Who holds more racial and/or gender identity privilege (if anyone) in my relationship(s)? Why?
How does race or gender identity privilege impact my relationship(s)?
Has my partner(s) ever discussed the role of race or gender identity in our relationship(s)? Why or why not? How can I better acknowledge and honor race or gender identity, and any differences, within my relationship(s)?
If my partner(s) and I are of different gender identities, ethnicities, races, and/or hues, have we acknowledged the power/privilege imbalance in our relationship(s)? If so, how?
How might I better address and balance the race, gender identity, or other privileges in my relationship(s)?
SEVENTEEN
Pay Us What You Owe Us
Capitalism was built on slavery. And throughout the history of capitalism, we see the extent to which racism is intertwined with economic oppression.
—ANGELA DAVIS
Most of us spend the majority of our days, and thus lives, at work. Who our colleagues are, how clients and managers treat us, and what our work environment is like have a huge impact on our well-being, particularly as Black women+ in white supremacist spaces. I have a long list of personal experiences navigating different white- and men+-dominated workplaces, where I had to dim my light for half the pay. White supremacy, fueled by colonial capitalism, has led to a state of burnout for all humxns, but particularly for queer and trans Black and Indigenous women+, who are forced to balance not only the demands of career but also spearhead solutions for the deleterious impact of white supremacy on our families and communities as a whole. These burdens are only growing as the global pandemic and economic recession play out, both of which disproportionately harm communities of color.
TO BE YOUNG, GIFTED… AND BLACK
From as far back as I can recall, I had dreamed of becoming an attorney. I believe deeply in fairness, equity, and justice—elements I felt were often missing in my life and the ways my mother and I were treated, be it in doctors’ offices, friends’ homes, or grocery stores. When I received my admissions letter to one of Canada’s most prestigious law schools, I was elated to say the least. But my three years at Allard School of Law were some of my worst. Turns out trying to juggle an all-encompassing (and colonial) course load and care for my disabled and chronically ill mother while searching for funding to stay in school was a wee bit of a shitshow. Who knew?! Life in private practice wasn’t much better. The day before starting at a corporate law firm, I recall being consumed by fear. I knew I would be expected to put on an “attorney” mask to hide my true Black woman self from colleagues and clients. And I did. I swallowed my Blackness, because I felt I had to compartmentalize my humxnity in order to survive the racist, heteropatriarchal, capitalist, and downright violent work world I occupied.
In addition to the incredulous learning curve, unreasonable hours, and malevolent office politics, I was drowning in misogynoir. I was frequently assumed to be an assistant rather than an attorney by clients and other attorneys alike. Both would stare back at me in awe once corrected and then drill me on the legitimacy of my law degree. My contributions were often ignored or undermined, and my superiors treated me with a disrespect I never witnessed waged upon my white or male peers. One of my white male bosses routinely had me do his clerical work because he was too afraid of his own assistant (wtf!). The white women partners were even worse—one such woman screamed profanities at me when I asked for clarity on a file, and when I reported her behavior, I was told not to take it personally. Right!
I was hired at my dream firm only to find myself working around the clock to make rich white men richer. Men like a certain Trumplethinskin. Yes, at the height of my disillusionment, I am nauseated to say I worked with Captain Cheeto’s corporation. Shit was bad! But I had massive student debt from putting myself through college and law school and a chronically ill mother to care for. I didn’t think leaving was an option. Just leaving the office was hard enough.
My days were grueling, often eighteen to twenty hours long. One of the only people I saw outside of “regular” office hours was the firm’s custodial engineer, Marie, and she didn’t get to my floor until nine p.m. Everyone else was gone, but I always had more work to do. Marie had no qualms telling me how worried she was about me given that I always was wasting myself away in my office. I didn’t disagree. When I met my closest coworker’s baby, Jane, she took to me right away, as though we were already acquainted. Obviously I assumed it’s because I’m awesome (duh), but my mom reminded me that given the hours my coworker and I spent working together while she was pregnant, baby Jane had likely heard my voice more than her dad’s. The realization of how omnipresent our jobs had become made my friend and me cringe. When I started daydreaming about being hit by a bus so I could take a day off, I knew things were bad. After four years as a big-firm corporate attorney, I walked away. What I walked into wasn’t much better.
NOT YOUR MULE OR MAMMY
I attempted to take some time off to rest and better tend to my mother, but my identity was so attached to working and doing, rather than being, that I found myself working—for free. I was terrified of being deemed a lazy Black woman. It wasn’t until Spirit intervened in the form of a car crash that I finally laid my ass down. But soon I took on a role at a footwear company, only to find myself once again in a toxic work environment run by an abusive white man struggling with mental health issues. I quit after six months. After that, I had perhaps my worst ever experience working for an entitled, ego-driven, young white male film producer. Despite my law degree and countless other professional accomplishments, I was relegated to coffee runs and personal assistant tasks (all for white men). All of which was in addition to the all-consuming producer and business affairs role I was hired for. Though acts of monetary kindness were bestowed, they were also held over my head. I was perpetually made to feel less than, incapable, and unworthy. “No” was not an acceptable response to this dude, unless you were a white dude yourself. Still, I stayed way longer than I should have because I was socialized to believe that working too much, for little pay and no respect, to make rich white men richer, was my duty. I, like many Black women+, operated under a “mule mentality” passed down from my enslaved ancestors, who worked literally to death for white folx’ wealth and welfare.
