curved and curb telled
to the audience of today. These kids are the twenty
one century and they are past millennial stock. So you
you you have to make your language more attractive to them.
But you can't tell the fourteen year old girl what
a man is supposed to do, because when the boys
she dating at school don't measure up to the man
that you told her was supposed to act like in
(13:40):
her life, then she's gonna go want a man because
you told her how to be with one right. And
so here it is you see stages of adultsifying before
this is the culture of the household, before they even
stepped outside the house. M hm. And so here it
is you got the grooming stages of adultification meaning adults.
(14:02):
Of adultification means that our race, such as black Latina
and biopic Black indigenous people of color, have implicit biases
placed on us, meaning that we are we could be
fourteen or fifteen years old, but there's certain things that
we could go through and and if even though it
might be challenging, we can stand to go through it
(14:23):
because we're black and we've been through more experience as
opposed to a white girl going through the same thing
at fourteen, fifteen sixty, and she would be protected. If
a fourteen year old girl got raiped, we'll talk about
her being raped and you know, and and talk about
it in the family and things like that. But if
before teen yo white girl got right, Well, she's still
a version and we gotta preserve her. We don't do
(14:46):
that without black girls. And so you you see what
I'm saying. So you you see a lot of the
adultified we we say, you know what, chucking up, sucking up,
you're gonna be all right, take a lick and keep
on ticket. We got all of these different you know,
African colloquialisms that were born out of struggle that we
used today that are supposed to make us strong. And
(15:07):
it's not making as strong as it's making a struggle worse.
Because if it happened at fourteen and I never got
dealt with at twenty one, I don't I can't stand
the thought of me being raped. And because somebody took
control of my life, I'm gonna take a tron of
my own life and I want to suck the whole world.
I just want to have sex with everybody because because somebody,
somebody put me in, somebody saw me as a lesser
(15:29):
human being, that took advantage of me, and now I've
lost control. Mm hmm. Facts that do you think people
still confused prostitution with human trafficking? And if so, why
all the time. So so, for instance, I was prostituting,
but I was prostituted, big damn difference. I didn't have
(15:52):
any control over who I slept with and who I
didn't sleep with. I didn't make those deals. When you're prostituting,
you make your own deals. Now those people called rentegates,
now you got this new thing where they're like, you
know what, fucking don't even call me a prostitute, call
me a sex worker. Well, I got a big problem
with that being on this side, being on this side
of subportion because I'm a conservative. I'm I'm a I'm
(16:14):
a I'm a conservative, and I'm not gonna necessarily sell
my hardcore conservative because I do have some Democratic views.
You know, I do agree with both sides on on
some things. But I'm way more Republican than I am Democratic. Okay.
And I had to learn that about myself because I
really didn't understand I really didn't understand them some things
(16:35):
that were not distinguishable to me until I started writing
laws and getting the past and I'm talking hello, but
you see my you see my Abram okay, and Blue
Apraham Lincolnshire and on y'all right, Because he was our
first Republican president. But he also did for the slaves.
(16:57):
Whether it was a political move or not in or
whether you felt like it was a sympathetic move, it
was a move to make sure that he knew that
white people were gonna need to work with black people
if they were if he was gonna grows the nation,
and the decision was about the nation. And here we
are running the damn nation and we need Do you
(17:18):
think he was black, girl? I think Abraham Lincoln had
a little nigger. And here what you're talking about? Okay, ok,
go ahead. He had to all his partners was look
who his partners was. Dump you eat the boys. Come
on now. He wrote all this stuff on that was
his partner, his partner, and all his in our girls speeches,
(17:39):
he wrote all of them. I think he had a
little nigging him too. He was just you know yet, girl,
m on a lot of them. Did I mean the
man who ran our our money for the United says
America was a foreigner and he had and he was
from an island. When you think about Alexander Hamilton's and
nobody thinking about him being oh my god, we had
(17:59):
a foring to run our money. Yeah, motherfucker. You had
a foreign to running your money who was also jill
because his mama was just and his mama was considered
a whole because she had more than one baby daddy.
Mm hm, So you know, you have to think about
stuff like that. So his his daddy didn't raise him,
his his second it the his his mom's second husband
(18:23):
ended up raising him. And they were from the Islands
and stuff. You didn't think they had a little black
people in him. Then, I don't know what to tell you,
but I know right now, you know, because I am.
I'm a Hamilton and I speak on it all the time.
My husband is like the ninth generation grandson to Alexander
Hamilton's and there's no way that could have happened because
my husband all the way black, he black, masking and white.
(18:45):
He got all kinds of stuff in him, you know,
and he looked like it too. And I'm just like,
get your weird ass away from me. So I'm just kidding.
