Black Players: The Secret World of Black Pimps

by Christina Milner, Richard Milner

Originally published in 1973, Black Players was the first book to do a thorough examination of the urban pimp culture. Social anthropologists Richard and Christina Milner were allowed access to the secretive and controversial world of pimps and prostitutes. Black Player guides the reader through every aspect of this unfamiliar world, allowing the Players to describe themselves, and the rules of the game in their own words. The Milners interviewed many of the top pimps in the Bay area and other parts of the country during the late 60's/early 70's. There is even a rare interview with legendary pimp-turned-author Iceberg Slim in this book. Out of this experience, has come one of the most fascinating journeys into a secret culture ever written.

Genres: Nonfiction

329 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1973

Reviews

[Rachelr · Rating 3 out of 5]

this book was given to me by a co-worker, mostly as a joke. i did read most of it though, and it was actually quite fascinating. it started off as someone's thesis, as they explored the world of black pimps in SF in the 70s. while parts of it were hard to read due to the apparently inherent misogynistic undertones of the pimp philosophy/way of life, it was certainly interesting/entertaining/educational.

[VEL – The Contemporary Heretic · Rating 5 out of 5]

To validate flawed sociological dogmas such as cultural determinism and feminism, generations of anthropologists have ventured into deserts, jungles and other remote, dangerous and inhospitable corners of the globe in an effort to discover (or, if necessary, fabricate) the existence of a society in which traditional western sex-roles are reversed.

The enterprise has proved singularly unsuccessful.

However, back in the 1970s, Milner and Milner, two American anthropologists, discovered precisely what their colleagues have been searching for in vain right in America’s own backyard—or rather her own backstreets.

This was the underground subculture of pimps and ‘hos’, where:

“Women are the economic providers… [whereas] a man may spend hours a day on his hair, clothes and toilette while his women are out working to support the household” (p5).

Other features of the pimp lifestyle at odds with mainstream American culture include the prevalence of polygyny, with households often composed of a single pimp and several hos (p5).

Interestingly, this family structure and pattern of economic activity parallels that still prevailing in much of sub-Saharan Africa, where polygyny is ubiquitous and women are self-supporting and perform most agricultural labour (Draper 1989).

One interpretation, then, is that African-Americans are recreating in America an approximation of the mating system, and economic system, of their African forebears.

Male Dominance and Pimp Philosophy
Of course, although women are the economic providers and pimps concerned with their clothes and appearance, in one crucial respect, conventional sex roles appear to be, not reversed, but accentuated in pimp culture.

Male dominance, the Milners’ make clear, was complete and unquestioned.

However, ‘pimp philosophy’, the worldview passed down among pimps from mentor to student and described by the Milners in detail, raises serious questions about whether this too, in some respects, represents a reversal of the sex roles apparent in mainstream society and whether, in ‘square’ society, it is indeed men who are really dominant.

Thus, according to the ‘pimp philosophy’:

“White men (and square blacks) are thought to be ‘pussy-whipped’ by their wives after having been brain washed by their mothers to accept female dominance as the natural order of things. Most families today are controlled by women, who direct the goals and manage the money… by withholding sexual favours” (p161).

It is indeed the case that, while men work more hours and earn more money, women dominate consumer spending.

According to the ‘black players’, square husbands are ‘pimped’ by their wives every bit as ruthlessly as street-hos, by being obliged to financially support their wives in return for sexual access.

Thus, according to pimp philosophy “The highest level of prostitution is—the wife!” (p221).

“Whether the men want to admit it or not, every woman is a ho regardless of what the status is—housewife, nun, prostitutes, whatever you want to say. The Housewife gets longevity, you know. She get the vacation every year, she gets the security with the fella on the twenty-five-dollar-a-year job. Vacation every summer, the golf club, country club” (p227)

Interestingly, this view of male-female relations directly converges with that of anti-feminists such as Esther Vilar in her book The Manipulated Man (which I have reviewed here).

Thus, one pimp describes how wives bear children only because:

“She knows once she has one or two babies she’s gonna have him locked down tight and even if he leaves she can still get four or five hundred dollars a month [in alimony] if he’s making any kind of money” (p227).

This parallels Vilar’s description of offspring as “hostages”, used, like hostages kidnapped in order to make a ransom demand, to demand additional monies from the unfortunate father.

