(“The only thing Black I want is a Cadillac”)

(Mature Content)

Foreword:

As a survivor, advocate, and someone who has had the privilege to receive, provide and study services for survivors in detail; I can say with confidence that there is so much to be desired in the anti-trafficking landscape of resources that spans across the medical, legal, employment, and economic sectors.  Although Black, Hispanic, and Indigenous girls and women comprise the majority of those sex trafficked; as is, the current resources cater to mostly girls and women, and white women at that.  Middle-class white women will dominate the media as survivors, every time.  Everyone wants to share their story, be a part of it; turning right-wing maga supporters into anti-sex trafficking advocates with the swoop of a pen, in the blink of an eye. They definitely deserve it, but how much money, resources, and media coverage are spent on so few?  Will the time, money, and laws created trickle down to the Black, Hispanic, Indigenous girls, women, boys, men, and their communities in the past, present, or future? If history is correct justice rises up, and injustices are passed down.  Which brings me to all the boys and men who fall between the cracks of systemic injustice that began with slavery in the U.S., or long before that for that matter?  Are they casualties of war; poster children of what can happen if left to their own devices after being trafficked themselves; becoming the traffickers? What’s in your DNA, I know what’s in mine?  What about the services that pick the perfect survivor, only to share her story and pick her apart then discard her when the resources fail her, by design.  But that’s another story, this story is about my mom and the men who impacted me and her, the most, were they abusees or just her P’s: Black Cadillacs & white Chocolate, Autotune, Beneficial Jimmy, Sidewalk Sweeper, Hawk (my father), and Dirty Rice; these are the boys and men that shaped me,
oh the things I’ve seen….
 
Black Cadillacs and White Chocolate (The first saga)


The sound of arguing and crashing rose as he opened the door to my room, only to fall back to a faint background noise as he closed it.  “I’m your dad,” he said as he handed me a white porcelain piggy bank in the shape of a little rabbit.  His lips were moving, but I didn’t hear anything else after that.  My eyes were studying the outline of his face, his pretty eyes that seemed to penetrate my soul, his paleness in the dark. I didn’t see me in him. My ears were in the other room listening to my moms cries of distress, or was it laughter?  I couldn’t tell anymore.  What could I say, “Hi.” I mean I think I said that, but I don’t remember exactly how the conversation went.  I just remember that, that was the first time I met my dad around the age of 5 years old.  Before that I don’t think I ever heard the word Dad, or cared about one.  Touching my arm, he brought me back to the room.  “What’s wrong with my mom?” I asked.  “Oh, her and her friends are just discussing some things.”  “Don’t you worry about it, everything is going to be alright, I’ll be back.”  I wouldn’t see him again for a long time.  I’m not sure if my mom called him over that night or if him and Hawk planned to show up while AutoTune was there.  I just know I had to stay in my room and listen to a whole lot of grown folks stuff go on, but that was normal.


I would later find out that my mom was the reason I hadn’t been around my Dad.  I was told that they went to middle-school together and they had been in a relationship until my Dad wanted them all to go to California.  My mom, him, and his white girls.  He always had a lot of them, I was told, he loved white chocolate!  Then my mom became pregnant with me.  I was later told it was more like date-rape, but my mom denied it.  I guess she didn’t want me to carry that as well.  My mom told my Dad that I wasn’t his.  She actually had another dude sign my birth certificate.  This man loved my mom so much he signed another mans birth certificate, knowing I wasn’t his.  According to my Dad this broke his heart and he “had no choice but to move on.”  There’s a part of me that understands, but another part that is like why didn’t you fight for me, you knew I was yours and you didn’t fight for me.  I can count on one hand how many times I saw my dad.  I saw him again in 5th grade, we lived on Hudson with my Auntie Jackie in the Southend of Seattle.  He came by to see me and I talked on the phone with him a few times and then he disappeared again.  When I was pregnant with my oldest he came back around and bought her a car seat, took me out for lunch.  He spent that time trying to talk about my mom and how she did him wrong.  I honestly wasn’t hearing none of that.  I gave my momma hell for what she did to him; to me, but I wasn’t gonna tell him that, tf.  I ran into him and “his wife” and my siblings at the Albertsons in White Center around the corner from my house and he barely said “hi,” and she barely said “hi.” But she knew who I was, she knew I was his too. At that time, it was just my brother and 2 sisters.  I don’t think they had my baby sister yet.


