Black Women Are Quiet Quitting to Win and I Love It
Going Above and Beyond is Dead
The term “quiet quitting” has fast become the rallying cry of individuals that are done with going above and beyond for their employer. Originally coined by TikToker, @zaidleppelin, the phrase has added gasoline to a job revolution that is already on fire.
As I reflect on my years working in corporate America as a Black woman, where my boundaries have been scoffed at and demolished right in front of my face, it makes me wonder what quiet quitting actually looks like for Black women. Is this movement really just for privileged white people, or can Black women utilize this pivotal moment to win in the workplace and beyond?
Black Women Show Up and Show Out Constantly At Work — But to What End?
In an article written by the U.S. Department of Labor,
“In 2019, Black women’s labor force participation rate was 60.5% compared with 56.8% for white women. Even in 2020, in the midst of the pandemic, their labor force participation rate was 58.8%, compared to 56.2% for women overall.”
This is not a small feat. For two years, Black women had a higher participation rate compared to women as a whole in the workforce. Not only were we being affected at a fatal rate by a virus we knew little to nothing about, we were also dealing with unimaginable grief as a people. The country was exploding daily in protests and riots over unarmed Black people being murdered by police. In 2020, the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor shook our community in a way we still haven’t recovered from. And all the while chaos was running rampant, Black women were at work smiling through tears, clocking in risking Covid-19 exposure to feed their families, and closing major deals in the boardroom. We were and still are the literal backbone of white corporate companies that really could care less about our mental health or happiness.
We are known for being the first in and the last out in these offices every single day. And if we are keeping it honest, that in and of itself is rooted in fear. It is rooted in knowing we can’t do the same things our white cohorts do daily without serious consequences. It is the “we have to work twice as hard to have at least half” pill we swallow daily. But at what point does it just break us? When does going above and beyond actually even pay off for us? Does it truly ever?
Quiet Firing Out Here Making Entrepreneurs Out of Us
Interesting but never shocking that it has taken something like quiet quitting for employers to recognize that Black women have been going above and beyond at work for quite some time. Of course, we know the last thing white corporate America wants is for Black women to be outspoken about putting healthy boundaries in place to protect themselves.
Funny enough, quiet quitting has been the main character in corporate conversations for a few months, but now there is a new topic on the block: “Quiet firing.”
An article published on the Bloomberg website defines quiet firing as “… employers who actively make working conditions miserable to forcing workers to resign, also known as “constructive discharge.” The phrase can also apply to managers who neglect or otherwise divest time, resources or opportunities from their employees, encouraging them to leave without firing them outright.”
It goes on to mention the perfect response to quiet firing courtesy of notable social media influencer and self-name “Corporate Baddie,” DeAndre Brown,
“If this is happening to you, your company’s taking advantage of you — and you need to loudly quit.”
And loudly quit many Black women have done indeed. In an enormous shift, Black women have been leaving the US workforce in a mass exodus to become entrepreneurs. Trust me when I say we’ve been tired of the BS before there was a cool TikTok name for it.
According to an article on The Guardian website, “Women of color make up only 39% of women in the US but represent 89% of new women-owned businesses. Within that demographic, Black women are leading the charge at 42% of new women-owned businesses, followed by Latina women at 31%.”
Black women are successfully taking the risk of starting and running a business because they are done with being underpaid, undervalued, and underrepresented. They are taking back their power and using it to change the narrative that their presence and work isn’t worthless. What employers meant for bad, we are using for good to break generational curses and I love that for us! Will venturing out on your own be challenging? Sure. But is it worth it? Absolutely.
The toxicity, the BS corporate culture, the stretching of ourselves to unhealthy measures for a promotion that may never come — — yeah, all that is dead. I hope lots more Black women don’t quietly choose themselves but loudly announce it. We’ve been quiet for far too long.
