Black Agenda Report
Black Agenda Report
News, commentary and analysis from the black left.

  • Home
  • Africa
  • African America
  • Education
  • Environment
  • International
  • Media and Culture
  • Political Economy
  • Radio
  • US Politics
  • War and Empire
  • omnibus

Laboring Beyond Black Representation
Too Black
06 Apr 2022
Laboring Beyond Black Representation
Christian Smalls and Amazon Labor Union Members Celebrate Vote to Unionize in New York City on Aril 1, 2022 (Photo: REUTERS/ Brendan McDermid)

The allure of Black representation in high places can be very dangerous. A Black man organizes an unprecedented union victory but gets less attention than one celebrity slapping another. Yet it is the union organizer who will have a real impact on the lives of Black people.

Because most of what passes as Black thought nowadays has been criminally captured by white capital (philanthropic foundations, corporate advertising, government funding, academia, business roundtables etc.) it was inevitable that the recent union victory against Amazon would fail to trend in the same spellbounding way as recent stories have in the Blacksphere. As a consequence, a feeble smack from one rich negro onto another and a token "First Black" woman judge appointed to a supreme court that regularly rules against (Black) labor is naturally lifted above the story of the first union to form against the insidiously hostile employer, Amazon, that was led by a working class Black man, Chris Smalls. A well needed victory considering as of 2020 Black people made up 31 percent of the lowest paid employees at Amazon.

But this is not about representation in the narrow sense of what group of Black people deserves visibility over the next as it so often goes. It's a question of what indeed serves the needs of the people.

Most Black people are workers (or flat out unemployed). We are not celebrities. We are not influencers. We are not business owners. We are regular people trying to make ends meet, usually working for stingy employers who barely pay us enough to make those ends meet. Yet, popular conversations in the Blacksphere are disproportionately consumed with talk of Black faces in elite spaces or "Buy Black" campaigns that rarely seem to take the worker at said Black business into consideration. Rather, these conversations tend to privilege a small minority of Black people who most of us will never become, and as a result,  do not represent our needs. So why are they the center of conversation?

As stated at the opening, most of Black thought has been bought off by white capital. As in the Black artists, entrepreneurs, politicians, journalists, academics, influencers, activists who have the most sway over our day-to-day discourse are employed by, funded by, and/or backed by white capitalists whose interests are antithetical to our own. Behind this group of neo-colonial ventriloquists is a whole other striver class of Black folks auditioning for the same Black elite roles. Their overall class function is to herd the rage of the Black sheep back into the stables of the State.

The more we strive to be like this class of Black herdsmen the more we work against our own interests. As emancipatory journalist Dr. Jared Ball regularly reminds us, most of Black media are too invested in obtaining white ad dollars to center the Black working and lumpen class. To do so would potentially threaten the market share of the corporate backers they so desperately covet. Their backers are not so partial to a Black worker-led labor movement. Instead, they foolishly want us to believe celebrity deathmatches "protect" Black women more than collective bargaining. However, it's fair to say more Black people work at Amazon-like facilities than receive Oscars.

So what does serve the needs of the people? What does representation look like divorced from elite capture? If representation holds any value at all it must be to represent the needs of the people: food, shelter, healthcare, education, safety, resources, dignity, power just to name a few. The newly formed Amazon labor union by no means fills all those voids nor is it the most revolutionary act to be done. What it does is give Black workers a power base to struggle with alongside other oppressed people. If the victory sparks unionization across other Amazon-like facilities it will build a much larger power base than any "First Black" politicians, "Buy Black" campaigns or Black celebrity meltdowns combined.

This reality is not missed on white capital hence why cosmetic diversity and repressive action are used to counter such a possibility. I, like many Black folk in this settler colony, understand the need to escape the grips of our daunting reality from time to time. Entertainment and Black visibility can certainly aid in that endeavor but ultimately the goal has to be to transform our reality — not simply escape it. Celebrity centered analysis fails this goal. Shedding the Black peddlers of white capital is a start. Perhaps then the Black masses can serve our own needs.