It would be close to 5 years before I would hear from him, or I would reach out to him, that is.  I had been raped and I was in the hospital, and I don’t know why but I called him and let him know what I had been through and he said “you know what, I don’t think your my daughter, I just don’t feel the connection.”  “If you want to be in my life you have to get a DNA test, until then you can’t see me or my kids.” And just like that he hung up the phone.  Just like that he exited my life for the next 20+ years.  I really spent the next 20 years reaching out to him periodically, begging him to take a DNA test.  Every quarter I would intentionally take out extra loans to pay for a DNA test that he would refuse to take at the last minute.  I would take that extra money and go get high.  Drugs were my momma and my daddy, I turned to them instead of God, until I learned that God was the way, the only way.  I had played the broken record, a sad love story called Black Cadillacs & White Chocolate for my mom, so many times, if it were really real she would have broken the record and through the record player out the window.  I had wore that song out, wanting him, needing him; she probably felt like she wasn’t enough.  She was enough, I just didn’t know how to deal with not having him in my life that I took it out on my mom, the saga known as him, my dad.  I was prohibited from bringing him up to her anymore.  In hindsight, she was right, what else could she do about it.  She was 17 years old when she had made the wrong decision, or was it right?  “I don’t know why you’re calling me, your momma only sucked my d*&k, so you can’t be mine.”  I hung up the phone pulling on the Newport until the ash reached way past the line, I threw it on the ground twisting my foot on it I imagined it was his head under my foot.  I walked back in the house, “what’s wrong with you girl?” Nothing, I need some money. “Don’t worry girl it’s gonna come.” My mom always had a way of calming me down when she wanted to, and she was right it would come later that day; Jerri wired the money like clockwork.  I loved him, I miss him to this day, there was no trick like him.


“Don’t worry Joy, he will change,” my aunt Joanne said as she packed her bag as we got ready to go to my aunt Elaine’s house.  With tears running down my eyes, I didn’t know if I believed her.  I went to my car, started it and turned up the system, relighting the joint I thought about what it would be like to have him in my life. I knew that I had met my Grandma Mony, she knew that I was her baby.  I remember meeting my Grandfather King Henry.  I remembered almost hooking up with my cousin and my grandma running out of the room showing us both a photo of me as a little girl; “y’all can’t mess around that’s your cousin,” she said, holding my picture to both our faces with the vigor that was Mona Lee.  Wiping my tears away, I unlocked the door for my aunt to get in.  Stop tripping I told myself, you got your aunts, they love you, fu&* that nigga.  I had spent so much time trying to get him to acknowledge me, to love me, I felt pitiful.  Then I heard my mom’s voice saying “stay away from them people Joy, they just gonna break your heart, even more!”  What did she know, I thought.  That day was spent getting to know my little cousins and eating fried chicken that my Aunt Elaine’s dude made.  I would periodically go back and even bring my girls to see their  great aunts, and cousins in Tacoma.  That was until my aunt got custody of my cousins kids.  Things changed, a lot was going on, there and it was too much. I had came over by myself for the last time.  I was grieving my God cousin little Larry’s death 2 weeks before.  Showing up to Harborview I met my homeboy who worked there.  We smoked a blunt in the car and I went upstairs to see him alive for the last time if you want to call it that.


