Hustling Is Not Stealing : Stories Of An African Bar Girl

In Abina and the Important Men, lies a portrayal of daily life and operations of the area of Asante and its relations with British jurisdiction, on the Gold Coast of West Africa in 1876. Specifically, it is a story about a girl from Asante named Asina who is sold into slavery at a very young age and her journey to achieve justice. While Abina’s story was not well documented and well known, it’s brief mention in archived stories arose attention for the powerless and the silenced. Through Abina’s narrative and her fight for justice, and the contextual history of African and British relations, the depiction of “important men” their roles and how they impact her life and people like her are displayed.

What exactly is an ideal lifestyle? The answer is different for every person because some people desire more and some desire less. In the short story “Black Girl” by Sembene Ousmane, the reader learns about Diouana’s determination to climb the social hierarchy ladder. As the protagonist, she indulgences in the thought of moving away from her hometown in Africa where she has been working as a maid for the last few years for a rich white family. Her vision of the perfect lifestyle is living in France, where she imagines herself making millions and bathing in fortune. Unfortunately, things don’t always appear as they seem. The story illustrates that when one thinks of their ideal lifestyle they mainly rely on their personal experience which

Claire E. Sterk 's article Tricking and Tripping: Fieldwork on Prostitution in Era of AIDS ' published by Social Change Press in 2000 takes into account the patterns and procedures that anthropologists take into practice during fieldwork. She provides some useful insights and learnt lessons during her studies with prostitutes. She also provides a close and intimate account of their lives and mental state in their own words. Her findings are substantiated with proper examples in the accounts of the daily lives of these women. Unlike most student’s expectation of fieldwork as a leisure activity at some serene place, Sterk observes the pain associated with the lifestyle and brings into light some important patterns and procedures that anthropologists must consider while interviewing a research group.

The Thing Around Your Neck by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie highlights the often challenging lives of Nigerian women living in Africa, but also abroad in the United States. It is however, not the difficulties which Adichie is ultimately focusing on, but the courage and intelligence of women who are able to make ‘small victories’, overcoming various attempts of cultural oppression.

The book Hustling is Not Stealing: Stories of an African Bar Girl by John M. Chernoff tells Hawa’s story of life as an African bar girl. Known as an ashawo, which is another name for bar girl, Hawa shares her life story with Chernoff throughout his travels to West Africa. This review includes a summary of the book, background information about the author, and a critique of the book. Hawa’s stories share the struggles and freedom she experiences throughout her life.

The African Voices of the Atlantic Slave Trade by Anna C. Bailey takes a rather interesting approach into the history of the Atlantic slave trade. Bailey took a personal journey, and was determined to break the silence. Of course with that being said it would prove to be a difficult quest since so many of these people are shamed about slavery, and the discussion of slavery is a taboo topic in its own ways. It was time to break the silence. Through out the book she explores diverse groups, of distinct people who all share the prevalent history of slavery. Her central theme in unveiling the past is through oral stories. Bailey makes it known in the first chapter that most texts written about the slave trade primarily focus on the Europeans perspective, which is what sets her book apart. Bailey herself residing in Jamaica takes an intimate standpoint to slavery, herself being of African slave descent, and knowing very limited details about her extensive family history. “What is clear from my family history is that more is known about the relatively recent past than is known about the period when my family members were undoubtedly slaves) . Through the obstacles and difficulties Bailey was able to succeed, and gave those affected a voice. Her approach will be examined, and the strengths and weaknesses in her approach will be brought to light.

Prostitution, sometimes referred to as “the world’s oldest profession” (Henslin, pg. 54), is defined by James M. Henslin as “the renting of one’s body for sexual purposes” (pg. 54). This arrangement, though illegal and socially deviant in most parts of the world, exists universally in many different forms (pg. 54). As a matter of fact, types of prostitutes range greatly in variety from call girls – who are said to be “the elite of prostitutes” (pg. 58), to streetwalkers – “who have the lowest status among prostitutes” (pg. 58), to sugar babies -young, physically attractive women who provide “rich, older men” (Kitchener, par.4) “…with attention (and sex) in exchange for the finer things in life” (par. 4).

The study Melissa Perry-Harris uses as an analogy of the “crooked room” is derived from the field-dependent study which argues people are influenced by the clues in the environment to position themselves and how they people adjust themselves to fit their environment. The Field-Dependent and Field-Independent Cognitive Styles and Their Educational Implications, by Herman Witkin, Carol Moore, Donald Goodenough, Patricia Cox, in 1977 show that field-dependent people make greater use of external social symbols, but only when the situation is vague and these symbols provide information that helps to remove the ambiguity of the situation.

