Black Folks Have Long Mastered the Art of "Quiet Quitting" in the Workplace
The new trend of "quiet quitting" a job is not a new thing for generations of Black employees. Managing self-care and tempering expectations in the workplace has been essential to Black labor.
Twenty-two years ago, the late great comedian, Bernie Mac gave the world a glimpse into the workplace culture and philosophy of (a whole lotta) Black employees in the blockbuster stand-up film, Kings of Comedy. While performing his set to a sold-out audience, Mac affirmed what many Black folks in the audience knew, and possibly put some folks of other ethnicities up on game, when he joked about Black employees being the only race of laborers that walk into their jobs and tell the boss “what the fuck they ain’t gon’ do.”
The most memorable part of the bit about Black folks in the workplace was Mac’s distinction between how white employees take a break, and how Black employees take a break, and the cameras panning to the Black audience members cracking up while nodding in agreement was all the proof necessary to validate his point.
…they [white people] do shit different. When they go on break on the job, 15 minutes. They go to they desk, they eat they cheese sandwich, drink they goddamn tea — 15 minutes they back on the fuckin’ job… my people, when we go on break, that’s just what the fuck we do — we BREAK!
~ Bernie Mac, Kings of Comedy
What Mac was speaking about in his routine long preceded the idea of “quiet quitting” — a philosophical outlook on labor that began recently trending in viral TikTok videos. Late millennials and Gen Z’ers have primarily been leading this “newfound charge” of establishing workplace boundaries as a result of employee burnout from “going the extra mile” coupled with the demands of pandemic-era work culture.
Quiet quitting is trending because scores of young, and not-so-young white employees are sounding the alarm about the need for self-care in the workplace. But as Bernie Mac alluded to back in the year 2000, Black folks have long been about preserving and protecting ourselves from the trappings of white supremacy culture in the workplace as establishing work boundaries has long been vital to our existence in a society driven by capitalism and metrics of productivity.
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