Black History Month has just drawn to a close on the American civic calendar, and Lent is set to begin on the Christian liturgical calendar. Most years, these two observances partially overlap. Easter has to fall after April 15 for Ash Wednesday to fall in March rather than February.
Yet, little is typically done to recognize or explore the implications of this concurrence, and we are spiritually poorer for it.
Lent offers an intentional pathway deeper into Black history: confronting the gravity of systemic bias and historical prejudice in this country — a gravity that has shaped and continues to influence the life trajectories of Black Americans — while honoring the contributions of Black people to the artistic, intellectual and cultural life of our nation.
When we intentionally enter into the depths of the Black American experience, one of the things that immediately becomes clear is that we cannot confine the cancer of American chattel slavery to specific regions of the country or particular decades of history.
The economic heritage of oppression
America’s slave society is the offspring of colonialism and capitalism, the twin interests that first brought Europeans to this continent. It’s a corrupt gene in the social DNA of the New World. Slavery infected this land constitutionally, politically, economically and even theologically. The legacies of slavery therefore must be understood and combated on all these fronts.
“It’s a corrupt gene in the social DNA of the New World.”
The constitutional, theological and political dimensions of this struggle are familiar to us. We know about the Three-fifths Compromise. We know the Civil Rights movement was grounded in the prayers, faith, convictions and commitment of the Black church and its pastors. We also know white Christian nationalism puts forward a star-spangled Aryan Jesus as its mascot. We know voter suppression is alive and well. As I type, legal challenges to redistricting plans in Alabama and North Carolina are underway because conservative majorities in both legislatures are seeking to limit the influence of Black voters in the next election cycle.
By contrast, the economic dimensions of the struggle have received less attention, let alone action, even though that front is where Martin Luther King Jr. was focusing his energies in the final months of his life. As King explained, it does little good to integrate a lunch counter if a Black (wo)man cannot afford to sit down and order a hamburger.
King understood that keeping a group of people poor effectively keeps them segregated no matter how the law might change. Without economic access as well as legal access, shops, restaurants, neighborhoods and other swaths of American life would remain “whites only” in practice even if they were officially desegregated.
The numbers speak
Fifty-four years after King’s assassination, his warnings remain prescient. Economically, Black America continues to lag far behind white America and, as a result, many areas of the country remain starkly segregated despite the many “equal opportunity” laws and regulations in place.
“Even after the record-setting economic growth of the pre-pandemic period, the Black unemployment rate was nearly double the overall unemployment rate.”
The numbers speak for themselves. Even after the record-setting economic growth of the pre-pandemic period, the Black unemployment rate was nearly double the overall unemployment rate (6.5% versus 3.9%) and three full percentage points higher than the unemployment rate of white Americans (3.5%) at the end of 2018. Throughout the economic boom, African Americans continued to have the lowest employment-to-population ratio of any major ethnic group in the US, a long-standing trend.
Furthermore, the already cavernous wealth gap between whites and Blacks only widened over the last decade. The pre-pandemic net worth of the average white American household stood at $983,400, six times more than the average Black household’s net worth of $142,500.
Reshaping America’s economic structures and pathways to create a fairer distribution of our country’s immense wealth is essential to the quest for greater equality.
How the subminimum wage works
A prime example of a specific economic policy that undermines liberty and justice for all is the subminimum wage for employees who regularly receive tips. Most of these workers are employed in the hospitality and food services industries, economic sectors in which the workforce tends to be Black, brown and female.
Federal law currently sets the subminimum wage at $2.13 per hour. Thirty-four states have established a wage for tipped employees that is higher than the federal threshold but still lower than the standard minimum wage of $7.25 per hour for non-tipped employees. Only eight states currently mandate that tipped employees receive the regular minimum wage.
Proponents of the subminimum wage argue low base pay helps keep food prices low for customers and that tips more than make up the difference for workers. Such justifications ignore the consequences of the subminimum wage on the lives of workers.
Low base pay makes income highly erratic. An off night or a slow season can set workers back significantly.