“You can’t go in Joy, only immediate family,” Joanne said sympathetically.  I began to breathe hard thinking about what he went through, How the Walgreens security guards had squeezed the life out of him after he was accused of following a white woman in the store, causing him to go into cardiac arrest while his mom listened thru his cell phone as they yelled “their killing him!” Holding on to the side of the wall, I grasped at it as I felt my legs give away, I begin to slide down the wall as Joanne reached for me, grabbing my arm she began pulling me back up like a bad kid who was having a fit, “fine, you can see him real quick, damn, girl you just like your mom, smiling with deep sadness in her eyes she pointed me towards his hospital room.  This would be a reoccurring thing.  Like I felt I had been in this very place before.  Looking at him, he barely resembled the boy I grew up with, and later the man I would see on occassion.  Touching his curly, now short hair, I said what his mom told me to, “Its ok Larry, go home, it’s ok.” I smiled reminiscing of the last time I saw him alive in Vegas at my God Grandmas house, remember you stole my money at Grandma Pearls.”  I had just made that money ni$$a,” laughing I said my goodbyes. Going back to the waiting room their was a group of ol heads from West Seattle, all his people, just eating, playing cards, I guess waiting for him to pass; according to the Dr.’s.  I sat at a table by myself and scanned the room.  Some people looked familiar, some not at all, when a lady came to my table and said “you should call your dad.” My ass did just that, why did I do that?  Calling him, he seemed more interested in knowing about who was all at the hospital, and what had happened to Lil Larry.  Considering he said my mom “embarrassed him in front of them,” I was unsure why he was so fascinated.  Maybe that’s why he suggested that I come to his house and bring my children with me because everyone there would think that he was doing the right thing.  Fast forward, a few weeks I showed up early to the meeting spot close to Children’s Hospital in the Northend of Seattle, where he told me to come.  Looking in the rear-view mirror my girls sat pretty and prim, with their new dresses on, their hair freshly braided with beads.  “It won’t be too long now my babies,” I said as I glanced at the time. 5, 8, then 15 minutes had passed since the time he was supposed to show up.  With every minute the knowing of what was to come creeped through my body, like a raging silent red scream that grew from a small spot in my stomach, growing to my chest, then my shoulders. 


Tears began to roll down my cheeks as he opened the door and sat down, avoiding eye contact, he looked straight ahead.  “You know I thought about it Joy and I didn’t put your mom on the track, Autotune did, but I did put Kacey on the track, and I owe her.” What does that have to do with me?” I asked.  “I can’t bring you to her house, you can’t come over.”  Slamming my hands on the steering wheel I could see my girls jump, scared, not sure what was coming next.  “I forgive you dad,”  “Yeah, I forgive you too,” he said as he got out the car and closed the door.  I immediately started the car and as it begin to rain the raging red scream that had been growing inside me could no longer be contained “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAhhh,” came out of me before I knew it.  Screaming and crying I could barely see the road in front of me between the tears and the rain, I began to swerve.  Something said pull over as I was about to go across a bridge, and I listened to it.  There I sat on the side of the road with my girls in the back and I cried, I screamed, I prayed, and eventually I got myself together, but before I did, I had asked for God to help me, help me God! I said this over and over; and I think he did, he had stopped me before I crossed that bridge. 

I told myself that would be the last time I reached out to him, and in part it was.  He had really put me on a ledge this time, but I was able to get it together momentarily and drop my babies off at my uncles.  I went to the room Jeri had gotten for me (adjacent to the room I had gotten for my mom and her “first love,” my God uncle) I confessed to my mom how I had wanted to die.  I had begged for God to take me home, as I cried on my knees, she did the only thing she knew to do.  Crying herself, she slammed the bible down in front of me.  Get yourself together girl, do it if you gonna do it then, that’s right, you ain’t gonna do that shit, you better open up the word, you better listen to what God’s word tells you, that’s your daddy, he’s mine and yours, that ni$$a ain’t your daddy, fu*k that shit,” and with that she walked out the room and slammed it behind her.  Looking at the door, then at the bible, then back at the door, I cried as I thought of ways to kill myself, crying some more, I opened it, I opened it to the Book of Malachi, and the Book of Malachi saved my life that day.


