People will say that this is an exciting time to be alive, and to a certain extent, they are correct. There is nothing to challenge the fact that so many new technologies and methods have been used to create a different world for people born even in the last ten years. However, what is also true is that the infrastructure of the old world has not truly changed, which is a problem for the younger inhabitants because the older rules and safety nets are no longer in effect. A lot of entry-level jobs are going away, and several communities, particularly the Black community, will be highly affected by the loss in revenue. The overseas wars are taking a lot of BIPOCQ men who desperately need the income to survive, even as they will be used as fodder. When nobody cares that Black women are the lifeblood of customer service, they feel comfortable trusting a machine that white men programmed, and we are being sacrificed at the whims of the dominant narrative.
Because we were expected to be Strong Black Women, we did a lot of things simultaneously while working full-time jobs. As we gained more disposable income, we began using more of it to improve our communities, and were the lifeblood of a great deal of political organizing. One can work one full-time job, and still maintain enough energy to effectively help with canvassing, calls, and campaign management, whether political or community-based. However, as we needed to work even more jobs to make ends meet, the dominant narrative gradually took the legs out of a lot of political organizing. By taking away the very few jobs that people were willing to hire us for, we are now spending more time in survival mode than solving problems we see around us.
I cannot express how thoroughly sick I am of hearing that everyone, especially Black people, should just “start a business” so that we can altogether avoid the hiring process. Can anyone tell me what happens when people start businesses and nobody invests/participates? Wait, I already know, because I spent 7 years trying to make a consulting business work at a time when people swore they wanted services like mine. I ended that tenure working for the IRS and abandoning any efforts to sustain a reasonable life in the United States. Destroying entry-level work is just another way of destroying the Black community and making us more dependent on people who have already demonstrated an unwillingness for us to gain access to sustained resources.
What I constantly see around me is that all of these “innovators” have no plan for how to manage racism and the demand for people to earn a living. Fake jobs keep getting posted, wages keep getting lower, but somehow, everyone is still supposed to be able to find a job. Black women are the primary demographic in customer service and entry-level jobs, and companies are working to oust us by demanding that we get “good reviews” and positive interactions–as if sanctioned hate has not been enacted. People hate Black women, yet companies make the metrics depend on Black women’s capacity to make others like us, and nobody seems to care that many of us remain in dire straits despite being willing to perform.
Consistently choosing to destroy those who are not causing harm reflects how threatened one feels by the innocuous existence of others. We cannot endure sustained hostility, despite all the pride being projected at this moment in time. People are actively working to eliminate our existence, and we have less and less to counter such behavior. It will never be clear to me why so many want to wage constant war on so few.
Chasing A Dying Empire 