During the antebellum South, many Africans, who were forced migrants brought to America, were there to work for white-owners of tobacco and cotton plantations, manual labor as America expanded west, and as supplemental support of their owner’s families. Harriet Jacobs’s slave narrative supports the definition of slavery (in the South), discrimination (in the North), sexual gender as being influential to a slave’s role, the significant role of family support, and how the gender differences viewed and responded to life circumstances.

Harriet Jacobs’ work, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl is a powerful piece. In the slave narrative, she is battling to become a freed person which makes it didactic because Jacobs wants slavery to end. There is elements of gothic writings because it was something that truly happens.

The telling of a story is never easy, especially when the topic is racy, emotionally charged, and highly taboo. Rachel Moran deftly covers all aspects of her life in prostitution in “Paid For: My Journey Through Prostitution”, from addiction to abuse, and every moment in between. Moran utilizes macro level structure by dividing her memoir into three parts, and further dividing her book by chapters organized by topics concerning factors that contribute to prostitution, all in order to create a cohesive story that is compartmentalized for easy access to specific information, and creates a story that is used as a support system for a deeper message about the need for social and legislative change regarding prostitution.

This last response reading was The Modernity Bluff: Crime, Consumption, and Citizenship in Côte d’Ivoire by Sasha Newell. The book takes place in Abidjan, West Africa, which today has around four million residents, one-third of which are immigrants. The Modernity Bluff is essentially an ethnography of popular culture in Côte d’Ivoire among young unemployed men called nouchi. Once a derogatory slang word for criminality and urban youth, nouchi is now often used by everyone as a source of pride. Newell's focus of analysis is on what he calls the “bluff”.

Chinua Achebe was a Nigerian novelist, poet, professor and critic. He is mainly known for his trilogy that investigates, using fiction, the history of Nigeria. The trilogy begins with Things Fall Apart, followed by No Longer at Ease and ended with Arrow of God. Furthermore, in this critically analytical essay, through a feminist perspective, a chapter of his second novel, No Longer at Ease, published in 1960, will be discussed. The setting of the novel is Lagos, Nigeria and Umuofia, Nigeria during the 1950s, before Nigeria attained independence from Great Britain. The novel, No Longer at Ease begins with Obi Okonkwo on trial, charged for accepting a bribe. However, using flashback, the author takes us back to the point before Obi’s departure

The author’s effort to display oral literature, including expressing Ghanaian English speaking and non-English speaking society, in her work reflects her own persona as a contemporary writer resembling the African oral traditions and art work. “Shall I go to Cape Coast, or to Elmina I don’t know, I can’t tell. I don’t know, I can’t tell,” (Aidoo) Language, mainly English, is promoted to throughly capture various backgrounds and events of the play. Aidoo tries to distinguish Eulalie’s American-English speech that instantly alienates her from the rest of the characters. The author also quite succeeds in reflecting Ato’s educated language with a hint of lecturing that proves he has been indeed abroad, as oppose to his Ghanaian family. It crucially exposes the impact of colonialism on communication between Africans with distinctive educational and social situations, as for instance, the married couple’s complexed struggle to not only fully accept their cultural differences but also keep and hold onto their own identities. Aidoo also catches the inflections and outcomes of oral literature by using simple songs, traditional proverbs and imagery, such as the interesting ones in the dialogue between the two old Ghanaian women. “1st W.:But you know, my sister, That my name is Lonesome. I

In Eloka Okanga’s book on Igbo people (a Nigerian tribe) who have migrated, he had the opportunity of interacting with ‘casual sex-workers’ in Antwerp, Belgium. To further their career and ensure protection and stability these women employ the help of gri-gris a native medicine (magic charm). These women use it on other sex workers or on clients. In his first case study, he surveyed the red-light district of Antwerp and stumbled upon a Nigerian prostitute, but she was not working, she was fast asleep. He inquired about it and found out that she could be under a charm from the other woman she was sharing the brothel with. The gri-gris is used to make competitors sleep or fall sick. In his second case study, he was at a casual sex girl’s joint when an older man walked in, demanding to see a black girl. This black girl had manipulated his son into withdrawing all of his money and she could not be found. He claimed his son was not aware of what had happened at this time (278-280). These women use these charms as love potions to lure their clients into marriages and to remain legally in the country (277). These women do not see themselves as prostitutes as they do not allow it to determine their self-identity. They recognize it as a means of earning a living and enhancing one’s life - just like any other job (281). These women are definitely not victims neither are they helpless; they are able to apply their skills for their personal benefits.