None of my experiences are uncommon. While all women+ face oppression at work, it is especially egregious for Black women and femmes (and of course more so for those living at additionally oppressed intersections). The retention rate for Black women attorneys is the lowest in America, with 17 percent of Black women leaving practice in 2015.1 Black women in other professional positions are also exiting stage left on the oppressive office settings composing the status quo; and Black women constitute the fastest-growing group of entrepreneurs, with businesses owned by Black women increasing at a rate of 518 percent between 1997 and 2016.2 Why? Let’s just say I have a few fucking ideas!
#1—Dolla Billz
Black women and femmes work our asses off while enduring regular racial harms, and we get paid less to do it. On average, Black women earn 61 cents to every dollar a white man earns and to every 80 cents a white woman earns (and the disparity is worst in high-salary positions). It takes us until August 22 of the following year to earn what white men earned the year prior.3 Latinx women (who may be of any race) also earn less than their non-Latinx or male counterparts, with Native American women earning 58 cents to every white man dollar and Latinx women earning just 53 cents.4 A 2017 survey also held that cis queer women earn less than cis straight women, meaning queer and trans Black and Indigenous women and femmes likely earn less than everyone.5
As Erika Stallings pointed out in her O, The Oprah Magazine article, Black American women accrue an average debt of $30,366 upon graduating college, but white women accrue $21,993 (and white men only $19,486).6 A married Black woman with a bachelor’s degree in her thirties has a median wealth of $20,500, whereas the wealth of a married white women i
s a staggering $97,000. Single white women without a degree on average have $3,000 more in median wealth than a single Black woman with a degree.7 For all the shit we’re forced to endure, our paychecks don’t come close to compensating (and some harms can never be rectified via remuneration). Add to this the fact that many Black women and femmes are also financially responsible for, if not a primary contributor to, other family members. Sending money to our parents is something 45 percent of college-educated Black American households do, as well as those of Latinx ethnicity—and naturally, all the worse for Afro-Latinx households.8 I had left behind my aspirations of working in international humxn rights law because of compassion fatigue from navigating misogynoir in law school and, more important, the need to earn a sufficient salary to pay off my debts and care for my mom. Forty-two percent of Black American families rely on credit cards to cover basic living expenses,9 and this only increases during global catastrophes. I have several family members who may not be alive today had I not been able to help them financially. Black women and femmes earn less and keep less of what we earn because white supremacy has ensured our family members require our financial care.
#2—More Work
What is even more wild about how little Black women and femmes earn compared with our white and/or male counterparts is that we are forced to do more work than everyone for lesser pay. Research shows that BI&WoC are asked to do the majority of “office housework,” ranging from taking notes to ordering lunch to shutting the door at meetings.10 Work that not only takes us away from the jobs we are paid to do but reestablishes a demeaning white supremacist heteropatriarchal status quo. I remember how I took notes at every meeting, organized all client events, and was the contact for support staff needing assistance. None of which I was compensated for, nor was it taken into account for job advancement. But when BI&WoC say no, we are labeled angry, aggressive, or emotional and face being penalized. Statistics show that BI&WoC who raise issues of discrimination are often pushed out of our jobs altogether. Especially Black women and femmes. And it’s not just office housework we do. Many professional BI&WoC, particularly Black women and femmes, are forced into white-washed “diversity and inclusion” initiatives, which is exhausting work requiring emotional as well as mental and physical labor with zero fiscal rewards or accolades for achievement.11 As Adia Harvey Wingfield shares in her book Flatlining: Race, Work, and Health Care in the New Economy, “Black workers are having to navigate environments where companies say they want more diversity but aren’t putting resources or support into achieving that.”12 Racial justice, like so much else, is instead put on us.
#3—Less Care
BI&WoC get paid less to do more work, and to top it all off, we receive less support from colleagues, clients, and managers alike. A 2006 survey found that BI&WoC are the most likely to experience harassment at work comprised of both sexual harassment and racial or ethnic discrimination.13 In the UK, 18 percent of LGBTTQIA+ folx have reported verbal abuse or misconduct at work, and 35 percent do not disclose their sexual orientation at work for fear of repercussion.14 Added together, queer BI&WoC are subject to a hell of a lot of violence while trying to do our jobs. And it’s worse for trans women, who are frequently laughed out of job interviews and constantly misgendered at work.
