In his “Aberrations in Black Toward a queer of color critique” Roderick Ferguson critiques the capitalist economy as the cause for the class segregated economy and inequality that is imposed on people of color. According to Roderick Ferguson, this capitalist economy serves the white patriarchal family model which divides the labor based on gender, race, age, etc. This hierarchy of labor ranks men on top and leaves women and children at its low. Ferguson also provides an intersection where property, capital, and prostitution cross or associate with one another. While property is defined as land, or something in which someone has ownership of, one can attribute humans as property in cases of slavery. However, in general it is better to think of property as a commodity or a product that humans buy and sell. Capital on the other hand, refers to human labor, which Ferguson believes that it turns into property that belongs to the institutions or employers that people work under. Furthermore, the relationship between capital and property turns people into properties that have been bought for their labor. Money then becomes the most important resource for survival so people start to get exploited and exploit themselves (prostitution) to make a living. According to Ferguson, prostitution is seen as a threat to the heteronormative state because people gain access to money in different ways than what the capitalist system has set and thus queers break the institutionalized heteronormativity. This is what Ferguson talks about in his “queer of color” analysis, their potential to break away from the patriarchal system. Queers portray a threat to the heteronormative ideals because they deviate from the oppressive system by ways that go against it socially, legally, and economically. Queers gain money that goes uncontrolled by the oppressive system and therefore gives them more power over the system’s oppressive ideals.
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