Raised in Pimp City: The Uncut Truth About Domestic Human Sex Trafficking

"You pimp! You trafficker! You should be skinned alive and burned at the stake! How could you possibly exploit another sexually for your own sick financial gain? They were prostituting minors! How could they be so sick? Prison, yes prison should be where we hide you forever for the destruction of human life that you caused. Stopping you means stopping the human sex trafficking epidemic! If we incarcerate you we can stop modern day slavery!"I heard these words as I watched a group of my mentees go through their case in federal court. With RICO conspiracy charges hanging over their heads, they were presented as gang members that trafficked girls for the benefit of the gang. I knew these allegations were false. I knew these young men personally. They were not pimps and definitely not "traffickers," a new word to me that I had never heard before until now. A word that I had to learn the meaning of fast. How did I know that they weren't "traffickers"? I quickly found out that for many years of my life I myself was a trafficker.I sat in the courtroom silent, not able to speak my first-hand knowledge of "the game." Regardless of whether I knew my mentees were innocent or not, these were charges they could never shake. I listened as law enforcement experts testified from their expertise. Ha! What did they know? These were people who had never spent a single day in the subculture of pimping and prostitution. They had no clue what that life was really like and if they did they were lying on purpose to continue the mass incarceration of young black and brown lives. Yeah, that had to be it.Entering the anti human sex trafficking movement as a former pimp and trafficker, I knew I would be alone. My past will not be taken well by many, but what other option do I have, stay quiet? Should I not educate people about domestic human sex trafficking and the pimping culture I was raised to believe was my only way of success? I can't stay quiet! I can't go off and live a normal life, gla