Following up on my previous post, How New Laws in Arizona and Rhode Island Will Tend to Benefit Traffickers at the Expense of Their Victims, where I compared the consequences of laws against illegal immigration in Arizona and laws against prostitution in Rhode Island and most other states.
Another element of comparison would be that not only do such laws particularly benefit traffickers at the expense of their victims, they also seriously disadvantage people who are similar to those who are outlawed. And incidentally this is seen not as a bug but a feature for proponents, who by are by and large not, in Arizona for instance, motivated by disdain not only for illegal brown people but for brown people period. And so they could give a lily-white shit that their new law makes life a living hell for residents who’s families have lived there since before statehood.
Activists in Rhode Island similarly despise not just forced sex work but all sex work, and so they could give a patrician’s cuss if non-trafficked sex workers in their domain are forced into deeper peril.
As I say, increasing misery for legal residents and legal sex workers isn’t a flaw in these laws but an entirely desired result.
And yes, as a matter of fact I do believe that reflex prejudice interferes considerably with the creation of policies that might instead mitigate any real problems that might result from either sex work or migration from places where opportunities are fewer than they are here.
You are correct. AZ politics
Submitted by osoborracho (not verified) on Mon, 2010-05-03 21:35.You are correct. AZ politics is dominated by white supremacists (Sheriff Joke, Senator Pearce, etc) who want all the brown people to ‘go home.’ They don’t care that AZ was formerly in the middle of Mexican territory and many Hispanic and all Native American families have been here for more generations than the white ones.
Another element of comparison
Submitted by maymay (not verified) on Thu, 2010-05-06 15:17.This is a very, very important and oft-misunderstood point. The fact of the matter is that “people who are similar to those who are outlawed” are often unaware that despite the fact that they, themselves, may not view themselves as “similar” to the newly-proclaimed outlaws, the people who lobby for and make the laws do see them as similar. Therefore, this is a bigger danger than most people realize.
For more about this issue and the dangers of conflation, in particular, I would strongly recommend reading this post, along with the comments thread: Donna M. Hughes is lying to you about sex and slavery (she is the founder of Citizens Against “Trafficking”, also humorously referred to as “Citizens Against Pleasure and Health” due to Hughes’s campaign against the woman-owned and operated non-profit sexuality education business, The Center for Sexual Pleasure and Health).