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Work

Work

Dion M. Harris

There is honor in work.

Work feeds the body, mind, soul and wallet. Is there anything more pleasing than enjoying our toys after a good day’s work? Honestly, I bet it is one reason we even bother getting out of bed in the morning: to afford our lifestyle.

Still, well into the second decade of the 21st Century, too many of us find ourselves stuck in mind-numbing jobs that we don’t enjoy. Working where we aren’t appreciated. Where our talents are under-compensated. Where we labor in poverty, merely going through the motions of earning a living.

I took notice last year when Wal-Mart workers walked out on Black Friday and again earlier this year when fast food workers went on strike for better pay. I listened with interest and in horror as low-wage workers talked about stagnant wages, erratic work schedules, retaliatory diminishment of scheduled work hours and living homeless while holding down full-time jobs. Oftentimes, two or three part-time jobs are chiseled together these days to make one full-time paycheck in the growing service sector ranks. This is corporate America’s dirty little secret, as profits mount and poverty spreads.

It’s not supposed to happen in the United States of America. In the land of the free and the home of the brave. Especially not in 2013.

Open your eyes.

Despite the Dow’s three 1,000-point milestones this year, The Great Recession hasn’t let up for many of us, especially in the African-American and Latino communities. For much of this year, economists and scholars have painted a rather bleak picture of economic progress for black people, in particular:

continuing double-digit unemployment (13.8 percent vs. 7 percent for whites; 7.9 percent overall);

growing rolls of those living below the poverty line (27.6 percent in 2011, the most recent data available – and two years into the so-called Recovery vs. a national average of 15 percent for all races.) You should know that in 2000, African-Americans enjoyed record low employment: 22.5 percent. Comparatively, in 1963, the year of the historic March on Washington, 42 percent of black Americans lived below the poverty line;

a persistent 20:1 wealth gap, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics and information released by the African American Economic Summit at Howard University in February.

Societies become much less stable when so many live in misery. I don’t have all the answers, but I am a very strong proponent of early-childhood education/socialization, educational choice, equal funding of school districts, rigorous national standards, arts instruction, recess, mandatory parental involvement, financial literacy and entrepreneurship. America cannot win when so many are being left behind. It’s foolish and wasteful not to utilize all that we have.

I encourage all unemployed and underemployed people to start a business. Any kind of business, instead of wasting time all day sending out résumés and scouring the want ads for work. Most of us will never get rich working for someone else, and we’re oftentimes miserable working the standard-issue job. Few large employers will ever hold our life, liberty and pursuit of happiness in the esteem with which we do. We can no longer afford to expect them to.

©Dion M. Harris/Be Right Books

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on November 25, 2013 at 4:57 am Comments (14)
Tags: employment, living wage, service sector jobs, underemployment, unemployment, working

Grown: A Good Place To Be

Dion M. Harris

You couldn’t pay me to be 25 again.

Acne, angst and naiveté are, blessedly, now a world away. What an adventure it’s been!

In the 19 years since I was a quarter-century old, I’ve cultivated patience; perfected my inner and outer self; broadened my worldview considerably; grown ever more resourceful; and sometimes marvel at my gritty resilience. When I was 25, I was smart, ambitious, idealistic and eager to please.

Now, I am calm. Able. Unflappable. Efficient. Teeming with insight.

Yet, for nearly four years I’ve been unsuccessful at securing gainful, steady employment. Both in and outside of my field. At 44, am I too experienced – or not experienced enough for the 21st Century workplace? Too persistent a journalist – or not persistent enough? Too entrepreneurial? The conundrums keep coming, but I’m just trying to do me: Always following my bliss. While paying the bills.

That said, I’ve noticed a strange phenomenon in contemporary society: Americans are getting older and noticeably fatter – but not grayer. There seems to be a resigned, collective shame associated with the hoary head – especially among women – when gray hair by its very nature tags one as hardy, tested, refined. Youth culture, on the other hand, celebrates the new, the unexplored, the coarse.

I always say: Just because it’s new, doesn’t mean it’s better.

Have you noticed how very head-strong those gray hairs are? I commune with them daily, impressed and oddly protective.

I’ve always been mistaken for being younger than I really am. When I was 14, I once called a DJ who accused me of being a “small, black child.” When I was 27, lascivious old neighborhood men swore I was 19. At 37, I went through a spell where I kept attracting 27- to 29-year-old – and completely inappropriate – suitors.

With all of this in mind, I decided a long time ago – around the time I first liberated my hair- that there’d be no more dye jobs for me. Even when I went gray. I want the respect that comes with age. I also want folks to know that I’m grown, and that there’s much more to me than meets the eye.

