Jada Pinkett-Smith on the Dangers of Glorifying Strip Club Culture

Jada Pinkett-Smith is currently working on a documentary about human trafficking for CNN.

Recently she traveled to Atlanta and spoke with former strippers who were lured into sex trafficking. She posted a video blog about her experiences there.

Here's an excerpt:

I missed that young women were perceiving stripping as a way of being independent and balling. I missed that. I think that has something to do with my age because I was just talking to my girlfriend and I was like, “Hey, when we were coming up stripping was the bottom.” The stripping culture was not glorified when I was growing up. If you were stripping there was a problem. You were on drugs or something was wrong. Where as today, that’s not it. Girls look at strippers and go, “Yo, I want that!”

I totally didn’t see it until I talked to this girl today and I was like, “Oh man, okay!” So I guess my eyes just got opened and you would’ve thought that I’d caught that. I guess that just went right over my head but it help me understand how to tackle, how to see some of those myths that need to be broken; that messaging that needs to be broken that it’s the gateway. And then still struggle with the idea that a women still has to have her choice. That’s tough. That’s tough. I mean quite a dilemma in my own mind in this. It’s some things I have to reconcile with my own understanding.

Yeah, and that was my day. I’m learning, I’m learning as I go.

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Kimberly Foster is the founder and editor of For Harriet. Email or Follow @KimberlyNFoster

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