Ebony has skin the color of jet. She is one of the darkest people I have ever seen and she is breathtaking. The only way I can describe her is that her skin glows dark. Strikingly, her eyes are a light brown, golden in the lights flashing on stage. She is full-figured and voluptuous, her body moving in serpentine ripples. In DayGlo colors that catch the black lights, she is unbelievable.
I watch her from the corner of my eye as I sit at the dressing table and put the finishing touches on my hair. The palate of her makeup is the opposite of mine and I am fascinated. To contour cheekbones I use a darker color. She uses a lighter color. The blush crème she rubs into her cheeks is the color of wine. She uses a bright gold bronzer along the tops of her cheeks and sparkly gold eye shadow.
At work, Ebony wears a wig of waist-length black. Her natural hair is kinky, standing out in a short halo of tight curls. She covers this with a wig cap and affixes the fake hair, carefully fanning the bangs across her forehead. She’s beautiful both ways and I cannot stop looking at her velvety skin. She is terrifyingly perfect and I’m afraid to speak to her.
Upon first meeting her I smiled and said, “Ebony? Well, that’s descriptive.”
Her eyes flashed at me. “Well, it’s not like I’m gonna fool anyone into thinking I’m white.”
“Um …” I stuttered. “No, I imagine not.” Why would she want to be white? I wondered. I would kill for that skin. I wanted to place my hand against her just to admire the contrast.
She grinned dismissively and, to my knowledge, never looked at me again.
It takes me a while to realize that Ebony makes significantly less money than I do. I first become aware of this while eavesdropping on her conversation with another dancer. The two of them compare their nightly take, and Ebony names a dollar amount $60 less than the other (white) girl. I do not initially think anything of it—our nightly earnings vary depending on the clientele and whether or not we had regulars.
But then I overhear her again several weeks later. “You white girls make all the cash,” she tells another girl.
Can that be true? I wonder incredulously. So I start paying attention.
Over the years I worked with a number of black girls and Latina. The black girls make about half of what the white girls make. They have fewer regulars, and those that they do have do not spend as much. The Latina girls make about two-thirds of what the white girls make. Some of them sell themselves as having a more exotic pedigree: Asian, Spanish, even Moorish. They exoticize themselves for American consumption.
It’s more difficult to get hired as a woman of color. I never saw a white girl get turned down for a stripper position. But I saw black girls get refused for auditions entirely. I once heard a manager say, “Sorry. We already have black girls on both shifts.”
That semester in college I took Feminist Philosophy. I considered myself a feminist because I believe in equal rights, but the concept of intersectionality had never really occupied my thoughts.
The class, like most classes on women’s studies or gender, consisted of 14 women and no men. I was surprised by this because the class was taught by a popular professor in the philosophy department. In classes I had taken with her previously, the scale usually tipped slightly in favor of male students. I did not yet realize that men don’t think gender is about them.
In terms of race, the class was ten white women and four black women. We read Judith Butler and Alison Jaggar and discussed the role of emotion and gender in epistemology. I understood the material, but I began to have a nagging feeling that maybe, by focusing on sexism, we are actually perpetuating it. I think of feminism as a lens and, like any lens, it can teach us to see abuse where there actually isn’t any. I began to wonder if the women in the class were seeing sexism where none existed.
One day several weeks into the semester, I finally voiced my concern. “I’ve never been discriminated against for being female,” I said. “I don’t think anyone has ever taken me less seriously because I’m a girl.”
The black woman sitting next to me rolled her eyes. “Yeah, but look at you,” she said.
“What do you mean?”
She leaned in closer to me, and to this day I give her credit for not just laughing in my naive face. “You’re white,” she explained patiently. “You look like a Barbie doll. Of course people take you seriously. Or at least act like they do. They’re probably trying to look down your shirt.”
