Amplifying Melanin Voices - Freelance Edition

The past two weeks have been a challenging period of learning, unlearning, and relearning about the all-pervasive impact of race in America. As I continue down what I expect will be a lifelong journey of allyship and discovery, I realized that much of my reading was concentrated around the criminal justice system, but that I knew very little about how race interacts with the gig economy for freelancers (hello, privilege). This week, I’ve aggregated some reflections by black scholars and freelancers on the topic of race and freelancing. This will hardly be comprehensive, as even one person’s experience is far too nuanced to capture in a few words - never mind that of an entire group. Still, despite this post’s flaws, I share this in the hopes that it may be a starting point for us to grow in collective understanding so we can work together to eradicate racism from freelancing.

Race, Freelancing, and Mental Health

(Excerpted from “7 Black women freelancers share what it takes to protect their mental health in the gig economy” by Tiffany Curtis in HelloGiggles)

Maintaining mental health has a freelancer has its own unique set of challenges, but how does race factor in? Tiffany Curtis interviews leading freelancers on their experiences.

“I was a freelancer for two years…As a freelance writer, it often felt like the only way to get greenlit was to share a really deeply racialized trauma story. This was often tied to a current event, so it was like always reopening a fresh wound…It is my hope that Black women will be able to write about whatever they want and all of our stories will be heard. Equal treatment can only come from sharing more of our stories unrelated to trauma or to at least offer more agency in the stories we choose to share.”

— Jagger Blaec, executive producer of MothStory Hour and former freelance writer

“My most difficult stories relate to the fears I have about raising Black children in the midwest. They aren’t hypothetical concepts, like many of the other topics I cover. They are everyday struggles…I don’t want to be a ‘go-to’ for stories exclusively during ‘Black times’ of the year. I’m a multi-dynamic individual with a wide range of views. My Black identity is just one of many aspects of what I can cover.”

- Ambreia Meadows-Fernandez, health care journalist and content strategist

“Unlike the case for many, freelancing has actually in many ways improved my mental health. I’ve lived the stress that comes with being tied to one place, depending on one entity for your livelihood, and how disposable we are to them, especially as Black women. Since going freelance, I’ve been fortunate enough to fall into long-standing contracts…Aside from wanting to see Black women occupying leadership roles, I want to see us receive as much grace as non-Black women receive. We already carry the weight of the world on our shoulders, and I’ve witnessed and experienced first hand that we’re not allowed to have bad days, we’re not given the benefit of the doubt, we’re not allowed the same space to make mistakes. I grew up knowing that I always had to work twice as hard, but it’d be wonderful to witness a day where the pressures weren’t so taxing.”

— Blake Newby, freelance beauty and lifestyle writer

Race, Freelancing, and Finding Work

(Excerpted from “Black Freelance Jobs: 5 Things I Learned to Consider” by Danielle Thompson in HeyDanielle)

How does race factor into the decision to freelance?

Black communities around the world are often underserved and underprivileged. Traditionally, they've had far less access to vital resources, job training, higher education, and career opportunities than people of other racial origin. People of color also face more scrutiny due to racial stereotypes (unfortunately lots).

In many ways, freelancing helps black freelance workers to overcome those challenges.

How does the pitching process differ by race?

Although there are plenty of reasons why freelance jobs work well for black people and others, the world isn't perfect. There are still challenges that black freelancers face that white freelancers don't.

…African freelancers have to struggle with the connotations of their entire continent before getting to a phone call….

A tip directly from my experience: when I began getting freelance jobs, I noticed that primarily black clients and minorities hired me to start….Minorities were more likely to trust me based on my word that I'd work hard, because when I started out freelancing, I didn't have much 'proof' to add to my portfolio.

Eventually, my skill level transcended my blackness and I was able to offer more (and higher-level) services. I could move beyond the smaller, black freelance market.

Even after getting the gig, black freelancers may experience microaggressions. Thompson advises:

Have a professional response ready for when you inevitably face some Diet Racism™

Unfortunately, even as freelancers, we're still connected to this society – which presents some of the same micro-aggressions minorities face in the traditional workplace.

In the black freelance world, the three most common micro-aggressions most often happen as biased actions (doubting your experience, needing more proof) or insensitive comments.

If you are one of the unlucky black freelancers who have to encounter a micro-aggression, let me tell you how I see the situation. I guard my peace of mind against uneducated comments by refusing to let them take up any of my valuable time.