I reached out to my siblings some years later and I definitely over shared.  Out of frustration I spilled all the beans to my brother.  After pleading to him first by sharing the nice version on how I came to be his older sister asking him to “please take the DNA” his only response was “I have to side with my pops on this and he says he doesn’t know you.” Then something else took over and I responded “Say… my momma and your momma were both hos, and your momma was his ho, and I kind of think our dad was my mom’s ho, and I need you to take this DNA test to prove that I’m his kid.” It just came out, I swear I felt I didn’t have control.  Welp, safe to say I was blocked after that.  Not giving up I tried an even more subtle approach with my 2nd to the youngest sibling on face book yet again, but this time she started calling me “crazy, and a stalker,” saying “I was following my dad around and that I better not come near her and her family or she was gonna kill me.” 

After that I  just left it alone, until one day he called and he wanted to meet me, he wanted to take the test.  After getting off the phone I couldn’t believe it.  Was he gonna stand me up again, was this a ploy to have one of his kids do something to me.  I had asked my older cousin and her babies dad to come with me in case it was some funny business.  We met at Jones BBQ off of Yesler and he showed up by himself.  After eating some BBQ him and I alone went to Walgreens and got a do-it-yourself DNA.  I was surprised at how cheap they were now.  All those years of me trying it had cost close to $1,000 or more, plus traveling from Portland and everything that came along with that. We took it, and we talked periodically until the results came back.  Kacey called me “You’re our baby, it says 99.9, he is the father,” she said laughing like everything was good.  Surprisingly she sounded like the female version of my dad.  I guess it was because they had been together so long.  “Yeah, that’s what it says huh.”  Can I talk to my dad.  “Oh honey, he will be right back, he had to go to the store.” 


After that, there would be many conversations between him and I, visits with my siblings, minus by brother, even an overnight with my baby sister.  I was so happy, all I ever wanted was them, really. And my baby sister was young enough that I could be a positive influence.  When she had gotten into some trouble like teenagers do, I was able to talk with her, I even bought her a phone and paid for it for as long as I could, until I asked him for help with the bill one time, that was the end of that, that was the last time I was able to talk with her.  He said Kacey and I are sending you a Christmas present and when it came it was the phone.  I never got to speak to her again.  One time he even came into her room and made her get off the phone with me, like we were discussing something bad.  He just didn’t want me to tell the truth.  I had told him, “Look I just want to move forward, but I’m not gonna lie.”  I had long since given up on having a relationship with him.  And from our conversations he was just trying to do damage control.  You see he was trying to get me to say that he didn’t know all along that I was his.  That the conversation he had with me at 5 years old didn’t happen; him buying my daughter’s car seat didn’t happen; all the conversations with him cussing me out didn’t happen.  Then he went on to tell me about him and his love for white chocolate and how they had went to “California for awhile,” then “Texas” and back again.  He went on to say how one of his white chocolates who had left him had been killed by the Green River Killer and they had even questioned him but he blamed it on the dude that was giving her drugs.”  Then he shared about growing up and how his older sister that wasn’t by my Grandfather “reminded him of me, always causing trouble when she came around.” He talked about my aunt Gloria’s poisoning, how he was abused by someone at the juvenile and even a “Pastor,” and how my aunt Kathleen had killed herself high off of angel dust or something like that after her “Dude was sentenced to a long time in prison.” He said that she was “affiliated with some Black Panthers and how he got to help some of them “borrow food” and feed kids in the program.”  He talked about how my “Great Grandfather would have him go to school and bring home little white girls and he would get paid to do it.”  That’s how he “started pimping” he said.  He said that my Great Grandfather had turned dates with practically all of my aunts and my Great grandmother turned a blind eye to it.”  He said that my “Great Grandfather was not my grandmas dad it was an Italian who raped her in Portland,” but she was “never to speak about it and they had tried to pay them off but my Great Grandfather wouldn’t have it.”  Later on during one of my last visits with my aunt Elaine she had said something similar; that she was told the same thing that my great grandfather “had attempted to do something to her as a toddler,” as well.  But were they all just lying, was he just lying to me and to others about me, in an attempt to get me to have sympathy, you be the judge.  I guess what really resonated with me was his clear distaste for Black women, for me, as he would constantly remind me that “the only thing Black he wanted was a Cadillac.”