That moment was the first time that the concept of privilege, and the recognition that I have some, clicked for me. I began to understand intersectionality: the concept that every person is an intersection of privileges and oppressions, and that different social constructs like race and gender identity intersect and influence one another. The fact that I am white decreases (though does not eliminate) the sexism I experience in my life. Women of color are more likely to experience sexism in addition to racism.
This brings me to Elizabeth.
I meet Elizabeth in a high-end club in a small, wealthy town in a western state several years later. She comes bouncing into the club one afternoon and asks to audition. In stocking feet she might stand 5 feet 2 inches and she is a big girl: wide thighs, swelling ass, baby-fat tummy, breasts that spill over her tank top. She has a round face and round blue eyes all framed in a shoulder-length mop of frizzy curly hair of a nondescript ash color. She has a wide smile that makes me and the day-shift manager spontaneously smile back. She also has an unmistakable Irish accent.
Aaron is both tending bar and managing the club. He glances at me and lifts his eyebrows. “Sure!” I say. “I’ll take you back to the dressing room so you can change.”
I take her backstage and show her where she can leave her clothes. “Have you danced before?” I inquire.
“No, but I’m here on a student visa and I can’t work a real job. And I’ve always wanted to try it!” Elizabeth strips off her clothes with no hint of modesty and pulls on department store lingerie: lacy bra with matching thong panties, garter belt with stockings, and a sheer nightie that ties across her breasts and just covers her bottom. She straps on sandals with a blocky 3-inch heel.
Baby heels, I think with a smirk. I wear a custom outfit of crisscrossing black straps and interconnected rings. A black bikini top with silver studs covers my breasts, and the whole ensemble is topped with a floor-length sheer jacket through which my bare skin glows. In addition, I wear a metal collar with inch-long spikes, and four of my fingers are encased in jointed silver rings that cover the entire finger. Thigh-high patent leather boots with a 5-inch heel complete the look. I wear almost a thousand dollars’ worth of clothing and accessories. I look like I just walked off a movie set.
Elizabeth is unfazed by me. I am not used to being taken in stride. Everything about my presentation is designed to provoke awe. But she is so friendly and bubbly that I find myself sharing that I go to the same college, that I went to Oxford for a bit during undergrad, and that I have never been to Ireland. When she’s ready I briefly explain stage protocol.
“You’ll audition on stage one and you can pick your own music. Wait until the second song to take your top off. Don’t touch the customers once your top is off. And make sure to keep your crotch covered. Not even a pubic hair can show.”
She nods seriously, never taking those blue eyes off me. I take her to the DJ booth and turn her over to the day-shift music guy.
A few minutes later she takes the stage. There are three customers sitting at the railing. One gets up and leaves but the other two look at her with interest.
She can’t dance at all but she wriggles and gyrates enthusiastically. A lot of new girls have little body control and less rhythm. Some women never truly learn grace and the fluid movements of stripping. I peg her as one of those.
She has no fear of the men sitting at stage and kneels in front of them, bumping and grinding with gusto. She says something and they lean toward her, rapt, and she beams her thousand-volt smile.
Aaron elects to hire her and I work with Elizabeth for nine months, the length of her course in the United States before she returns to Ireland. Unlike Ebony, Elizabeth rakes in the cash. She makes more money than most of the girls in the club, myself included. Her personality shines from her like a beacon, and her hearty laugh and thrilling accent light up the entire club. In appearance she is homely according to social conventions, mousy even. But her confidence level is like nothing I have ever encountered. She loves the club, adores dancing, dotes on people, and appears to have not a single iota of concern for her appearance. Confidence truly is the most beautiful thing.
Surrounded by women with fake tits, women who starved and bleached, plucked and concealed, Elizabeth radiated honesty and self-esteem. She and Ebony are like bookends in my memory, juxtaposed examples of the complexity of femininity and race in the modern world. Ebony remains one of the most sensual people I have ever seen. Hers was a blistering, overwhelming beauty. Elizabeth was her complete opposite: plain and plump. But she, too, had an overwhelming personality. Ebony taught me that race matters. Elizabeth taught me that looks are not everything. As long as you’re white.