Unlike most cable news hosts, MSNBC’s Tiffany Cross has two hours for her Saturday show. Despite the extra hour, Cross could not find time to discuss the assassination attempt against Justice Brett Kavanaugh, but she did find time to talk about another supposedly grave issue facing the Republic: the lack of stripper unions.
Coming out of commercial, Cross reported that “As employees at companies like Apple, Amazon, and Starbucks push unionizing, so too are some strippers in Los Angeles. Dancers at the topless bar, Star Garden, plan to join the union Strippers United, which would make them the first strip club in America to unionize in over two decades.”
For Cross, stripping is just another job that deserves to be joined with those other lines of work, “Now, dancers have been on strike there for over two months now fighting for employee labor rights. Everyone deserves an equitable workplace and it’s time for adult dancers to have a seat at the table and I’m very excited to have this conversation.”
People can debate the pros and cons of unions, but lumping stripping in with making coffee is another matter entirely. One hopes there aren’t any children watching MSNBC to begin with, but if they were this segment could give them all sorts of bad ideas.
Later in that conversation, Antonia Crane, who was described by MSNBC’s chyron as an “author, activist, sex worker & Ph.D. candidate at USC” declared that the problem with sites like OnlyFans is that “it's a pay-to-play model and it’s, they’re profiting off of the literal bodies of strippers with their tip stealing, wage theft.”
News flash: every strip club is like that, even the ones with unions. Still, for Crane the problem with the strip club industry is that it is just too racist and transphobic, “And what strippers need is an anti-discrimination policy that has teeth and bites and the only way to do that, 100 years plus of labor organizing will show that’s the way to push for these anti-discrimination policies and the rights of workers.”
Cross didn’t have time for the attempt on Kavanaugh’s life, but she did prove that when critics accuse her of calling everything racist, they really do mean everything.
If wasting precious air time on stripper unions wasn’t bad enough, earlier in the show Cross sat saliently as Rep. Jamaal Bowman accused the Republican Party of agitating for civil war.
This segment was sponsored by Infiniti.
Here is a transcript of the June 11 show:
MSNBC's The Cross Connection with Tiffany Cross
6/11/2022
11:37 AM ETTIFFANY CROSS: As employees at companies like Apple, Amazon, and Starbucks push unionizing, so too are some strippers in Los Angeles. Dancers at the topless bar, Star Garden, plan to join the union Strippers United, which would make them the first strip club in America to unionize in over two decades. Now, dancers have been on strike there for over two months now fighting for employee labor rights. Everyone deserves an equitable workplace and it’s time for adult dancers to have a seat at the table and I’m very excited to have this conversation.
…
ANTONIA CRANE: Right, Tiffany, well I just want to say what Gizelle was talking about house fees, it's a pay to play model and it’s, they’re profiting off of the literal bodies of strippers with their tip stealing, wage theft. And what strippers need is an anti-discrimination policy that has teeth and bite and the only way to do that, 100 years plus of labor organizing will show that’s the way to push for these anti-discrimination policies and the rights of workers.
And what happened during COVID is that strip club owners fired the black and brown dancers, fired the trans dancers, fired the veteran strippers, fired strippers for asking to see their contract or expressing concern about their safety during global pandemic and it's just ludicrous.