I love my husband, He's amazing. But that just go
to show our history and bury y'alls history. We don't
think about something like this. Go back to your point
you is making when you had an issue with prostitution
(19:07):
and sex workers. I do. I have an issue with
people using the words you know, not just yeah, I'll
say it like that, people using the word sex workers,
because I'm not demonizing anybody who do associate with the group,
because ladies, I get it. But here's the issue. To consider.
(19:28):
What you do is work. That means that you can
tax my pussy, and you're not gonna do that. You're
not tasking my pussy, you're not taxing my tivities, you're
not taxing my mouth, You're not doing none of that.
And you gotta understand for me to consider us any
type of sexual activity, for me to for somebody to
purchase me and it be a type of work, that
(19:52):
that means you're taxing a human being, which brings us
back to slavery. So because human trafficking is the second slavery.
So you're asking me to prom wrote something that I'm against,
So I can't do that for it to be considered work,
You're you are saying less, consider taxing human traffic, and
let's consider taxing slavery. Let's consider taxing people. And I
(20:14):
am against that. So I don't want I don't want
there to be a corporate institute about my money, what
my money is going to. If I'm giving you money
I don't want, and if I'm returning money to you
because you paying taxes on it, I don't want my
government paying money back to anybody or saying hey, you
get to get an e I c UH or earned
(20:35):
income credit for your kids because you were selling yourself.
Do you understand? And now you are a part of
the work workman's compensation. You're a part of you you
You are a part of just um. What else do
we have um? You know, like if you hurt yourself,
(20:58):
you get short time disability, need long term disability. You know,
those are things that you don't get when you work
as a strip of the strip club. You don't get
short term and long term disability because you're independent contractors,
your tendingty, nonemployee. You don't get that. If you want disability,
you need to pay for that outside your pocket. The
problem is strippers are not thinking about insuring themselves. So
why why does the economy, why does the taxpayers have
(21:20):
to ensure you? Why do I need to sure you
are What you're doing is dangerous. We get if you
want to do that, that's on you. You need to
take complete control in all the liability. But why do I,
as a taxpayer, need to take liability for you? And
I want people to think about that. So you want
me to to pay you money that's already progressive and untaxed,
only to pay taxes on it and it's your trading people,
(21:44):
and you want me to call that work. No, you
got me fucked up. Working at McDonald's is worth telling
people and pussy a work that's not work. And if
it takes just as much work as to tell you
is to take to sell pussy and people, it should
take that just much. You should have that same kind
of attitude about actually working in the corporate structure. I mean,
(22:04):
I don't get it. This is a rocket science. You're
either selling people or you're not, including yourself. This is
the reason why to stay to Texas. It's illegal for
you to sell yourself and it's illegal for you to
buy somebody. It's a felony. And we're the only state
that has this, and I thank you great State of
Texas for that that constitution because I believe that our
(22:25):
values should be a replication of how we treat our people.
And you either for slavey or you not so thank you, Texas,
but it's Texas. It's Houston. Still known as number one
city for human traffic. We are number one for human traffic,
and we got a bunch of ship going on. We do.
First of all, you gotta pay to play here. You
want to pay to play in the in the political
(22:46):
market here, and you want your business structure here. Then
you pay to play. That's all you need to do.
That's all you need to do. You pay, You pay
extra taxes, you pay extra whatever to the city so
the city can function and run the businesses as appropriate.
And it helps with the city budget and finances and
everything else, you know, and and and then sometimes in
(23:07):
some places certain things to turn the blind out to.
I mean, it is what it is. That's how it goes. Now,
tell us about your upbringing. We how was I raised? Well,
let's talk about it. I mean I went into foster
care at eleven years old because I was a victim child.
So I was actually raped by a neighbor and um,
(23:31):
he ended up serving in jail time. And I had
the same nerves and things like that to that nature.
And then at about fourteen, um my my grandmother was
granted SMC which is so manic conservatorship of me at
fourteen years old. Now I went back home, there were
no safety measures UM put in place. So here's the thing.
Once once the cases over with, you know, the Department
(23:52):
of Family protect the services. The only thing I don't
like is maybe, just maybe, and I know they don't
have enough time, there should be some type of follow up,
maybe like three month records, six month recorse to a
year to see, hey, what to kind of measure what's
the success level of us return to this kid home,
(24:14):
back to this parent or back to this relatives. How
else would you measure it right? How else would you
measure it it being successful that they made a good decision.
