On Black History Month, Paying Black Folx, and "Exposure"

Image Description: On the left side of the image, a Black person’s hand can be seen holding a custom Uno card. The card says, “Work for white people for free for their Black History Month “celebrations” or draw 25.” The right side of the image shows a Black man sitting at a card table, playing Uno. He looks nonplussed as he holds 25 Uno cards in his hand.

Hello, white U.S. Americans who organize events and programming for your company or organization. It's that time of year when the air is crisp, winter is well underway, and white "professionals" reach out to Black speakers, consultants, and facilitators to speak at their corporate events as panelists and teachers to "celebrate" Black History Month. You reach out to us to share our stories, pain, and lived and learned experiences with your white organizations during the shortest month of the year, continuing the cycles of melanated pain porn for white consumption that your organizations have trafficked in for decades.

And you're still asking us to do this for little to no compensation.

The fact that y'all pick Black History Month to frantically reach out to us and get us booked for your events with no willingness to pay us adequately (or pay us at all) isn't lost on us. After all these years of Black folx stating loudly and proudly that we do not share ourselves for free, y'all still reach out to us asking for free labor or wanting to "negotiate" our clearly stated rate. We see y'all.

This is how we know y'all will likely always seek performance and not revolution or reform.

I come online and give white folx learning and insight for free-99 multiple days a week, yet y'all still reach out to me to work for you for free? Do you think we owe you free content because other Black folx and I share our experiences and learnings now and again outside of a paywall? Y'all still want to treat my services like a chair you're trying to buy from a flea market vendor?

In the past week, I've had three "offers" to be a part of white organizations' Black History Month "celebrations." One was a panel; two asked me to come and "teach" deep, impactful topics in 45 minutes or less. Only one offered compensation and said compensation was half of my rate. The other two? No offers of compensation whatsoever. When I mentioned compensation to one of them, they told me that it was "an opportunity to reach an audience I might never get to reach."

Ah, exposure. We can't have enough exposure, can we?

Black U.S. Americans don't owe you free labor on any day, white folx. But we don't owe you anything close to free labor during a month celebrating our achievements in your white world despite every hurdle you've placed in front of us. Pay us for our time and energy. It's not that hard. Do you want us for Black History Month? Pay. Us. Our. Rate. Period. Or don't do anything for Black History Month.

It's not like most of y'all are doing anything the other 337 days of the years anyway.