“His wife is pimping him, see? She gets him to get up every morning, cooks his breakfast to make sure he’s good and strong, gives him his vitamin pills and everything, hands him his little briefcase, you know, so he can get out there and get the buck so she can go play bridge, go get her hair done, understand?” (p229)

The pimp-ho relationship is thus directly analogous to the marital relationship, only with sex roles reversed. Thus, in the endnote the Milners quote sociologist Travis Hirschi as observing:

“The similarity of the pimp-prostitute relationship to the husband-wife relationship, with the economic roles reversed, is too obvious to overlook” (p285; Hirschi 1962)

The process of socialization begins early, according to pimps. Thus, the Milners report that:

“[While] several pimps asserted that pimping comes from Black men being supported by their mothers as kids and deciding to continue the arrangement… most pimps… believe that they were raised by their mothers not to be pimps, but to be tricks. ‘Trick marriage’ is seen by the pimps as a man’s servitude to women in exchange for ‘her pussy’” (p174-5).

As it is mothers who raise children, they indoctrinate their sons from infancy to accept ‘trick marriage’ and female dominance as natural, normal and healthy.

“She is, from the time you are a kid, understand, giving you a certain set of values which in reality is a woman’s set of values. She is brainwashing you to the extent of how to treat a woman” (p176)

As a result of this indoctrination:

“If you are a boy, say twelve years old, and you see Mom and Dad fighting you naturally come to the defense of Mom… [because] from the time you were young, she’s the one who changed your diapers, bathed you, made sure that you were clothed and shoed and everything else, so you naturally come to the defense of Mom. And you forget entirely the fact that it was Dad was the one who made the money that put her in the position to do all these things in the first place. So when you become a man and encounter a woman you automatically accept the values which were taught to you there.” (p177)

This again parallels Esther Vilar’s contention that:

“Men have been trained and conditioned by women, not unlike Pavlov conditioned his dogs, into becoming their slaves” (The Manipulated Man).

Thus, Vilar observes:

“The advice a mother gives to her teenage son going out on his first date is a good example of woman's audacity: Pay the taxi; get out first; open the door on the girl's side and help her out. Offer her your arm going up the steps or, if they are crowded, walk behind her in case she stumbles so that you can catch her. Open the door into the foyer for her; help her out of her coat; take the coat to the cloakroom attendant; get her a program. Go in front of her when you are taking your seats and clear the way. Offer her refreshments during the intermissions – and so on” (The Manipulated Man).

As a consequence of such early indoctrination, even one otherwise resolutely ‘red-pilled’ pimp acknowledged:

“There are things in me right now that I can’t help that have been conditioned over a period of time. I do things automatically, you know. I open doors for old ladies and if I go through a doorway, and hesitate and let the woman go first” (p177)

Thus, whereas the family structure of the ghetto has, on account of the prevalence of female-headed households and absent fathers, been characterized by sociologists as matriarchal, black players suggest a more nuanced interpretation.

“Although the ghetto leans towards matriachy, players admit, it isn’t as all-pervasive or as smoothly functioning as the White matriarchy of the majority. For the White man is not even aware that he lives in a matriarchy, while Black men are becoming more sensitive to being pimped by both White society and their own Black women… White men, like Samson, are still sound asleep and unaware that Delilah has cut their hair” (p171).

Indeed, the analogy with ‘Red Pill Philosophy’ and the Men’s Rights Movement is quite explicit.

“Woman’s liberation movement is not revolutionary, say the players. What would be truly revolutionary would be the liberation of men” (p227).

However, pimps are capitalists at heart and hence reject all political liberation movements, including, not only women’s liberation, but also black liberation.

“In this… the pimp expresses a common ghetto sentiment: ‘Fuck Black power and White power; I believe in green power’” (p223).

Thus, the Milners recount one anecdote of how:

“[When] a militant black man in the bar loudly proclaimed ‘I’m gonna get my piece and shoot all the whiteys’… another player replied, ‘Don’t do that, brother. Shit, you gonna take all my business away’” (p237).

The same would apply to men’s liberation. After all, according to pimp philosphy, it is only because:

“So-called normal and moral marriage is aberrant… [that] many husbands… pay hos for sex they cannot get at home, which [pimps] point to as the final degradation of the American male under the heel of the almighty b*tchy American wife. She not only doesn’t give him what he is paying for, but forces him to go out and also pay some other woman if he wants sex. Often he pays another woman only to have a shoulder to cry on, because the wife loses respect for a man she can dominate and is unhappy in her unnatural unwomanly role as boss” (p175).

Thus, the Milners envisage one pimp commiserating with the henpecked husband, but then rationalizing:

“But, of course… I wouldn’t have it any other way, trick. Because, without you and your f*cked-up illusions, without your f*cked-up sex life—I’d be out of business tomorrow” (p251).