You understand what I'm saying. And I think that if
that was in place, then bout the six month marker
once my grandmother had died. Because my grandmother died like
six months after me being returned back home, UM, and
(24:35):
she she passed away from breast cancer. You know the
adults that were you know, that were in my life,
which would be in her children, m you know, they
they did not directly want to you know, control the
part of her state that dealt with her grandchildren, which
(24:56):
which would have made me dead. Niece and nephew at
that time, you know, they didn't want that, and which
is fine, But at that particular point, I believe, you know,
the state should have been able to step in and say,
you know, hey, well you guys are awarding of this thing.
I was a bandon, and so let's just get that
out of style. I was a bandit. I was sleeping outside.
I was living behind a Walmart. I slept in a
(25:18):
cardboard box for months. I took a bath in Walmart
bathrooms and this is before they were even eco friendly. Okay,
so I just slept on so many bathroom floors. It's unimaginable,
you know. And just having to live within the constraints
of a cardboard box, I mean, you can only imagine
(25:39):
what that felt like for me to just have to
be right to die. Um. But I mean I I
understood some level, you know, I understood some level of accountability.
And I had a lot of levels of adaptability just
because of the transition and of life I had experienced
before being homeless, which was fonds to care, which was
being removed from family's home. I think, not to cut
(26:03):
you off, how much accountability can you take us a child.
You're right, You're right, But what I'm saying is as
far as survival, accountability is for as survival. I knew
I needed to eat. I knew I needed to have
somewhere to stay, like I knew I needed to stay
in school. Do you understand what I'm saying? Like, you know,
even though my situation was bad, I think it really
(26:24):
could have been worse had I made just had I
had that fucking attitude, like you know what, fucking nobody
cares about me, right, you know what I mean? And
I didn't take that approach. And you know, because I
didn't take that approach, that actually pissing some people off
because they wouldn't have preferred me to make other decisions right,
to not end up in the situation. But I really
(26:46):
didn't have any choice. And it's it's so freaking hard
for people to believe that I didn't have a choice.
Another part, Yeah, I think life is hard. This is
not easy when you don't have support. That's so true.
It is so true. And I think too, you know,
the other part of adultifying is when other grown of
people start measuring their ability to manage your conflict. Meaning
(27:12):
I was hearing adult conversations of how they were gonna
manage my conflict on a long a long term uh
basis meaning I'm living with them. I'm CouchSurfing, but I'm
living with them for a couple of months. Everything is
going good, nothing bad has happened. I'm not a bad kid.
I'm not doing anything wrong. But the conversation with adults
(27:33):
are are and I'm hearing it. It is, well, you know,
you can't stay here too long because you might get pregnant.
And I don't think that I should have been in
a place where I had to manage that conflict. If
it was if I can't stay here too long because
I might get pregnant, that should have been a conversation
that I wasn't privy to. If you didn't want me
(27:54):
in your household um longer than longer than um necessary,
then then you know, maybe how about talk to a
school counselor and say, hey, I got the kid living
with me. What do you think you know I should do.
She's not a bad kid, nothing's going on wrong. But
should I contact the proper authorities? Her parents has been deceased,
(28:15):
but she's going to school from my house? What can
what can the school do and that's not what happened.
It was like to move me out of the structure.
It was and they couldn't find anything wrong. It was okay,
you can't stay here too long because you might get pregnant,
and I don't want that happening. But I didn't know
when they told you you might get pregnant. Who was
gonna impregnate you the men in the house. But well
(28:38):
not only just the men in the house. You know,
a lot of the people I was living with a
couch surfing with. There was your boys. M so all
my friends was like, you know, these were young boys
that I had grew up with, and they were just like,
all right, I'm gonna look out for you. You know
what I'm saying. It was easy for them to beg
their mama who was working all the time for me
to stay because I'm like a straight A students. For instance,
(29:01):
if if if it was a young boy who needed
help with his homework, because I was really good at
math and I was helping with the homework all the time,
I could end up, you know, spending a night that
particular night because I stayed over helping with homework, right,
And if I was helping them get their grades better,
getting their grades together and stuff like that. Then it
would end up me staying a little bit longer. It
(29:23):
took a stress off the parents me being around. But
the second part of the conflict would be, oh, when
y'all might end up in a dating relationship with each
other and you might get pregnant. So every time there
was a decent situation for me to build a strong
partnership with with kids who did have parents, it always
turned into it being you know, let me cut this
(29:43):
short because there's another conflict that can arise out of this,
which at that time, I wasn't even having sex having right,
But I wasn't having sex right, So that's what ended
up happening. Yo, Niggas is trash man, I'm telling you
people are just trashed. But I'm telling you two girls, yeah,
(30:05):
so sad. But because of you always hearing that you
thought that pregnancy was the key to not being homeless,
exactly exactly. I thought pregnancy was going to fix me
not having to pick my bags up, and it was
only a bag. Like when you are desperate and you
do not want to sleep outside and you do not
want to eat chicken out the trash can for that night.
