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Deborah Jeane Palfrey is dead, apparently by her own hand. She had been convicted on April 20, after a years-long investigation, of counts including racketeering related to her D. C. area escort service.
I am stunned, and too saddened to say very much right now, but I echo Amanda Brooks when she asks whether the International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers counts those who kill themselves after prolonged harassment and persecution.
Radical Vixen's interview with Deborah Jeane Palfrey, conducted last August. In solidarity,
Elizabeth
Technorati Tags: Deborah Jeane Palfrey, prostitution, sex, sex work
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...because public space really matters! Elizabeth
I would also like to thank Amanda for those words. I think we are all unutterably saddened and frightened by this terrible tragedy.
"All mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated...As therefore the bell that rings to a sermon, calls not upon the preacher only, but upon the congregation to come: so this bell calls us all: but how much more me, who am brought so near the door by this sickness....No man is an island, entire of itself...any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."
John Donne (1572-1631). Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions, Meditation XVII
There will understandably be rage and fury, which we must channel constructively, but now is a time for mourning, for remembering and for coming together. Deborah Jeane's death is a great loss, but I think she would want us to also remember all those who have lost their lives, were brutalised or had their lives ruined through senseless prejudice and oppression. In particular we remember her associate Brandy Britton who lost her life last year. When five young women were found murdered in Ipswich in England less than two years ago, there was a public outcry about laws that made women involved in sex work vulnerable, yet no action was taken. When it was discovered that over 60 women in Vancouver's downtown eastside had been murdered there was an outcry- nothing happened. Will we let this continue?
As Pastor Martin Niemöller (1892–1984) wrote " Als sie die Juden geholt haben, habe ich geschwiegen.
- denn ich war ja kein Jude. Als sie mich geholt haben, hat es niemanden mehr gegeben, der protestieren konnte." (Then they came for the Jews,- but I was not a Jew so I did not speak out. And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me.) Let us then remember a life and then rage against the dying of the light. But let us also ask ourselves, where were we? Were we there to protest, did we speak up against injustice, did we offer to help, were we we there in her last moments to offer help and sustenance?
Let Deborah Jeane's death be a call to arms, we can do no less.
“All it takes for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing.”
Albert Einstein
Now go here:
Her death is not an indictment of her, but of our twisted sad society, just as Brandy Britton's death was. Yes, Ms. Palfrey did make the choice to end her own life, whereas many probably hoped she would fight back against her conviction. It was probably too much for her to bare. These trials are less about justice than about political posturing. As with the disaster in Iraq, we are all casualties of bloated double dealing political con-men/women.
I wrote about sex workers who committ suicide earlier this year after a public arrest of a normal sex worker caused her to kill herself.
http://www.texasgoldengirl.com/afterhours/collateral-damage-from-the-war-on-sex/
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But I agree so wholeheartedly with what's been said above. I was one of those who hoped that she would fight her conviction; I was inspired by her intelligence and strength in the interviews she gave. I am very sad to see this happen, and I think it's about time we did something to change the hypocrisy and idiocy of the laws that caused her conviction and, I think, her death.