Origins in bigotry and sexism
Supporters of the subminimum wage also ignore the bigotry of its origins. Restaurants can pay servers and bartenders less than the federally mandated minimum wage thanks to a provision of the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act. This provision was crafted by Southern lawmakers who wanted New Deal gains for the South but also wanted to maintain segregationist hierarchies. They intentionally sought to restrict any benefits Black workers might reap from government safeguards and economic investment. Under Jim Crow, many Southern Blacks worked solely for tips, and the majority of tipped employees were Black. Inserting the subminimum wage loophole was a way to ensure these workers stayed “in their place.”
“Supporters of the subminimum wage also ignore the bigotry of its origins.”
Advocacy group One Fair Wage points to research that demonstrates this loophole has indeed had that effect. Not only does the subminimum wage continue to perpetuate poverty, it also stimulates harassment and discrimination in the workplace.
Tip dependence creates a perverse dynamic between servers and their customers in which the servers feel obligated to accept all manner of untoward behavior from customers in order to “earn a good tip.” For female and minority servers, this involves putting up with sexually suggestive comments and racially prejudiced remarks, if not veiled threats.
A national survey conducted by Social Science Research Solutions in January 2021 found 71% of female restaurant workers report being sexually harassed at least once while on the job, the highest occurrence in any economic sector. This statistic conforms with the findings of other studies that show workers in states that allow a subminimum wage file twice as many sexual harassment complaints as those in states without it. Other surveys suggest that women and minorities generally receive lower tips than their white male counterparts. Minority servers also report that managers regularly assign them to sections of the restaurant where tips are known to be less generous.
About those Olive Garden breadsticks
The obvious bias in her dining room assignments led waitress Pam Araiza to sign on as a plaintiff in a lawsuit One Fair Wage filed against Darden Restaurants Inc. in 2021. Darden is one of the largest food service conglomerates in the United States. Its brands include such well-known names as Olive Garden, Longhorn Steakhouse, and Bahama Breeze. All told, the company’s various franchises employ more than 175,000 workers across North America.
“For decades, Darden also has been one of the staunchest opponents of any attempt to abolish the subminimum wage.”
For decades, Darden also has been one of the staunchest opponents of any attempt to abolish the subminimum wage, increase the minimum wage or otherwise change how non-managerial restaurant employees are compensated. In 2020 alone, Darden spent more than $400,000 on lobbying efforts and contributed generously to the congregational campaigns of politicians on both sides of the aisle.
One Fair Wage contends the environment of pervasive harassment and discrimination the subminimum wage fosters is grounds for it to be abolished under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. They hope this angle of attack might finally succeed in eliminating the subminimum wage loophole in U.S. labor law.
Currently, the case is stalled in court. A federal judge in San Francisco dismissed the suit last September, ruling One Fair Wage had no standing to sue since it is not an employee of Darden Restaurants. One Fair Wage filed an appeal in January, countering that (1) state law allows any aggrieved party to sue and (2) Darden’s internal regulations prohibit its workers from bringing such a suit. All Darden employees must agree to arbitrate legal disputes as a condition of employment.
Only time will tell what the results of this suit will be. It may succeed; it very well may fail on technicalities if not merit. Regardless, there still will be work to do. Inequality is built into the economic structures and systems that facilitate life in America, and there are wealthy, powerful interests protecting this status quo.
Change can happen
As daunting as those defenses are, however, the codified nature of so much precarity and prejudice in America also is grounds for hope. Economic policies like the subminimum wage can be changed — if there are people willing to fight for that change.
Willingness to join the struggle begins with the awareness that change is needed: understanding the history, seeing the reality of the present, seeing through the marketing techniques used to soften and obscure the harshness of present realities, and being moved by the plight of neighbors Jesus calls us to love as ourselves.
Black History Month can give us that awareness, and Lent can prepare us for and lead us to that work — if. If we are willing to recognize the connections between economic policy, social justice and racial equality. If we desire to see God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven. If we desire to see an America that more reflects its stated ideals and principals.
Let’s not be afraid to go deeper. It’s the only way we’ll ever go further.
Todd Thomason
Todd Thomason is a gospel minister and justice advocate who has pastored churches in Virginia, Maryland, and Canada. He holds a doctor of ministry degree from the Candler School of Theology at Emory University and a master of divinity degree from the McAfee School of Theology at Mercer University. In addition to Baptist News Global, Todd writes regularly at viaexmachina.com. Follow him on Twitter @btoddthomason and Facebook @viaexmachina.
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