(30:28):
You are like, look, what is gonna solve this problem?
Don't nobody want me? Okay, maybe I need to get
pregnant because if I'm pregnant, people will sympathize with me
more and it won't be so quick to put me
out their house. Right. Wow, that's adultified. Right. So you
had your baby and he was taking your baby to
see in your purse, and I thought this was crazy.
(30:51):
How the school counselor was telling you to drop out
get your g e D. But you wasn't even a
d yet. And that's I wasn't. I wasn't. I wasn't
even old enough. The unregistered myself out of school. So
less than ten days after I had my kid, I
was sued by the State of Texas. I think I
had like my kid, I want to say, ten days
(31:12):
in less than thirty days. So I had justin at
ten ten oh three, I turned uh sixteen October thirty
of and then eleven oh five is when I was
sued by the state of Texas. So I wasn't even
a mom for thirty days and here it is, I'm
(31:33):
sued by the state of Texas. So how did you
get out of that situation and transition into the strip club. Well,
that's the thing. I didn't get out of that situation.
That's how I ended up in a strip club. So
once once the lawsuit happened, I mean, I didn't have
an attorney, I was an the doctor, I was treating
like an at I wasn't taken into foster care again.
(31:58):
As a miner with a child old, I was treated
like a mother, and I was victimizing my child. Mm hmmm.
My child was listened as a victim the entire time.
Mm hmmm. Do you see what I'm saying? And so
I was listened as a mother, but my child was
(32:19):
listed as a victim. Yo. It's crazy how they treat
black women, men, or just black girl if you was
a different race, right right. I think what is insiduous
was at that particular time, which I didn't know anything
about having conservative views, was that being judged against conservative
(32:41):
views when I didn't grow up in a conservative household.
M hmm. And and that's the reason why we need
judges that look like us, because a lot of us
do not grow with conservative views. I knew, I knew,
I knew nothing about a conservative view. Absolutely nothing. I
knew nothing about a man raising his daughter, whether it
(33:04):
was black or white. I do absolutely nothing about that.
I knew that white girls grew up with in the
two parent households, right, but I did not know what
the extent of her being raised, her being reared by
her parents. I just knew that she had both parents.
Whereas I'm a black girl, I know that I'm either
(33:26):
gonna have one other other or neither. And in my case,
I had none of I had no grandmother, no mother,
no father. I was an orphan. And here it is,
I'm an orphan standing in court with and like I said,
it's not a white black issue because black people are
conservative and I absolutely love and I'm conservative today. But
(33:47):
I'm standing in court as an orphan, and I'm being
measured by the justice system by somebody's conservative views of
how they think I should have been raised as a
young girl. And that's not the way I grew up.
So I feel like I was punished by somebody's opinion
about how I should have been raised and what my
(34:08):
life should have been like before I had even got
a chance to experience life. So at that that and
I know it's true because that helped me to understand
why the judge made his decisions about the future of
my life because there was no expectancy. There was not
an expectancy for me to get my children back. My
(34:29):
requirement was to get a g D, find a job,
to get a big a bank account and put money
in it, because I needed to prove that I could
be fi dociarily responsible for my kids. Right and to him,
to him, he was already a statistic right. Right, I
was already a statistic right. There was no coming back
(34:49):
from that. I mean that expected why I didn't have
a right. It explains why I didn't have an attorney. Um,
it explains why d psn't asked for me to have
an attorney. You know, I didn't have an airline. Nobody
worked my case, nobody, you know what I mean? Like,
there were a lot of things done wrong, Um in
my situation. I don't. I don't think that the expectation
(35:12):
was was for me to be successful in that situation.
I think that I just made a bad situation successful
mm hmm. Facts. Now, how are you introduced to the
strip club? So, my home girl, why do you why
do you start smelling? Because I'm addicted to it. I'm
addicted to the strip club. There's no I have to
(35:34):
stay away from him and the erie to me now.
But I let me tell you something, And I had
the best time in the strip club. I will not
lie about that. Sin is always so much fun. I
love my singing. I love I said, and I'm not
saying it to brag on that. What I'm saying is
I don't. I don't want people to just feel like,
(35:56):
you know, I'm embarrassed about what it was that I
went through. I didn't. I didn't ask for the strip club.
That was what was impressed upon me, because it was
it was a way out. And when you are not
an independent person, you're automatically codependent. You were allied on
other people's ideas to facilitate the future of your life,
(36:17):
and that slavery. And I thought my home girl would
have been the best person to be able to advise
me because she had already had two children, and she
was already she was already stable. He was that statistical
anomaly that was that that was presentable to a court.