Pimp Philosophy Evaluated
Pimp philosophy is certainly illuminating, and greatly superior to feminism, which still represents the dominant paradigm for understanding the relations between the sexes among social scientists, mainstream media, academia, politicians and other such professional damned fools.

Indeed, although they never quite go so far as to endorse it, the Milners themselves are clearly quite taken by pimp philosophy, and acknowledge:

“Once the world, and particularly the relations between the sexes, is viewed from a black player’s vantage point, things never again seem quite the same” (p243).

Indeed, they conclude, this is hardly surprising.

“Like the sociologist and anthropologist, pimps and hustlers depend for their livelihood on an awareness of social forces and the human psyche… [but whereas] the social scientist rarely applies his knowledge directly, and so has far more leeway than the hustler or the pimp in being wrong before he is out of a job” (p242).

In other words, whereas feminist sociologists are insulated in universities behind ivory towers at the taxpayer’s expense and can therefore can hold fast to their ideological dogmas with blind faith notwithstanding all evidence to the contrary, the pimp’s sociological analysis is subject to ruthless falsification at the hands of the ‘market forces’ beloved of neoliberal economists.

However, in claiming that male dominance is the natural state of humanity, pimp philosophy takes a wrong turn.

According to pimps, male dominance is the natural and harmonious order of mankind, and this was disrupted only when, according to ‘pimp mythology’ (an ingenious reinterpretation of biblical mythology), Adam gave in to sexual temptation, and was tempted by Eve to eat the forbidden fruit (i.e. paying for sex), thereby becoming, not the first man, but rather the first trick (168-70; p259-60).

Therefore, according to the pimps, as a result of this decision to eat the forbidden fruit, most men are no longer ‘real men’ and pimps themselves represent:

“The only real men [left] in America today” (p162).

But, if male dominance is so natural and harmonious, why then is it found today only among a small and exclusive subculture of pimps? Moreover, why even among pimps is it maintained only by levels of violence and of self-control on the part of pimps far greater than that apparent in square relationships?

Indeed, the real flaw in the pimp theory of male dominance as natural and harmonious lies in the nature of the pimps’ own dominance over their prostitutes.

As the Milners observe:

“[Although] the Book [i.e. the unwritten code of how to pimp passed from mentor to student] provides a blueprint for a male-dominated society and a rationale for wrestling all control over men from women… ironically, this condition is achieved by making women’s full-time occupation the control of men who are outside the subculture” (p48).

In other words, the pimp’s exploitation of his women relies and depends on those women’s exploitation of other men.

“A ho… is both ‘pimping’ off her customers and is being a trick [i.e. being pimped] by her man” (p213).

The Book provides, then, not a blueprint for male domination throughout society, but rather a blueprint for domination by a necessarily small subset of men—an exploitation both of women (i.e. the hos whom the pimp controls) but also, indirectly, of other men (i.e. the clients of these hos).

The pimp survives, then, not only through the exploitation of women, but also, more fundamentally, by the vicarious exploitation of other men—namely the prostitutes’ clients, or, aptly named, ‘tricks’.

Sweet Jones, a character from Iceberg Slim’s Pimp: The Story of My Life, summarised the point:

“A pimp is really a whore who has reversed the game on whores. So Slim, be sweet as the scratch, no sweeter, and always stick a whore for a bundle before you sex her. A whore ain’t nothing but a trick to a pimp. Don’t let ’em georgia you. Always get your money in front just like a whore.” (Slim 2002: xxi).

On this view, with their characteristically feminine concern for clothing, hair and hygiene and their ability, like housewives, to leech off the income of their sexual partners, pimps represent, not so much, as they themselves contend, “the only real men in America today” (p162), but rather second-rate female-impersonators.

A full (i.e. vastly over long) version of this review is available here.

References
Draper P (1989) African marriage systems: Perspectives from evolutionary ecology. Ethology and Sociobiology 10(1–3):145-169
Hirschi T (1962) The professional prostitute. Berkeley Journal of Sociology 7(1):33-49

[Ign33l · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oof it took a while cause ive been readin sum books. This book is blak asf. It thought me bout’ the game and how to cop hos and play trics ya dig?. Lit asf, but err body plays it different.

[Don · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very good picture of the subculture. The authors are a little to friendly with the pimps and prostitutes they studied to be objective. Overall it is a good book to learn about the subculture as long as the reader gives the greatest weight to those interviewed and not so much to the academics who analyze the testimony.

[Jerry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Black Players provides a detailed socio-anthropological view of "The Life" with an insiders narrative.

[Violet · Rating 3 out of 5]

Curious husband-wife exploration of the badass pimp underworld.