THE ROOTS OF MY REAL NAME: Sex Workers Disrespecting the Space of the Other

Reclaiming one’s real name has always been controversial and even deadly. The more oppressed one is the more they are named by outsiders, rarely given the power to name themselves. Add race, class and imperialism and names become something given to us rather than created by us. People’s names- from slaves to immigrants- have always been anglicized to fit the insular terrain of the American landscape. My own first name of “Carol” was inspired by colonialism brought to my own Middle Eastern/North African heritage. The ownership of the human body occurs on so many levels that it is no wonder we have yet to taste the sweet fruit of freedom.

The play I created, My Real Name, is an empowering play that differentiates between our branded name and our reclaimed name. The men and women who represent this in our play are survivors of prostitution and sex trafficking who ran away from the plantations of yesterday as well as the corrupt corporations of today. In many ways, My Real Name is the offspring of Alex Haley’s ROOTS. The movie still reminds me of what happens when people’s identities are suppressed. When ROOTS first came out, White America thought it was going to agitate racism. Yet, during the making of the movie the African body in America was still being raped, imprisoned, lynched and terrorized, therefore the only thing that was being agitated was the denial of racism. Many feared the power of the movie because it sought to expose that perhaps the American dream was, as Malcolm X said, an American nightmare to some. In ROOTS we saw the traumatizing results of slavery. We saw how Kunta Kente’s name was whipped out of his Black body and replaced with the Anglo name of Toby. My Real Name exposes how the only thing that has changed since ROOTS is that all colors and classes of bodies are now being placed on the auction block.

When the play was performed in Berkeley, I did not expect everyone to agree with the political or artistic integrity of the play, I did however expect respect for the stories that were coming from the colorful canvas of humanity. Instead what we faced was a display of racist and classist disregard for the production by a few sex worker advocates who were monolopolizing the little space we had where the stories of survivors were being told . These women disrupted the survivors and actors from the audience, loudly making rude comments. Their racial arrogance believed that anyone that does not think like them do not deserve to have their voice without their own being louder. These women mimed what society at large does daily to women of color and the poor. If these women were trying to learn another perspective from that night, they would have seen that the survivors all made it out. They obtained their educations, secured jobs and are living lives, where they are defined beyond their vaginas, mouths and asses.


Many of these sexual liberators who perpetuate the right to sell the body are privileged White women. I cannot name who they are because they do not even know who they are.
They recruit women of color into an organization they control. Those who refuse membership are threatened with their imperialist ideology that goes on smear campaigns against the Other. This is precisely what they told us they would be doing to My Real Name. My Real Name prides itself on being a racially and ethnically diverse production, where the minority race is White. We seek out people who are interested in deconstructing race, class and sexuality as it relates to oppression. The audacity of the sex workers disrupted the voices of the survivors by heckling them from the audience and then making a scene, thus, turning the night away from the survivors back to themselves. Women like these can only deal with diversity if diversity is under their suffocating blanket of whiteness. They have a history of misrepresenting greater people than myself and the survivors. We do not feel like we are exempt from their dishonesty, but neither do we feel like turning the other cheek.

The stories of survivors that are chosen for My Real Name are redemptive. They are like the offspring of Mary Magdalene, a woman who left the drudgery of prostitution to walk side by side with a Prophet. She was the first to see her comrade’s resurrection because she had gained sight. After years of seeing man’s ugliest cravings taken out on her, she was baptized through the anointed fires of tribulations which ushered forth the soothing water of liberation. Magdalene taught these lessons of freedom to others. The same thing the survivors are doing. Impeding survivors from doing the same is abuse to humanity. Historically, when wars of genocide have broken out, the universal critique from survivors was that they were not allowed to be heard. That night, the voices of survivors who lived through the genocide taken out on their bodies decided that this time they were going to be heard. They did not ask for imperialism to hear us. That is a slave mentality. They are part of what is called a revolution. Revolution means the turning of time. In other words, changing what we have perpetuated for centuries and creating a new paradigm where our worth is measured by walking next to you and not sleeping under you. Revolutions must change through time or they become as corrupt as the regimes they replaced.

The play has very disturbing scenes but none were as disturbing as the real lives of trafficked persons. The play is almost as traumatizing as ROOTS, but only those who have not healed their real trauma will walk away feeling hurt instead of healed. In other words, the viewer must face themselves if they are going to name themselves. It may not be the viewer’s reality, but it is someone’s reality. The flashback scenes are intended to make the audience feel what the survivors had felt so they can become more appreciate of where the survivors are now. We can’t understand the magnitude of atrocities through rose colored glasses, while expecting those suffering from it to take it with no filter. I have found that some people want a “civilized’ interpretation of oppression. Oppression is not civilized. We cannot detach from people’s pain by watching it on CNN with the censors against truth in place. We cannot cover our eyes when the bad scenes come, because that is the same as covering our eyes when crimson storms flood and drown our very own humanity. If God must see all of our digressions, then why are we supposed to be spared? Not one of us will see the infinite and breathtaking scope of freedom if we cannot even glance at the finite destructive forces of bondage.