Race and “The Hustle”

(Excerpted from “Nearly 6 Decades After the Civil Rights Act, Why Do Black Workers Still Have to Hustle to Get Ahead?” by Prof. Tressie McMillan Cottom in Time)

We speak frequently of “the hustle” as a way to get ahead, but what does hustling really look like, and how does race play into it? Professor Tressie McMillan Cottom, who teaches sociology at Virginia Commonwealth University, explains.

Everyone is hustling, but everyone cannot hustle the same…The hustle is an idea, a discourse and a survival strategy often glorified as economic opportunity. It is an ode to a type of capitalism that cannot secure the futures of anyone but the wealthiest. But its popularity lies in how hustling can feel like an equal-opportunity strategy.

It is not. Prof. Cottom describes the disparity in wealth and income between white and black families, but also cautions that the numbers do not reveal the full picture.

Black Americans have to hustle more. A white family of four living at the poverty line has about $18,000 in wealth. A black family at that threshold has negligible wealth. Everyone is hustling, but poor black Americans are literally hustling from zero. For middle-class black people, the trends aren’t much better. Again, it’s not just income but also wealth that reproduces racial inequalities, so being “middle class” when you are black is not nearly as secure a position as it is for other racial groups. The black middle class takes on more debt for education, earns less for their educational achievements and struggles more to repay their student loans than their white peers…

It’s a hard story to tell because the images are fuzzier than they once were…Today racial inequality leaves more of an impression, albeit one deeply felt by black Americans, than it does a concrete picture of oppression and extraction. But the story of how we hustle, how hard we hustle and how differently we hustle adds form to the impression…The hustle itself is a site of racial inequality.

Cottom argues that the “hustle” is one word applied to two very different realities.

What hustling looks like in 2020 depends on who you are. To hustle, if you are working class, is to piece together multiple jobs. If you are middle class or upper class, it is discussed as “multiple revenue streams.” But the goal is the same: pull together a patchwork of income in order to get ahead.

…Many black workers outside the middle class make up what is known as the gig economy, taking on jobs that treat them like independent contractors even though they work them like employees….The hustle is especially hard on black women, who bear the brunt of childcare, elder care and mutual-aid relationships with friends and neighbors. It also makes it nearly impossible to predict one’s wages from paycheck to paycheck. Because the pay is so spiky and the work so unpredictable, many dabble in a stream of “network opportunities,” like selling diet pills or travel vouchers.

Inside the middle class, the hustle continues in a different form.

For the black middle-class entrepreneurs, the hustle is about the fragility of their position. The public sector still matters to black economic stability and mobility, and its erosion means black workers must increasingly look to a hostile private sector. There, jobs have shifted from production and manufacturing to professional services, and the highest-paying ones can be some of the most resistant to the kind of training that college affords black Americans. One does not train for a job in, say, consulting the way one does for engineering. The soft-skills jobs that trade in relationships are difficult ones for black workers to break into. That makes entrepreneurship attractive to professional-class black people like those at the Black Wall Street event. Pitching feels more democratic than being born into the right family. But being born into the right family is still the single most important qualification for the digital economy’s highest-status jobs. As a study of contemporary inequality from the Georgetown Center on Education and the Workforce put it, “To succeed in America, it’s better to be born rich than smart.”

The hustle continues nearly sixty years after the March on Washington in 1963 led to the Civil Rights Act for two reasons.

First is the retrenchment of white people’s privileged access to the means of economic mobility, like the ability to pay for high-quality college or connections to certain social networks. And second is an economy that has…invest[ed] heavily in the private sector and shrinking the public sector…The result is a national safety net that gets weaker every year…At every hole in the safety net, black Americans are more likely to fall through.

As a result of these systems, upward mobility remains elusive despite the hustle.

…For black Americans, achieving upward mobility, even in thriving cities that compete for tech jobs, private capital and national recognition, is as complicated as it was in 1963. In that economy, black Americans hustled in the face of legal racial segregation and social stigma that cordoned us off from opportunities reserved for white Americans. In 2020, black Americans can legally access the major on-ramps to opportunity—colleges, workplaces, public schools, neighborhoods, transportation, electoral politics—but despite hustling like everyone else, they do not have much to show for it…While the hustle is often valorized, black Americans have long known that it’s a raw deal.

Prof. Cottom concludes by offering hope for change through collective action.

All is not lost. Both hustles are embedded in a history of not only survival but overcoming. The before-and-after story of U.S. racism turns on a significant victory. The March on Washington won. Whether what they won endures or is defended or built upon, the fact is it won. Collective organizing created meaningful social change. We know how to win. When we hustle alone, we hustle hard. When we hustle together, we can end the hustle for all.

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