Conclusion

Research into the intergenerational impact of prostitution etc., on kids has been going on since the 1980’s.  I’m not the first one to say, however I’m going to continue to speak it to anyone who listens; that when any child is impacted by that lifestyle know matter how they identify it dramatically impacts their quality of life, so much so, it should be a new question on the ACES.  As a 70’s baby I feel like they could have very well been studying me, lol…I think back to a heated debate I had where I allowed my emotions to overpower my feelings. While I won’t go into the specifics, I will say I was speaking about how the life, prostitution, and the commercial sex trade etc., impacts children the most, and “how we’re not all adults here, and how impacting one child impacts us all” and her response was “my children are fine!”  I lost all logic at that point.  Hearing that from a white woman with privilege just reinforced how the very few get to determine the bar for the rest of us.  How some get highlighted and some get liberated while others remain oppressed.  Never mind, how the current resources we have supports some Black girls or women impacted by exploitation while completely abandoning the community, the boys and the men of that community that is until they perpetuate the narrative.  It reminds me of old school photos where you scribble over your friends’ face, so you don’t see her but you still keep the picture because you and your other friends look cute; or someone made Gumbo with okra and you don’t like okra so you just take the chicken, and seafood, and spit out the rest.  They’re still in the photo, you just can’t see them; the Gumbo still tastes like okra, you’re just not chewing on the pieces. 


You can’t solve a multi-step mathematical problem by removing a fourth of it, solving that portion, and then putting it back with the rest, expecting it to add up correctly.  In the same respect you can’t solve a fourth of a puzzle and honestly say to yourself that the puzzle is complete. We all come from one demographic, one race; yes there are differences however we are all one group, one people, with specific cultural needs, a shared identity, a shared culture, a shared trauma. What impacts some members will eventually impact us all.  The depression, anxiety, houselessness, feelings of unbelonging were their way before I became an adult, and I know they were there for Black Cadillac & White Chocolate too.  They were in fact passed down in my DNA and learned at the same time.  And when I had my own kids, I completely panicked sending my oldest to live with someone who I expected to do better than me.  No one can be a better parent than I could have been to my child. Yes, I needed help, but I acted impulsive, I made a permanent decision based on my emotions again. My other child well that was a whole different story.  I was so overprotective I cut off any chances of communication between her and I, and I was avoidant in all the wrong ways.  My attempts to have different outcomes fell short of what she needed, I wasn’t enough.  Was it my mom’s fault, was it my fault, was it God’s plan, or all three.  I don’t know, I know I have to forgive myself over and over again.  I know my mom had to do the same and I’m sure my grandma did as well.  How can we address these residual effects that prostitution, the commercial sex trade, exploitation have on our children?  How do we treat the whole community, the whole demographic even though it impacts members in different ways; is it even possible? I know what it had on me.  It may have been normalized but I know how it impacted my story.  I know my mom didn’t want that for me, and I damn show didn’t want that for my girls, but it’s my story, you can’t have me without it….

Malachi 1:6 (KJV)

“A son honoreth his father, and a servant his master: if then I be a father, where is mine honour? And if I be a master where is my fear? Saith the Lord of hosts unto you, O priests, that despise my name. And ye say, Wherein have we despised thy name?”


References:

Duff, P., Shoveller, J., Chettiar, J., Feng, C., Nicoletti, R., & Shannon, K. (2015). Sex Work and Motherhood: Social and Structural Barriers to Health and Social Services for Pregnant and Parenting Street and Off-Street Sex Workers. Health Care for Women International, 36(9), 1039–1055. https://doi.org/10.1080/07399332.2014.989437 Cited by: 109
Elsdon, R., O’Shaughnessy, R., Hodge, S. M., & Murray, C. D. (2021). Becoming a mother in the context of sex work: Women’s experiences of bonding with their children. Health Care for Women International, 43(6), 663–685. https://doi.org/10.1080/07399332.2021.1949598 Cited by: 12
Murnan, A., Wu, Q., & Slesnick, N. (2018). The impact of parenting on child mental health among children of prostituting mothers. Children and Youth Services Review, 89, 212–217. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2018.04.042 Cited by: 13