COLLAR WARS

(And the Quiet Tension

I Can’t Unsee)

I’ve been wanting to write this for a long time.

Because it’s something I’ve watched for most of my life — and the older I get, the clearer it becomes.

It’s this tension.

White collar vs. blue collar.

And if I say it the way I actually mean it, the tension looks like this:

Black men wore the blue collars.
Black women wore the white collars.

And I know somebody’s going to read that and think I’m trying to start a gender war or a “Black women vs. Black men” think piece.

That’s not what this is.

This is me saying out loud what I’ve been quietly watching since I was a kid.

Because when I was growing up — especially in the 80s — I saw Black men working real jobs. Factory jobs. City jobs. County jobs. Bus drivers, truck drivers, custodians. Uniform jobs. Provider jobs.

I saw Black fathers.

Like actually saw them.

At parks. At barbecues. Out with their kids. In vans — and back then a van was a flex. A van said: “I can take my family places.” A van said: “I’m here.”

And at the same time, I watched Black women climbing into white-collar spaces.

Not always through college either — sometimes through assistant roles, secretary jobs, data entry, operations.

All the jobs that keep the machine running…
but don’t come with real power.

It was like we became the backbone of two different worlds.

And slowly, those worlds started moving farther apart.

Economically. Socially. Class-wise.

Then the blue-collar work started disappearing.

Factories shut down. Jobs moved. Technology replaced people. Things shifted to the Midwest or overseas or got automated into “press a button and monitor a screen.”

And what happened next is the part people don’t like to talk about honestly:

A lot of Black men didn’t have a place to land.

Not at the same scale. Not with the same access. Not with the same dignity.

There used to be a time when you could walk into a grocery store, bowling alley, anywhere — and you’d see Black men in uniforms everywhere. Working. Clocking in. Holding it down. You don’t see it the same way now.

And meanwhile, I came up in the white-collar path.

Not because it was glamorous — but because it was the “Black woman” route that was available.

And if I’m being real, it wasn’t some “boss babe” story.

It was the coffee-getter story. The phone-answerer story. The data-entry story. The operational support story.

The “I’m in the building” story.

And being in the building gave us something.

It gave us an illusion of power.

Because you’re inside.

You can say you work “corporate.” You can put the title on your LinkedIn. You can pay your bills more consistently than people outside the building.

But you’re still doing the jobs most people don’t want.

You’re still consulted instead of leading.

You’re still present but not fully included.

And here’s the part that hits me the hardest right now:

A lot of Black women have spent 20, 30 years in those spaces.

And now?

We’re getting kicked out.

Laid off. “Re-org’d.” “Restructured.” “Not a fit anymore.”

The same spaces that once made us feel safe — even if the safety was shaky — are booting us out.

And suddenly I’m watching something familiar.

It looks like the mass exit Black men went through decades ago.

Like when my grandfather’s era got hit — like when the General Motors plant left Los Angeles.

So now I’m sitting here thinking:

Is it our turn?

Is it Black women’s turn to experience the same “you’re no longer needed” shift?

Is it our turn to have to reinvent ourselves from scratch the way Black men had to reinvent themselves?

Because that’s what I keep seeing:

When the system stops offering you a stable place to stand, you start looking for another way.

And for a lot of Black men, “another way” became entrepreneurship.

Not always because they were chasing a dream.

Sometimes because nobody was hiring them.

Sometimes because the structure didn’t want them.

Sometimes because they didn’t “talk right” or “act right” or “show up right” for the kind of respectability politics those spaces require.

So they did their own thing.

Some became brilliant.

Some became delusional.

Some became both at the same time.

But the point is: they tried to build a life outside the building because the building wasn’t built for them.

And now… I’m looking at Black women and realizing:

We might be next.

Because you can’t just update your resume and assume somebody’s going to bite.

You can’t just “do LinkedIn harder” and expect stability to return.

Now it’s algorithms. Filters. AI. Quiet rejection you never even see.

You’ll have five versions of the same resume and still feel like you’re shouting into a void.

So maybe this is the moment.

The moment we have to take everything we learned inside those corporate structures — the project management, the systems thinking, the operational discipline, the “make something out of nothing” survival skills — and turn it into something that holds us up. #BlackGirlMagic.

Because the ladder we were told to climb?

It’s not there like it used to be.

And maybe the next season isn’t one big job.

Maybe it’s multiple streams.

Multiple work modes.

A patchwork that becomes stability because the old version of stability is gone.

And I know, I know.

This still sounds divisive.

But I’m not saying it to blame anybody.

I’m saying it because it’s true:

Our labor is wanted… until it isn’t.

Our presence is tolerated… until it costs too much.

And when the system decides you’re optional, you have to decide what you’re going to build next.

So I’m speaking to myself, and I’m speaking to other Black women:

It might be our turn to figure out our next shtick.

Not in the corny “personal brand” way.

But in the real way.

The survival way.

The “how do I make a life now” way.

And here’s the thing I don’t want to admit, but I think it’s true:

This might be the moment that brings us closer to Black men.

Not because we suddenly agree on everything.

Not because all the hurt disappears.

But because we might finally understand — in our bodies — what it feels like to be pushed out of the “acceptable” path and told to figure it out anyway.

So maybe the question isn’t “who did it better.”

Maybe the question is:

How do we mend the bridge?

How do we stop acting like we’re on two different teams?

How do we come together and build our own shit — for real — because the system keeps showing us we were never meant to fully thrive inside it?

I don’t have a neat ending.

I’m just telling the truth the way I see it:

We’ve been living inside a white-collar/blue-collar split for a long time.

And now the ground is shifting again.

And if we’re smart — if we’re honest — we’ll stop pretending we can “resume” our way out of it.

And we’ll start asking what we can build together.

Because one thing I know for sure:

We all want our own shit.

So… how do we build it?