So after surviving a catastrophic man-made disaster largely on my own; several automobile accidents that weren’t my fault; emotional abuse; sexual harassment; sexual assault; and now Recession-fueled poverty, I’ve been graced by many more silver-gray strands lately. And I love them all. I won’t be letting them go.

Sometimes, it seems, it’s easier to pretend to be who we’re not, than to fully be who we are. The rapidly-changing, often-confusing world around us keeps making increasingly intrusive demands upon us. We acquiesce; complying duplicitously.

I find Western culture’s deification of youth – and the new – misguided and immature. As Scripture and Steel Pulse remind us, “The race is not for the swift, but those who endure.” If you’re doing anything at all right, you will grow older. Accept this, and commit to growing better.

I’m still “high-school skinny,” yet fitter than I’ve ever been. My – finally!- acne-free skin glows caramel even, from within. But this sprightly, fresh crop of gray hairs I sport confirms exactly who I am: tough and completely at ease with me. And you.

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on August 21, 2013 at 5:51 pm Leave a Comment
Tags: aging gracefully, employment discrimination, gray hair, grown, grown-ups, middle-age

Post-Zimmerman: Manage Your Scariness

Dion M. Harris

Once upon a time, when Americans still took pride in dressing up to go to work, do some shopping or even travel via plane, train or automobile, home-training for black folks consisted in large part of being taught how to present themselves in the best possible light, clean and pristine, at all times. In short, how to manage their image.

But times have changed.

After jurors unanimously acquitted George Zimmerman, the 29-year-old neighborhood watchman, of all charges, effectively letting him walk away with murdering 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, who was walking home to his father’s townhouse, it’s clear to me that the best way for young men of color – especially young, black men – to wreck onerous stereotypes of who they are is for them all to now play a revolutionary hard defense: Clean yourselves up and go respectable. Don’t give Them a chance to put you in a box. Just by looking at you. After all, as was demonstrated in the recent three-week trial in Sanford, Fla., a little bit of imagination goes a long, long way when defending murderous behavior.

If The Other sees you and feels threatened – even if you’re minding your business and they’re following you – you might not live to set the record straight. So prepare ahead of time, and bring your best plan to the game.

Think for a moment. When The Other views you, do they actually see you – or who They want you to be? Who They think you are? However, the question to ask yourselves is: What am I presenting?

More than at any other time in history, perhaps, black men are seen as the boogeyman. And every day across America, young black and brown men kill other young, black and brown men. Hatred and fear kill too many who were made in God’s image. In light of this, I think your best revenge is to live long, healthy, productive lives despite all the obstacles in your path. Rather, in spite of them.

Too many black men, in particular, never make it to age 60. I know this because I read the obituary pages. In my own family, my beloved dad and, more recently, two cousins – on either side of the family, within six months – have died between 52 and 54. Social Security won’t pay out until you’re at least 65. So all the money that hard-working black men who’ve worked legitimate jobs for years and paid into the system, stays within The System.

I dare you to not play yourself or the people who love you and fall for the supremacists’ destructive plan. RESIST. That means 1., control yourself and your urges; 2., make a Plan A, B and C for success, which includes a diploma, a degree and self-sufficiency; 3., mind the company you keep; 4., find a personally suitable mate and marry her; 5., then make children. In this order. Make life a bit easier for yourself by developing discipline early.

Your ancestors who courageously endured captivity and the Klan, then fought deliberately and honorably for civil rights, long ago rolled over in their graves and weep with the knowledge that after all this time, black men are still game sport. Not just for The Other, but for black men, as well. Who hope to secure a few golden crumbs for themselves. This, while your oppressors sit back and laugh, safe in their gated world, getting richer still.

Presenting yourself like an overgrown child won’t help you get a slice of any legitimate action. And it doesn’t aid your case for employment or dates. I’m tired of seeing your bare, boxer shorted-ass on public streets when I leave my sanctuary: Buy pants that fit and a good belt! There’s nothing cute about exposing yourselves the way you’ve been doing over the past dozen years or more. If anything, it advertises a predilection and solicitousness for homosexual activity, just like in the jailhouse, where the “style” originated.

Neck tattoos, gold teeth and hair all over your head are scary. To people who look like you – and especially to those who don’t. They’re unnatural, crude, scream “Bad Judgment” and ‘I don’t care.’ And to the larger culture are just plain unattractive. Intolerable. These are a few of the “trendy” ways one signals oneself an undisciplined and unruly person, outside the margins of polite – read: useful – society. Is there any doubt why you continually receive the reception you get?

So as your big sister, your cousin, your auntie or your friendly neighbor, I say it’s time for you to fight back: Clean it up, cover it up, cut it off. Man up. Take your dignity back. The Other may think you’re up to no good, but being above reproach is a moment-by-moment choice we make.

Manage your inherent “scariness” so you can ride off into the sunset and live to successfully resist the profile another day. Do it for Trayvon.

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