According to the Harvard Business Review, BI&WoC, especially Black women, also receive less care in the form of managerial support, such as socializing outside of the office, advocating for us and our work to executives, or help maneuvering office politics.15 This lack of care, combined with the additional unpaid and unrecognized work forced on us, impacts our opportunities for advancement. Despite 64 percent of Black professional women declaring they want to advance in their job (double the number of non-Hispanic white women), we aren’t given the opportunities. In 2018, BI&WoC represented only 4 percent of C-level executives compared with white women (19 percent) and white men (68 percent). Black women graduates from Harvard Business School reached the highest-level executive positions in 13 percent of cases, compared with 40 percent of their white women classmates. In the legal profession, only 1 percent of America’s partners are Black women.16 One of the many reasons I left law is because I never saw a single BI&WoC partner, let alone a Black woman or femme, who had a career or life I wanted for myself. When there are fewer BI&WoC in positions of power to help turn the tides and create safer spaces for the next generation, the cycle continues. So, we leave.
* * *
The white supremacist work environments that BI&WoC, especially queer and trans Black women and femmes, must endure are very violent. This is true across the board no matter if we’re professionals or gig workers. Whether I was a waitress, spin instructor, or attorney, every workplace I’ve ever entered has treated me with some level of disregard. Less pay, less care, and more work set BI&WoC up to fail, though we do our damndest to overcome (amen!). White supremacy leads to an exhaustion unparalleled. It leads to burnout, especially for queer and trans Black women and femmes, though none of us are immune.
BATTLING BURNOUT
Working in a colonial capitalist system, upholding and perpetuating white supremacy on the daily, left me tired. I don’t mean I needed a nap. I mean my bones ached and my soul was exhausted. Exhausted from overworking, caretaking, navigating violence in white spaces, witnessing Black folx murdered by police and keeping my rage contained, all while trying to be a good friend, daughter, coworker, and humxn and trying to find time just for me. I was burned out.
I define burnout as physical, mental, and/or emotional exhaustion or loss of motivation usually caused by prolonged stress or frustration from work or otherwise. The white supremacist capitalist systems we live and work under have created a burnout epidemic. We have become addicted to work, as well as our phones, and technology ensures we are constantly online and available. Recent studies show that workers age thirty-four and under are the most overtaxed group of all: 74 percent of millennial women report feeling overwhelmed at work daily (compared with 64 percent of men),17 and this is all the worse for Black women and femmes, who have a long legacy of exhaustion at the hands of white supremacist heteropatriarchy. As Tiana Clark shared in her article “This Is What Black Burnout Feels Like,” “No matter the movement or era, being burned out has been the steady state of [B]lack people in [America] for hundreds of years.”18 Worldwide, we are tired not only from overdoing and attempting to rectify hundreds of years of our ancestors’ exploited labor, but having to constantly explain racism and anti-Blackness while doing it.
Burnout is both a manifestation of grief and creates more grief in and of itself. For many Black women+, this grief comes from a lifetime of labor at the hands of systemic oppression resulting in little, if any, intergenerational wealth. I started working at thirteen to help my mom make rent, and I’ve held a job ever since. Through high school, to supplement my mom’s income, and through college and law school, to pay for tuition. Even still, I fell short. There were many times we had only $5 between us. Times I considered working as an escort to help us get by. Had it not been for financial aid and a white college roommate who floated me funds, I would have been evicted from my college residence. I started law school without sufficient funds to finish first year, hoping it would work itself out in the end. It did, but it easily might not have. Like many Black women and femmes, I also had to mentally, emotionally, and physically care for a family member, my mom, which included becoming manager of our household at sixteen and all the emotional labor and mental load* that requires. By the time I quit law, I had serious adrenal burnout and two hernias. The impacts of chronic toxic stress and overworking still greatly affect my health today. It is no surprise that Black women and femme professionals are leaving toxic white work environments when our capacity and desire to stay on the hamster wheel is totally taxed from a lifetime of simply trying to survive. Still let me be clear, being a queer Black woman is a blessing. It is white supremacy that tries to wear us down.
Capitalism and white suprem
acy thrive on burnout as a tool to defeat racial justice. As therapist and advocate Dr. Jennifer Mullan says, “Our exhaustion is completely & utterly about the inequities in this systemic slaughterhouse. They keep us sick, tired & distracted from the bigger issue at hand.”19 Capitalism cannot exist without white supremacy and anti-Blackness to justify subjugating a certain subset of people, primarily queer and trans Black and Indigenous women and femmes. No matter your identity, when you are overworked and exhausted, your ability to rise up, to revolt, and to hold these abusive systems to account is diminished. When we conflate scrolling on Instagram and binge-watching Netflix with emotional or spiritual rest, only the most powerful and privileged (and, ultimately, white) prevail.
REENVISIONING WORK
The white supremacist capitalist model of work causes all of us harm, especially queer and trans Black women+ and other WoC. As proponents of a feminist economy explain, this model is based in individualism, ego, unaccountability, profit worship, scarcity, competition, and domination over people and nature.20 The emotional labor (which is just labor) and mental load demanded from all women and femmes, and particularly Black and Indigenous ones, both at work and at home, remain invisible and go unrewarded under this model. It has resulted in disconnection and duress regarding child-rearing and more, as well as the expectation that women and femmes should not only spearhead household management but do so while holding executive office or running a business. It often demands the women and femmes who acquire or inherently possess power and privilege, based on race, class, or otherwise, to exploit poor BI&WoC as nannies or housekeepers in order to meet an oppressive workload. It is entirely untenable.
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