Cyber Show Conflict

minor edit: this post is public and no longer behind a paywall, apologies for the paywall.

I know I said I would post my story, and I will later this week, but I need to get this off of my chest, because it has been keeping me up at night.

I have been so conflicted this past weekend trying to navigate whether or not the statement that my organization wrote was fair, accurate, and empathetic, and at this moment I am second guessing every word because of the pain I see people experiencing. But let’s back up a little bit, to examine how this debacle came about. Last year, the Cyber Clown Girls agreed to a collaboration with Dolls Kill, a popular clothing brand that has for years profited from a stripper aesthetic without explicitly supporting strippers. The Clown Girls saw the opportunity to make money, expand their visibility, push DK to explicitly support stripper movements, and enjoy cute merchandise. Hosting a cyber show takes many uncompensated hours of labor, and having additional streams of income is often necessary to make programming these shows with the regularity the Clown Girls do, a viable financial option. However, the Clown Girls were unaware of the controversies surrounding Dolls Kill, particularly around their troubling reaction to the BLM protests, their history of excluding Black models from their roster, and not hiring Black people to upper management positions. Once the Clown Girls realized the gravity of the error, they wanted to repair their blunder, so they hosted a community forum with Dolls Kill, so that BIPOC people could voice their criticisms publicly and the community could come to a consensus. The forum was mostly okay, with a few minor missteps wherein White members of CCG spoke over Black participants, but there was nothing particularly grave on its face, and many people left feeling satisfied that they had spoken their peace. However, all hell broke loose when the Clown Girls publicly posted a recording of the forum, not realizing that they had forgotten to edit out 30 minutes of post forum discussion in which a few White members of CCG complained that they were being treated too harshly; that those offering criticisms were “yelling” to get their points across; and that those people were “attacking” CCG unnecessarily, dog whistle terms that are frequently directed at Black women. The people who were the most angered by the Dolls Kill collaboration, and who voiced the most outrage were Black women. The community saw the thirty minutes of damaging footage, and were again outraged that what they had perceived to be a productive conversation had been skewed in such a way that their concerns were dismissed rather than validated. This caused the community to take a closer look at the racial makeup of those making decisions in CCG, and the lack of diversity in many of their shows. A few Clown Girls made private statements apologizing for what happened during the forum, but it was not enough for the community to forget the initial wound. From there, the conflict spiraled out, with many in the Black community expressing greater and greater outrage over how the conflict seemed to not have been handled adequately. The Clown Girls made an apology, and decided the best course of action was to move forward and do better in their future actions. They emphasized inviting more Black dancers, opening up to include people outside of those centrally part of the Jumbo’s community, donating thousands of dollars to various charities, and did what they could to privately attempt to rebuild relationships with Black members of the community. However, this was not enough for many Black leaders, who continued to volley criticisms, and insisted upon what in essence became a boycott of all Cyber Clown Girls events. This imposition of a boycott trickled into other organizations, with some Black leaders pressuring all orgs to boycott Cyber Clown Girls events. The boycott even extended to other cyber shows with people who had made problematic statements, ie Sinferno, Dirty Dayshift, etc. While the boycott is a useful mechanism to enforce change and accountability, there were no specific demands made, or guidelines for how one might end the boycott. Simultaneously, the shows that were not blacklisted narrowed, which meant that there were fewer and fewer options for dancers looking to support themselves via performing in a cyber show.

Strippers United had been caught in between, on the one hand, acknowledging how damning some of the criticisms against the various cyber shows were, and recognizing the need for reparative measures to be taken; on the other, having intimate personal relationships with many of the members of the various cyber shows, and noting that there did not seem to be any clear and specific demands for reparations on the part of those enacting the boycott. Black members of the community felt extremely hurt and angry that Strippers United had not taken a firm stance and had not publicly called out the various cyber shows for their actions. Internally, the SU community was split. Half of the members wanted to take a firm, condemning stance against what had been said. The other half was wary of capitulating to people who had not made clear demands. Everyone acknowledged the gravity of the situations, but for many months, we attempted to address the issues privately, having conversations with all of the parties involved individually. However, our private actions began to appear to be inaction, and complicity. Simultaneously, a number of members of SU continued to perform in the boycotted cyber shows, which led to further backlash from a few people in the Black community, who saw it as breaking the line. However, the issue was further complicated because it was Black members of SU performing with the various cyber shows under boycott. I continued performing with the Clown Girls and Natalie continued performing with the Clown Girls and Sinferno. Because we continued performing, we were essentially called traitors to the cause of Black liberation.