Too Black is a poet, member of Black Alliance For Peace, and host of The Black Myths Podcast on Black Power Media. He is based in Indianapolis, IN and can be reached at [email protected] or @too_black_ on Twitter.

Amazon workers
Amazon
Black Labor
Representationalism
Black Face in High Place

Do you need and appreciate Black Agenda Report articles. Please click on the DONATE icon, and help us out, if you can.


Related Stories

SPEECH: Forge Negro-Labor Unity for Peace and Jobs, Paul Robeson, 1950
Editors, The Black Agenda Review
SPEECH: Forge Negro-Labor Unity for Peace and Jobs, Paul Robeson, 1950
12 April 2023
Paul Robeson’s 1950 speech to the delegates of the National Labor Conference for Negro Rights should remind us that there is no Black liberatio
INTERVIEW: A Talk with Sylvia Woods, 1974
Editors, The Black Agenda Review
INTERVIEW: A Talk with Sylvia Woods, 1974
15 March 2023
An inspiring interview with Sylvia Woods highlights the role of Black women in labor organizing and demonstrates that Black women should a
Managers
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
Managers
01 March 2023
                                                                                                        Managers  
The Super Bowl and the Trouble with First Black Symbolism
Gus Griffin
The Super Bowl and the Trouble with First Black Symbolism
08 February 2023
Whether Super Bowl quarterbacks, or presidents, or police chiefs, unquestioned admiration of the "first Black" should come to an end.
Saladin Muhammad Presente!
​​​​​​​ Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist
Saladin Muhammad Presente!
28 September 2022
Saladin Muhammad was the founder of Black Workers for Justice.
Joe Biden and the Democrats Have Nothing to Offer Organized Labor, the ALU Included
Danny Haiphong, BAR Contributing Editor
Joe Biden and the Democrats Have Nothing to Offer Organized Labor, the ALU Included
11 May 2022
The Biden administration pays lip service to the trade union movement but has done nothing to break the Democratic Party’s long tradition of be
Through the fire of fighting Amazon Workers…
BAR Poet-in-Residence Raymond Nat Turner
Through the fire of fighting Amazon Workers…
20 April 2022
Through the fire of fighting Amazon Workers…
Bessemer Alabama Amazon Workers Continue Struggle to Unionize
Saladin Muhammad
Bessemer Alabama Amazon Workers Continue Struggle to Unionize
23 March 2022
The mostly Black labor force at an Amazon fulfillment center in Bessemer, Alabama will have a second opportunity to vote for unionization.
The Realities of Temp Work
Eugene Puryear
The Realities of Temp Work
16 February 2022
Poverty, wage theft, injuries, and even death are features of the temporary employment system.
Elections and the Illusion of Black Political Power
Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
Elections and the Illusion of Black Political Power
03 November 2021
Black politicians may be openly conservative or pretend leftists but their constituents rarely get what they need.

More Stories


  • Black Agenda Radio May 26, 2023
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Black Agenda Radio May 26, 2023
    26 May 2023
    Black Women's Alliance in Brazil, expunging criminal records, and the Durham Report and the FBI.
  • Black Women's Movement in Brazil
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Black Women's Movement in Brazil
    26 May 2023
    Members of Brazil’s Black Women’s Alliance will be in New York at the United Nation’s forum on Afro Descendants.
  • Advocacy for Expungement of Criminal Records
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Advocacy for Expungement of Criminal Records
    26 May 2023
    Jay Jordan is CEO of Alliance for Safety and Justice and he also serves as Co-Founder and National Director for the program Time Done, whose 200,000 members have advocated for more than 8 million…
  • The Durham Report and the FBI
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    The Durham Report and the FBI
    26 May 2023
    Margaret Kimberley was a guest on the Sputnik program, The Critical Hour, with co-host Garland Nixon. They discussed the Durham Report and the FBI’s history of violating the law.
  • Biden's Debt Ceiling Betrayal is a Democratic Party Tradition
    Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    Biden's Debt Ceiling Betrayal is a Democratic Party Tradition
    24 May 2023
    Joe Biden is continuing the ignoble tradition of colluding with republicans while pretending to fight them. The latest debt limit drama is another betrayal of the people.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us