(36:40):
Here's my home girl, got two kids, she's in church,
she's doing well, and that's what it appeared to be
and then I started thinking, oh, I only have to
do this based on appearance. Let me just make this
stuff look good on paper. And they really got to
be like this, you know, behind closed door. You know,
you start coming up with all of these different analogies,
and y'all gotta remember I was a kid. I was
(37:00):
a kid trying to protect my kid, and I never
knew what it was like for myself to be protected.
My mama never protected me, right, right, So I'm trying
to figure it. I'm trying to figure life out for
me and this kid who doesn't deserve this bullshit and
who doesn't deserve to be separating from his mom. Mm hmm.
(37:21):
That's all I knew. All I knew was I ain't
gonna be like my mama. Right. My mama dropped off
the school in the eighth grade. I dropped out of
school in the tenth grade. There's a lot of things
I thought I wasn't gonna be like my mama, and
that I ended up being just like my mother. And
mm hmmm, I'll go ahead, No, no, I'm listening, No, no,
(37:42):
I was gonna say. I also read that her mother
passed away and she too was a survivor of human trafficking, right,
I could wish I could say that she survived. She
was actually murdered by um um, the guy who was
pimping her out and stuff for drugs, because my mother
was addicted to crack. Okay, m hm. And my mother
(38:03):
was the type of mother she would always tell you
the truth. She did chicken cold things. She looked you
in your face and she'll say, you know what, I
love crack one, and I love you, and I don't
think it's a good decision for you too, you know, uh,
not necessarily following the footsteps, but but to try to
uh redeem me or you know, trying to take me
(38:24):
away from it, because I'm going to choose crack. This
is where I'm at. And I knew that about my mother.
I said to that about my mother, and it's okay,
And that's one of the things, okay, No, I was
just saying that, that's one of the things that help
(38:44):
me to survive human trafficking. I mean, because at the
end of the day, you're born looking like your mother
and your father, but you die looking like your decisions
mm hmm. And and my preachesses come on, damn that's
a fact. And I had to think about, you know,
when I started having children, especially when I started having children,
(39:06):
a boy my dawns by to me and I was
trying to I had to think about, you know, and
I was having boys too. I was like, I had
to think about how I want to die, how do
I want to leave my children? What memory do I
want my children to leave with me? And you know
about their mother and stuff. Because when my mother passed,
you know, I got a phone call from Harris County
(39:28):
asking me to Hers County and hp D. I worked
at the county at the time. HPD asked me to identify,
you know, my my mother, that my mother was, who
my mother was, and all it was was bones. My
mother had already been buried in the papers uh cemetery
meaning meaning somebody who who who didn't have any money
and who didn't have any family, and on my mother's
(39:50):
tombstone and says unknown from her birthday to her depth day.
M hm. And that's how my mother is remembered. It's
like she was never even here unknown And so that's
how I came up with that theory. And I was like,
you know what, yep, no, when when I die, it's
gonna be a great death. It's gonna be a great
(40:12):
I'm gonna go out strong, and my children are gonna
know me, My children gonna remember me, and my children
be able to have a headstone that says that the
mother was here and who that mother was, and and
who who is survived by her, and they will be
proud of who their mother is. That was important to me,
right facts. I feel like also what your home girl
(40:35):
did was she recruited you because I remember watching one
of your interviews and you said that human trafficking starts
with recruitment, exploctations and fraud. Right, oh look at you,
not then my homeworks us Now come on now, yes,
get yeah, absolutely so my mother and listen, my she's
(40:55):
my sister and I love her. Yeah, she's my sister
and I love her. You know, I don't think that
she knew she was being pimped out. M hmm, okay.
I think that the guy who was older than the
both of us just saw an advantage. He took He
(41:17):
took an advantage, He saw an opportunity, and he took
advantage of the situation. You know, it was you know,
I had work in the strip club. And all I'm
doing is wagers said, I work at this, won't take
my ID go work in another one, because back then
you could do that. There was no checks and balances.
Today though, because of what happened to me, there's e
(41:37):
verified Seeing now you got to put your right driver's license,
social and your birth certificate in the system. So the
strip club has to hire the same way McDonald's and
everybody else highed. You gotta go to verify so that
the ship that happened to me, it can't happen nowhere.
So you can't go working one strip club and then
be working in another strip club. But then they don't
(41:59):
know that you were. They're both of them. Mm hmm.
You see what I'm saying, because back then you just
you just filled out a piece of paper and as
long as you was cool with somebody, you could get
in the door. Right that was it. Mm hmm. And
I worked at Gigs Cabaret. I worked at at and
Nicole Smiths Uh strip club where she got found at.