Boycotting a means of financial support is not a luxury many people can afford, especially right now. It was as if our actions in this one instance undermined all of our years of labor. And it was clear many of the cyber show directors felt similarly. While they had intermittently made problematic decisions or used phrases that were racist, there did not seem to be any way to effectively navigate out of the situation. As a result, Strippers United issued a statement edited over a few days communicating the complexity of the issue. I participated in crafting it, and signed off on a few edits. A few important points that I made sure to include were 1. A condemnation of dog whistle language, 2. Unequivocal support of the BIPOC community centrally, 3. Restating that there is no ethical means of supporting ourselves under capitalism, and that the ban is unfair to those struggling, and 4. Asserting that not all Clown Girls were equally to blame for the words and actions of a few--some were complicit in certain actions, but not all went as far as those who had initiated the drama. Frustratingly, the nuance of the statement didn’t really compute. Many Clown Girls felt they were unfairly targeted, that the statement picked at old wounds they felt they had begun to recover from, and they felt that the statement asserted that the entire group was full of racists. However, on the other side, a few people in the broader SU affiliated community expressed that the statement made them realize that boycotting CCG and other cyber shows was economically hurting dancers. They softened their stances in relation to the boycott and continued affiliation with the various cyber shows mired in the conflict.

The timing of the statement could not have been worse, however. Unbeknownst to those crafting the statement, CCG was orchestrating an event specifically to support the AAPI community in the wake of the Atlanta shootings. Members, particularly Coco Ono, were especially hurt by the timing and the perceived erasure of AAPI identity within the notion of diversity--something that the Clown Girls have been called out on. However, the specific statement released by SU was not calling the Clown Girls out on diversity. The statement narrowly focused on the Dolls Kill issue and the ensuing 30 minute discussion that specifically called out the usage of dog whistle language. The goal of the statement was to create transparency within the community, and to initiate a painful public discussion about the fracturing these conflicts have caused.

We have begun planning a forum with a professional conflict negotiator present, who will act as mediator, since these issues are incredibly personal, and there are hardly any people who are untouched by what has happened. We all have stakes, and for one of the members of SU or another sister org to mediate, would not facilitate the most productive of conversations.

However, regardless of intent and the care with which the statement was crafted, the unintended consequences cannot be ignored. Many people were hurt. Friendships have maybe been irreparably damaged. The statement cast a shadow on an event that was intended to be healing rather than fracturing. And whether or not this is all for naught is still up in the air. We could have caused too much pain for people to be willing to come to the table to parse it in a forum. While I believe that sometimes it requires a bit of pain to come out on the other side of a conflict like this, at this moment I hope more than anything that we made a wise choice.

I feel regret for a number of things. First, that we didn’t warn the Clown Girls ahead that we were making a statement. We could have communicated with the Clown Girls we trust, which are honestly not a small percentage of the group as a whole. There are a few people in that group who I do not trust or like, but there are a few who I am very close to, and whose pain I have struggled knowing I inflicted. If we had spoken to them, we would have immediately known how terrible the timing was for our statement, and I know we would have delayed publishing it to allow space for Coco’s show to go on without this shadow. I have been very sad about the state of things within the stripper community. I know that there is a lot to resolve with regards to how BIPOC interests have been sidelined in a way that is violent, and a lot of that has to do with the ways White dancers profit from the system that discriminates against their BIPOC counterparts.

Additionally, Natalie has further criticised the release of the statement, and I take her opinion very seriously. Are we allowing ourselves to get mired in something that was not created with the goal of resolution? Are we capitulating to the demands of people outside of our central organization instead of first and foremost focusing on nurturing ourselves, and listening to what those in the organisation have to say? And what about the incredible leap of faith the Clown Girls took with us so long ago, volunteering to align themselves with SU, an organization so clearly focused on unionizing? What about acknowledging the numerous actions they have taken to be better, to right their wrongs and learn from their mistakes? Aren’t people allowed to make mistakes and receive forgiveness?

There’s an additional level of personally knowing how the CCG show, and many of the other cyber shows, have been completely demoralized by these conflicts. While they could have done better to proactively pursue reparative justice in a public forum, many are also at a breaking point. They have been dealing with fatigue, the burden of public fall out, and the issue of no new BIPOC wanting to help take over programming to help with the issue of representation. They have found themselves trapped in a vicious cycle of nothing being enough, and as a friend, I have felt a lot of sympathy for their issues.

The statement, while poorly timed and full of its flaws, was intended to be a step toward squashing a conflict that has been going on for nearly six months now. The intent had been to clearly address everything as soon as possible, publicly, with the aid of a 3rd party conflict mediator, and to be done. We would not engage with further criticisms of old actions. We would have a transparent means to demonstrate that all parties were willing to come to the table and accept criticisms. We were aware that we in Strippers United would also be subject to criticisms of our own shortcomings, since we have had our share of blunders. We knew it would be painful, but those volleying criticisms, and those within our own organization who have long held criticisms, would have time and space to voice these things finally. You have to break a few eggs to make an omelette, as the saying goes. Of course, making an omelette seems like the least apt way to describe the slew of emotions and pain stirred up by the statement we made.

On a personal note, I have been agonizing over this, going back and forth, rereading the statement. I posted it, because I knew that I would be the one who would need to absorb the blame in the end, as president. It was not a bit of my job that I wanted. And, I immediately received a flood of anger, and pain from a person I care about deeply. I hope that in the end, it will all amount to something good, but right now, I’m sitting here with a bunch of cracked eggs, unsure of whether the omelette will ever come together.