The sex workers do not rebel against being valued for their bodies. Instead, they have fallen in love with their oppression. They suffer a severe case of Stockholm Syndrome, showing intense loyalty and protection toward a system that has abducted their worth and convinced them that commoditization of the body is the admission that is paid for freedom. This stance has devastating effects on the poor and people of color to whom they spread their message. They exploit a street prostitute’s reality by telling her it is her right to be a sexual slave. It is much harder to convince the girl on the street to be free. Harriet Tubman once said: I helped hundreds of people escape slavery. I could have helped thousands except they did not know they were slaves. Their philosophy of freedom is dangerous. They act as overseers who seductively manipulate oppression and freedom to their benefit. This hurts the women they are turning out. Opponents of the anti-sex trafficking cause defend their stance by saying that prostitution is the oldest profession in the history of humanity. Using this precedent is like saying genocide, murder, hate, war and oppression are also as old as man kind, but should we not rise up from beings trying to be human to simply being human beings?

After the sex workers attacked the stage, they attacked me. I was never raised to fear imperialists. Instead I see them as my equals. Yet, imperialists do not like when people from the 3rd world are powerful and intelligent. When the voices they suffocate rise up and string the vibrations of our tongues with the eloquent beats of our speech; when we integrate their own English language with our ancient poetic rhymes in ways that stretch language; when we create something they fear, they default into what they can always fall back upon: by treating us like the typical plantation owner’s wives that they are who scream rape and violence when the Other doesn't bend to their will. The superiority complex of the sex workers lied and said that one of the survivors, who is an African American, physically violated them. The physical violence was done in reverse, with one of the sex workers violating the physical boundaries of the survivor. They accused us of violence and hoped dominant society would also default into their lies. They went on by further terrorizing the very organization that sacrificed what little money they had to help bring our production to Berkeley, Students & Artists Fighting to End Human Slavery (SAFEHS).

Many of these sex-workers have often claimed that they are not racist because they have had Black lovers. When the plantation owner slept with his slaves did that make him less racist? One sex worker, in her efforts to prove she was down with the cause, flashed a Che Guevara tattoo. Although her reach to touch freedom and missing it was sad, she had allowed her stubborn loyalty to exploitation to use Third world bodies and symbols in order to prove her radicalness. Tragically, these sex workers did not realize that Che never trained revolutionaries with a gun in one hand and a sign around their neck saying we offer blow jobs for $10 (or whatever the capitalist market value is for each person).

By making a scene during and after the show, they make one message clear: the voice of the “Other” does not deserve a space unless it validates the identity of dominant culture. There is no room from the Other in their world. We are just exotic things that can be used to decorate their fetishes for sale. If we speak, we are whipped through the media they dominate. We carved out our space outside the glaring judgments of whiteness and they still had the arrogance to complain why their images weren’t represented. Their images are already over-represented in the “pimp-ho” mentality of Hollywood, videos, music and websites. They certainly do not need me for their validation. Whiteness is, as James Baldwin said, a dangerous state of mind.

The sex workers succeeded in doing two things. One, they momentarily distracted me from my path so that, once again, attention stays on them instead of the people who are being exploited. Their movement is based on attacking people who are trying to heal humanity and I should not have allowed myself into their hell. The slickest trick of the devil is to divert our energies from the real path. Two, these sex workers honored their matrix by going to the media and spreading stereotypes of the Other. I am in the process of trying to evolve by cultivating love for all of humanity. Love doesn’t only lie down, it also rises up. I have different philosophies from my sex worker sisters, but each philosophy should be tested for its validity. If my philosophy hits a brick wall, wisdom would demand that I change. I had a great mentor who advised me that when someone is riding our backs, the natural posture we fall into is one with where our backs are bent and hunched over. The best way to get that monkey off of our backs is to simply stand up. When we stand up, that oppressive weight simply slides off. We will never know our real names if our backs are bent over with our eyes cast down searching for scraps the master threw on the floor. This mentality has caused division and war. It is time in our evolution as a human race to become spirit instead of body centered.

Article by Carol Chehade who is the creator of My Real Name. She can be reached through http://www.onenewearth.com