(42:23):
Oh rich man, man, you come on, come on, okay,
but you know and rich white men are. Let me
tell you something about rich white men. I would have
been around enough of them to know that they are
some of the most informative people you will ever meet
(42:43):
in your life. They are so helpful, they are happy
to teach you what you need to know. Oh man,
they want you to know. They want you to have
a better life. That's what's so fucking crazy about all
of this. But because people, I know when people are
listening to me talk, they listen at my story. But
(43:04):
not one time if I ever said anything bad about
my jawns except for the ones that I got pregnant by,
because that's bullshit. It's bullshit to expect. And I understand
the abortion laws today because listen, I am a pro
life And that's why the funk I have eight children. Okay,
I don't believe they killing kids. Don't kill them. I
don't care how they got here. Don't kill kids. That's
(43:26):
where I'm at. Talk about me. I don't give a funk.
But that's why I'm mad. I had all my kids.
What what I don't what I what I am against
is forcing girls to co parent with abusers. There's gonna
have to be some type of logical um sentiment, some
(43:50):
some type of legislative formation two two I mean to
coexist for somebody to be able to have to coexist.
That's gonna have to be a formality in the family code,
whether you're in Texas, California, Florida. I mean, like, I
don't give a funk where you at. Where the girl
(44:13):
who is having a baby by the abuser is not
forced to compare with them, that has to be some
type of limited, limited purview on parentage, how much that parent,
how much interaction and things like that, because you know,
I didn't kill myself and that was fortunately for me,
but I know some survivors who would kill themselves just
(44:35):
so that they don't have to look at their abuser anymore,
or kill they child or kill the child. Yeah, I mean,
it is what it is. And I think that's one
thing that that the law has not considered. And I'm
really really asking them, especially this legislative session, because we
(44:56):
are until I'm in Texas. Guys, that's listening when I
a legislators, and and that's something that that's you know,
gonna be put on the table um because we don't abort,
which is fine, but we're gonna have to have some
type of some type of just curve, you know, for
(45:16):
how these girls have their parents. You're fifteen year old
daughter gets pregnant by somebody who raped her, or by
somebody who pimped her out. You ain't gonna wanna see
that nigga, right, You ain't gonna want that nigga have
your address. You ain't gonna want him to come pick
that your grand baby up. You're not gonna want none
of that, right, And so we we we have to
(45:37):
consider the new family dynamics and how to deal with
toxic family bonds. Hmm. I mean, because that's the truth
right now, once you start trusting the situation with you
being in the strip club and your friend put you
(45:57):
on her boyfriend did tell as you that you can't
have your baby back until you started paying him two
hundred dollars a day, right, because I wasn't giving him
enough money, mainly because I was trying to meet the
judges requirements of keeping the money in the bank account, okay,
and so to my little nickel and now my money.
I was giving him what was left over, and he
wasn't having that ship. So he was like, you need
(46:20):
to up the anti meaning you don't even know how
profitable you are, but I do. I was young, you know,
I have my I had my titties piers my tendos
had been pierces. About fourteen years old. I had already
had my first tattoo, you know, I just like I
wasn't a bad kid. I had just gotten just a ship.
And he was looking at me like, you know, you're skinny.
(46:41):
You you know you you got these legs. You can
do it, you know, go forward and put yourself out there.
And if putting yourself out there not enough, then maybe
I need to take something from you to make you
put you know, put your hustle game on. Put you
on your A game all the time. And you know what,
because that na took my kids away from me. It
(47:01):
put me on my A game all day long. I'm
all day I'm on my A game about my motherfucking
children and and and they and they never stopped because
since then, it has always been somebody trying to take
my children or use my children against me for me
to not have them, you know what I mean. And
I didn't realize that that was my superpower. And today
(47:27):
I'm one of the first cases in the state of
Texas that were suited for child support about the men
they were trafficking me because the state placed me in
the house with the man that was pimping me out,
me and my children. Mm hmmm, how is it even possible? Well,
(47:47):
according to court documents, they knew I was living with him. Um,
they labeled him in my documents as my paramore, in
which a paramore as P A R A M. O.
You are you guys? It is a legal term. Uh,
you use for like a side piece. Uh, during a
divorce or in marriage. Right, you would have a pair
(48:08):
more like my husband had a pair more that would
be the name of side piece. But uh, it was
it's an illicit sexual relationship, so that was listed in there.
I was sixteen years old. You cannot consent to sex
at sixteen years old. And um was just the one,
just the one that was twenty eight years old. Girl,
you'll do it all my business years old, that's right, right.
