Learning from Black Lives Matter: Resisting Purity Culture in US Antitrafficking

Abstract

Persistent racial disparities in antitrafficking in the US reflect the antitrafficking movement’s reliance on a moral economy of purity and blamelessness that is steeped in White supremacy. I deconstruct two key strands of this moral economy: the middle-class economic values associated with the Protestant ethic, and the patriarchal, Christian values around gender and sexuality associated with purity culture. Both of these strands skew White and fail to work reliably for Black people. Constructively, I argue that the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement is an important model for the antitrafficking movement as it models the explicit rejection of and divests from the logics and practices of White supremacy. As a Black-centered political movement that is committed to resisting the unjust dehumanization of Black bodies, BLM’s responses to systemic injustice and harms consistently prioritize the well-being of Black lives and the flourishing of Black communities. I elaborate specific ways that the antitrafficking movement can learn from the wisdom that BLM provides.