What is Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs charged with? The Mann Act helps explain the stakes

Sean “Diddy” Combs was arrested on Monday and charged with racketeering, sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution. Notably, the third count in Combs’ indictment comes from a federal law dating back to 1910. Federal prosecutors don’t often use the law’s other name, and for good reason. The Mann Act is also known as the “White Slave Traffic Act.” Many laws have been passed because of outdated — or simply racist — societal attitudes. Originally motivated by xenophobia, racism and politicians looking for ways to punish consensual “immoral” sex, the law remains a federal tool used to prosecute Combs and many others, including rapper R. Kelly. While the text of the White Slave Traffic Act doesn’t exclusively protect white women, the statute was “born out of a hysteria” in the early 1900s “that ‘white slavers’ were preying upon young women — coercing them into prostitution through threats, intimidation, and force.” Writing in the Columbia Human Rights Law Review, sex worker activist Lorelei Lee argues the “prototypical ‘white slave’ of early 1900s discourse was a young white girl from a rural area who was lured into prostitution after moving to an urban center and thus being separated from the supervision of her family.” The sponsors of the Mann Act defined the white slave trade as “the business of securing white women and girls and of selling them outright, or of exploiting them for immoral purposes.” Although the text of the law doesn’t single out white women for protection, the legislative history demonstrates a retrograde motive to protect white women from “interracial sex.” The text of the law as originally passed in 1910 criminalized knowingly transporting a woman in interstate commerce “for the purpose of prostitution,” but also for the purpose of “debauchery, or any other immoral purpose.” As one can imagine, a lot more purposes were considered “immoral” in 1910, and potentially included — according to the Supreme Court in 1917 — an “interstate trip for the purpose of a sexual affair between two consenting adults.” Several scandalous prosecutions followed. (Johnson wasn’t the only high-profile man, Black or white, targeted by federal prosecutors, though. The “immoral purposes” clause remained in the Mann Act for 75 years, until 1986. The “immoral purposes” clause remained in the Mann Act for 75 years, until 1986, when Congress amended the statute to remove it, and also to make the statute gender neutral. In its modern incarnation, it applies only when the transportation of the person was for illegal sexual activity — in Combs’ case, prostitution. Diddy’s defense will likely try to demonstrate that everyone at the alleged “freak offs” and sex parties prosecutors have described in sometimes intense detail were there willingly. Two things are probably true: First, seasoned federal prosecutors are likely quite aware of the checkered history of the Mann Act, including its alternate name. Human trafficking is a legitimate concern in 2024, as opposed to the manufactured “white girl slavery” panic of the early 1900s that inspired the original act. – This Summarize was created by Neural News AI (V1). Source: https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/sean-diddy-combs-charged-mann-act-freak-offs-rcna172076