(48:33):
So I was born in eighty seven. So by the
time in two thousand and so, he had gone to
jail for the first time in nineteen because before dp DFPS,
which the Department of Family Protective Services, before they even
place you with someone, they always do a background check, right,
everybody knows they do a background check. His background check
(48:55):
it's in my court documents. So he had already gone
to jail as a first time offender. In well, I'm
born in eighty seven, was six years old. Right do
the math, yo, these niggas child child you have listeners,
look at that niggas real sideways y'all. Don'ta be pre
(49:20):
judging people. Just know that this ship happens, you know,
like like it it's real and you know this this
would happened in the early two thousands where we didn't
have any rules, regulationships and laws that governed how we
treat people and the value that we have when people did.
The government know about human trafficking, absolutely, but the term
was used for international issue. It was never a time
(49:43):
that was used for the America's That's why when taking
came out, the first place they placed, uh, the identifying
mark of human trafficking wasn't in Paris, right because they
happen in our backyard, right, you know. But it made
people that that was the inclusion and made people think
(50:04):
that it only happens and other countries that only happened
internationally or how they say the military old coon is
overseas right. So yeah, now a pimp from the club
her what was going on, and he came to protect
you from the situation with the nigger at the house.
(50:25):
But he was no better. But that was that that
ended up being a nigga at the house. Right, So
the pimp, so the one, the one I ended up
being with. That's the one who had to fight with
the dude who I was living with, my homeworld's boyfriend. Right,
he had to fight with right, Right. Okay, So this
was the guy who took you to the hotel and
(50:47):
told you to make some money, and he pulled the
gun out on you. This is at the point I'm
being sex traffic the first part of my story. I
was just labor traffic. I didn't have to sleep with
my home girl's boyfriend, but I was. I was. I
was doing other stuff in the club to get the money.
I was lying about the drinks, how much the drinks cost.
I was getting the extra money from that. Yeah, yeah, child, girl,
(51:12):
I'm telling you because I knew nothing about the hospitality
industry and how it work. I knew absolutely nothing about
serving people and about service and about the attitude of service.
I knew absolutely nothing about it. I knew how to hustle,
I didn't care who was sucking who in the club.
But I always knew who was sucking who. Everybody trusted
me with that secret. So the champagne room, the boom
(51:33):
boom room, I'm your girl. I'm your girl that's gonna
look out for you. So if you need to fun
somebody in the champagne room, because you did hit a lick,
so you need to suck him up or you need
to do whatever. Well, then when he paid you your five,
then you need to pay me my money too. So
he get your five, you need to give me a hundred.
So you're gonna walk away with four because I just
made sure that you didn't get a called by the
manager and you didn't get caught by swap because we
(51:55):
had bus and so I made sure you was one
of the girls who always had an alibi by what
you where you was, and what she was doing right right,
That's how I made my money. So if a girl
make five, I'm good. She had to make five, because
you gotta give me a hundred I got because I
just looked out exactly exactly. Now you do you do?
(52:19):
You do about three or for them a night? You
you come out of that making a five dollars. Right,
That's how I cut throat it is. That's that's the
that's the club, though I don't I don't know what
the club is like now, but that that was the club,
you know, for me back then. And a lot of
the girls, because I was in the White Girl Club,
(52:40):
they knew my story, like they knew what was going
on and things like that. They would always just you know,
take care of me, you know, chuck me. Some of
them would just chuck me. I was the youngest one.
I was the youngest one of trip club. I was
the baby. I was everybody's baby. Wow, So they're gonna
look out for you. Yeah, it looks out that that's out.
(53:02):
You were trafficing for five years and at the age
of nineteen. You mentioned earlier that you slept with men
because of this. Did you ever look at men differently? No,
I looked at I look at marriage differently though, how so,
because you know, being married requires you to blind blindly trust,
(53:27):
It requires you to give to something that you may
not understand. Mm hmmm. Because you gotta remember, I was
sleeping with other people's husbands. What ain't ship stopping nobody
from sleeping with my right ain't ship stopping me from
feeling what I made those other women feeling sleeping with
(53:49):
their husbands. Mm hmm. Okay, So don't ever think I
walk around here and and and I'm just all, uh, shore,
I got my ship together kind of thing. No, I
hurt for them. I'm born for them. I'm I ain't
never apologize to God so much in my life, but
(54:11):
I do it all then. And I'm constantly encouraging other women. Hey,
get the bag, but don't sleep with nobody spels together
because if you did that, you ain't gonna keep that bad.
