[Ed Note: Writer David Saint Vincent drafted this story in May of 2024. Although some passages are far fetched, some of his predictions have come to fruition.]
It has been two years since America started the process of rolling us all back several decades to the era of the whites only workplace. But even the hardcore pessimist in your life (and we’ve all got one) cannot fairly say that the landscape ahead for Black folks in the American workforce is going to be as desolate as it was back in 1964. That was the year before President Lyndon Johnson issued Executive Order 11246, prohibiting racial exclusion by federal contractors. And in so doing, LBJ’s edict gave birth to the political punching-bag, boogie-man, and red-headed step-child the world came to know as Affirmative Action.
Before this public policy was adopted, Black folks were crowded into a handful of jobs in a handful of industries in a handful of markets. That is a recipe for the chronic unemployment, underemployment, and criminality that defines a permanent underclass. That is where Conservatives want us to return to. But it is not up to them it is up to us. The machinery is powered up to push as many of us as possible into that state. Caution: this will be a war of attrition. But we are built to win.
Even in a best case scenario, where established Black corporate incumbents hold serve and hang in there long enough to help deliver one or two other Black folks into jobs that were off limits to them prior to Affirmative Action, it won’t be enough to stem the tide. Even pulling that off will require the help of our remaining white allies that still have enough juice to withstand the heat they’ll get at the country club. So if a few chips fall our way, it will be a few years before the candidate selection structure in the American workforce is palpably trending toward ’64. But it’s coming.
The game will once again be rigged so that a white man wins every time he decides to play; or at least he won’t have to worry about losing the gig he wants to some big-Black buck with a bachelor’s degree in business. His G.E.D. and white guy gravitas will get the job done just fine.
This is especially true for the jobs that people really want, as opposed to the jobs people are willing to take just so they won’t be unemployed. We all know there is a difference. I can already hear the voices out there saying “The game is already rigged!” And they’re right. But we don’t know what it looks like when corporate America abandons the pretense of valuing inclusivity. As ugly as we think it is out here, it can and it will get a lot uglier.
As of June 29, 2023, there was no real barrier preventing any company in America from hiring only white candidates to fill every opening they will ever have going forward. I understand perfectly well that the legal eagles and legislative egg-heads out there will dutifully explain to the rest of us that the Supreme Court decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard and UNC striking down affirmative action was only for college admissions. But it’s their job to split hairs. As for the rest of us who possess neither the inclination nor the dexterity to make our living splitting those hairs, that decision means that if a company just stopped all non-white hiring from that day forward, there is absolutely no legal consequence for doing so.
A company can adopt a “No Jamals or Teyonnas” policy and there’s not a damned thing anybody can do. Technically, the policy does not really say no African-Americans can work there. They just said nobody named Jamal or Teyonna need apply. See the difference? Or did your ‘woke’ education indoctrination warp your brain? Well get your mind right, because the prevailing legal standard for substantiating any claim of discriminatory hiring will require a full on written confession of racism and ill-intent along the lines of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kempf. So I guess once you have gone Black you actually CAN go back.
And you can bet your ass there will be a significant number of companies, both large and small, who elect to do just that. They’ll just revert to hiring people who remind them of themselves, as human nature generally dictates, because they can.
But for the most part, they’ll be quiet about it. They won’t be grotesque and add to their job postings on Indeed, Glassdoor, or LinkedIn: “No Blacks Need Apply.” I’ll take it a step further and bet you my next check that most companies that already had a D.E.I. initiative in place will probably leave their “commitment to diversity” statements on their company website. And why not? It never costs companies one thin dime to tell that big fat lie anyway. Just like it cost the NFL less than a nickel per helmet to paint the slogan “End Racism” on the back padding of their helmets.
It will just become clearer over time where they stand in reality, as their workforce gets whiter and whiter. And even more importantly, it will become self-evident that there is not a damned thing we can do about it short of overhauling the legislative and judiciary branches of government.
This is the end of an era, particularly for ‘professional’ Black men in the workforce. We are really the ones that Conservative operatives need to get rid of because for reasons both old and obvious, Black men have always posed the greatest threat to the status quo. Doubt me if you like, but Medgar, Malcolm, Martin and Fred all had to be put in the ground to get them off Uncle Sam’s ass. Show me a comparable set of four slain leaders from any other demographic and I’ll give you my car.
America sent Black men a clear message in orchestrating these assassinations back then, and it is sending us a clear message now: We might make room for others to gain a stake in the American enterprise, but not you. And it does not matter if we hired Ben Crump to raise Johnny Cochran from the grave and sue for damages, any lawsuit they could ever bring on our behalf will eventually wind up in front of Uncle Sam’s own favorite, Uncle Clarence.
But all is not lost. Even if Black men are persona non grata in the future of corporate America, a few formerly marginalized groups will survive. White women will be ok because they got a pass by the ruling; gender based affirmative action still stands. Besides, White men need to keep their preferred targets for sexual harassment in their sightlines and within reach. Plus, how cool is it to be able to hire your own daughter, side-chick, or your son’s girlfriend to a plumb job and posture like you’re performing an act of advanced corporate citizenship? That’s not a bad deal if you get away with it.
Gay White men will be ok because they can always retreat back into the closet. Nobody is suggesting they can’t still be proud, but they just might not want to be so loud anymore. Some of them might find they like it in that closet, realizing the freedom of living their personal truths in public was a burden they are glad to lay down. A few might like it so much that they lean all the way into it and become diabolical, self-loathing, gay-bashing masterminds like Roy Cohn, and so many televangelists and Republican political activists. That possibility standing alone gives these guys an “in” with the power-brokers who ultimately decide who gets the big salary and who doesn’t.
It’s a very safe bet that Asian-Americans will be okay too, because Conservatives are indebted to them. It was Asians who brought the lawsuit that helped whites of ill-will to accomplish what they had been lusting for since the 70s: setting Black progress on fire. The ‘students’ in the Students for Fair Admissions really meant Asian students. There’s gotta be some benefit for lighting the torch that burned down what Black folks built. But fortunately for these students, they have a really good shot at top jobs anyway because they are unburdened by stereotypes of intellectual inferiority, and they have ample opportunity to work for firms owned and/or controlled by people who share their background.
Black women will certainly take a hit, what with the burden of intersectionality and all. However, they do have the benefit of the ‘Two-Fer’ identity. For those too young to remember the term, in the heyday of Affirmative Action, many companies were foolishly vocal in their preference for hiring Black women over Black men because they got credit for hiring two marginalized groups in one shot. As in two-for-one.
So here we are: on a glide path back to square 1. After all the blood, sweat, toil and tears of The Movement; all the litigation and recriminations in the aftermath, and all the politics and punditry in the present day, it looks like the structure of the American workforce is settling back into its identity. The Empire has definitely struck back.
But Black men should be a little different this time. And our thin but tough ranks of allies should be a little different this time. We all have the full benefit of history (both recent and distant) to draw from to devise a response, individually and (God help us) collectively. Each of us has to study the marketplace for ourselves to find our sweet spot and be prepared to exploit opportunities when they present themselves. Internationally especially. We have to be deliberate and directed because if we just go with the flow, we will be washed away. Anybody who has boxed before can tell you that the punch you don’t see coming is the one that knocks you out. But if you see it coming, you have a chance to counter punch.
Since we see the punch coming this time, it’s up to us to be ready.
This post originally appeared on Medium and is edited and republished with author's permission. Read more of David Saint Vincent's work on Medium.