White Collar Pays on Black Holidays!

kountrybuttanetwork

 OK!! This is just my opinion! Why in the world would any black person want to celebrate any black holiday simply by taking off work?  Now before we get started, I must say that I do consider, especially in America, black holidays to be a significant factor in the roles of milestones we have crossed to get to where we are today.  However, just because it's a black holiday doesn't mean that we as black people are now entitled to a day off for celebration.

I've seen social media posts claiming that if your employer makes you work on black holidays then that employer or company is potentially racist.  I, as a black man, completely understand the argumentative point of view when it comes to certain working mind states of an employer.  One point being that if they have to work then the employee also has to work.  In this case, the argument usually falls on whether or not the employer takes off work for any other proclaimed national holiday where the employee still has to work.  If such a situation does not exist for debate, then it would be difficult to argue the point of work leave if the purpose is not for any said emergency or pre-scheduled appointment.

 

    On the other hand, let's say you are granted a day off of work for celebration only to come to work the next day and find a note on the door saying that the business was closed until the exact day your bills are due.  Now some of you may ask.. how does the employer know when your bills are due?  I would assume that's a point of information you would then attempt to present to your employer in an argument that the company needs to remain open until your bills are due.  To even top that, most of those employees would still be willing to work for the same employer had they not found another career of some sort by the time their initial company decided to reopen.

    With the concerns of poverty and fairness in the black community one would think that it would generally be in the best interest of the employee to go to work even if the employer did not feel required to be present.

 To put it in another perspective, the celebration alone is a representation and demonstration of homage to how far we've come and what our founding fathers have sacrificed for our "so-called" freedom.  (We're still working on things)  With that being said,  ALL BLACK-OWNED BUSINESS should most definitely make it a point to be open and available to provide for their neighbors and peers and to keep the money spent on those days circulating within the black community.  That means every black business owner should either be proud to be open on a black holiday, or look forward to supporting a black business with their hard earned white collar dollar! 

You can call anyone racist all you want, but bills are not racist.  When it comes to pointing out what matters and what doesn't matter, I suggest we take a long look at "WHY" certain things matter to us, and the impact that it would have on society if it didn't matter.  Upper class, middle class, lower class... doesn't matter too much when moral and structural elements trump the lack of principles and guardrails we adopt and adapt to on a daily basis to keep the high horse grounded.  Just my opinion.  What's yours?