By Asani Shakur
EDITOR’S NOTE:. A 25-year-old who grew up on the streets of Richmond, decided to write this piece because of what he sees happening in his community every day.
Barbaric. Evil. Modern-day slavery. Those are some of the words that President Barack Obama used to describe sex trafficking during a speech he delivered earlier this year at the Clinton Global Initiative summit. Obama also acknowledged that sex trafficking isn’t just an international problem – it’s a major problem right here in America.
In the Bay Area, pimping, once a hustle reserved for a small group of individuals, has gown into an epidemic in our communities. Glamorized in pop culture and especially in rap music, more and more people involved in the Bay Area street life are getting into pimping as a way to make money.
Nowadays, your average dope dealer or gangster is often also pimping. I’ve even seen junior high and high school students pimping the girls in their classroom. There are many innocent victims involved in this. Preying on abused girls who may lack self- respect or a sense of identity, or who come from dysfunctional households, is not fly. Also, the notion that only “bad” girls are out there on the streets is a myth.