When professional black women are called whores for expecting to be paid for their work.

It has happened again. Another black professional woman has been called a whore because she expected GASP to be PAID for her work (see it posted on Sean Carroll's blog here). She expected to be paid because she is a professional and professionals are compensated for their work. I emphasize professional because having a degree and titles doesn't mean jack shit if you're a black woman wanting remuneration. Apparently a certain person named Ofek at Biology-Online.Org felt Dr. Danielle Lee (aka DNLee) should have been grateful to have been offered a writing stint for exposure to their readers and not coins. It was not enough that they offered her a writing opportunity but when she politely declined (which she had every right to do even if they HAD offered payment because hell, this is America, for God's sake), Ofek called her a whore because she had the gall to want to be paid for her writing.

This is not new. A lot of people bristled at the sexist term "whore" and which I do as well, but this is part of a larger narrative that women, particularly BLACK women are whores for thinking of their financial security and the fact that anyone wants to deal with us should make us flat out GRATEFUL and instead we're just bitter. The fact that Ofek didn't want to pay her and actually cited to another scientist who wrote for them without payment did not sit well with me. For one, what someone else does or did gratis has nothing to do with HER. Two, black women's labor has been exploited for centuries and people continue to think they do not have to pay black women for their work. My grandmother cleaned houses in the 1940s and had to argue with heffas who wanted to pay her in eggs and butter instead of cash because well, she was lucky to be paid ANYTHING in their minds. And that's the view a lot of of people have: DNLee should have been grateful that someone was offering her exposure in the first place; she fucked it all up by asking to be paid.

To be frank, I'm surprised Ofek didn't call her an uppity whore because the sentiment was written all over his response.