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Assignment 09

Roderick Ferguson characterizes the relationship between property, capital and prostitution in his book “Aberrations in Black” using the “queer of color” analysis. “Queer of Color” describes individuals that are outcast from society for having different identities (some may be deviant while others may be more accepted), along with the emergence of the drag queens and prostitutes.

According to Ferguson, property is a commodity (land or in some cases, property can be people such as slaves) and a social standard. Although we, as individuals, are not owned, we are considered property in the sense that we provide labor for a wage rate to the institutions that we work for. It is essential that we work in order to obtain wages from our employer, in the hopes that we can acquire capital in order to sustain survival.

Capital is seen as human labor, basically commodifying the individual for the purpose of labor production. Within capital, there is a hierarchy that is comprised of skilled and unskilled workers, followed by women and children with the lowest wage rate being provided to the worker for the highest amount of labor production attainable for the institution to profit. Ferguson points out that the state can influence the heteronormative nature of capital, without the state.

Ferguson continues to explain that prostitution is a combination of property and labor capital. Prostitution is different from property and capital because it is disconnected from the conventional, heteronormative values of race and gender. But, prostitution is still the ownership of an individual that provides a service (labor) for a waged rate. Ferguson explains that prostitution is a threat to the system (and ultimately not protected socially or legally) because it provides a method of mobility that would otherwise not exist for people in those demographics. Queers can gain wealth through the labor of prostitution, that could elevate them financially in a way that society doesn’t want or allow.

“Queer of color” analysis is important to the connection among property, capital and prostitution because it exposes the ways in which queers and prostitution go against the heteronormative state and threaten the patriarchal system. Homosexuality and sexual deviance are thought to be tools to destroy society and the morals of the heterosexual man. Creating a system that gives a sense of identity and wages (potential wealth) to these members of society could potentially grant them power and means to success that are directed to heteronormative men only. If queers can gain wealth through prostitution, they would take power away from the patriarchy.