That's not your bag, that's his wife's bag. And you're
gonna pay because you're stealing. That's why the Bible say
this is he said my house. He said my house,
it's gonna be a house of prayer, not a deal
(54:32):
of robbers and thieves. I had to think about what
the funk that meant? What you mean Lord about your
house is the house of prayer? Meaning if I need something,
then I go to the Father. That's why Jesus is
my sugar Daddy. I'm gonna go to the Father and
tell Daddy God, this is what I need, X, Y
and Z to No, I but I'm not gonna parting
myself against his word, meaning giving the devil the opportunity
(54:55):
to use to to use my life and the covenant
God with me against the kingdom. That's not authority. That's
witch crowd. And I had to understand, Okay, prostitution is
witch crafd This this is like I was going down
a deep whole. I was like, I did not God,
(55:15):
who teaching this on this level? Right? Then I had to,
you know, reconvene because revelations to every the level tells
you we overcome the enemy three different ways, not one way.
It says by the power of our testimony, not loving
life to death, and by the blood of the lamb.
And so I had to really really think about, Okay, God,
if I'm gonna come out here and tell my story
(55:37):
and we're really going to do this, then people need
to be delivered. You. You can't just know my business.
To be knowing my business, you need to know how
I stay saved, how I stayed my black ass at
the strip club, how I stayed not sleeping with somebody
else's husband, how I stayed not selling my body but saying,
how I stayed doing exactly what I say to other
(56:01):
women to not do and that's through the word of God.
I'm not practicing which crap. You're not gonna get me
to do with my mouth. You're not gonna get me
to do it with my body. But but I will
remain in a covenant contract agreement with the father because
that's what marriage is. It's about the covenant, right right,
it is what it is. You know, that's what I said.
(56:21):
I was like, yea, I do a lot of things,
but I ain't missing nobody's household. Yeah, oh yeah, don't
do that, and don't and don't overstep your boundaries with why,
because why is a powerful why bibble says wife has
the authority to to get rid of unclean spirits. That's
even if it's through the husband, and even if it's
through you. I don't want nobody having that kind of
power over me. That's a lot of power, girl, not people.
(56:46):
I don't think why I was understand that because by
the time they find out they husband is in a
strip club and he fell in love with a stripple.
You know, a Tea Pain came up with that dumb
mans song, I'm in Love with a strip Say you
love that song? Until you find your husband with some
home and you're like, motherfucker, then you're gonna think about
(57:06):
how much you love this ship were singing. And then
you gotta understand too, most of the holes that's singing
a lot of these songs, they are all married and
ship you gotta ask yourself why because coming it brings
favor from God. You see what I'm saying. Party B
was a hope, but that my fucking married and before
she had our baby, she got married too, so right
(57:31):
but she but but but you know what I'm saying.
Valati's coming up and she's like that. You got a
lot of motherfucker's trying to pussy pop for a box
of chocolate. This We do not need you pop locking
and dropping it for the chocolates. Listen, I be telling
these girls, especially my little young my little young sisters.
(57:51):
I'll be like, listen, I said, you better stop looking
at these girls and trying to be like thing goes.
You don't know what they're doing, not at all, how
they getting to it and what they get even up,
I'm just getting to the money. Right. Everybody mad? Yeah,
Like you can't be you can't be looking at what
everybody is doing because they ain't your walk. Yeah, that
(58:13):
ain't your no for sure, And then you know you
gonta understand human trafficking covenants things like that. It is
not the type of demon, is not the type of
demon you want to play with. It's governed by a
loving spirit. And I mean, and we can go on
and on and on. Um, We'll have to bring me
in on another episode so people can get down to
the real nitty nitty gritty of the situation. But I
(58:37):
would explain it to you like this, the reason why,
the reason why stream clubs is such an illegal source
and the reason why a lot of trafficking happens out
of it. So the strip club is governed by two guards,
which is the astroist and the ball right, and the
Baba talks about this all the time. The astra was
a female goddess, right, she was always naked, but the
bill was resemblance of a foul write a penis or
(59:01):
a pole. So when you get girls that get naked
and want to strip and dance on the stage right
on this pole, then she is the replica of the asteroisk,
while the poll is the replica of the bout. So
when you get men coming to pay money right to
these girls because they feel like they're doing a good
enough job. That's what they like to see. They're actually
(59:23):
paying homage to these gods, but they're paying it with
money that says in God we trust, well, which god? Motherfucker? Right,
let's be clear. And so you got a lot of
men that's in the strip club that's practicing witch classing.
And they come into these clubs with you know what
(59:43):
they would would with coving it because they're married. But
then they leave with all these unclean spirits and they
bring them to their wife and they wonder why they're
having problems at home. Right, Okay, The Bible says that
the power of life and depth is in the tongue.
When you think on you think would come out your mouth,
But people forget they wear fucking shoes and then your shoe.
(01:00:04):
That's a little piece in the fucking shoe that's called
a tongue. So it ain't just about what the funk
you say, it's about where the funk you go to. Right,
You bring that ship right back home. You bring that
ship right back home, right,
Host
Eboné Almon
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