A panel of fast-food and campus workers recently told 75 members of the University of Memphis community how they struggled with a pay-system that keeps them in continuous poverty.
The meeting, facilitated by Dr. Zandria Robinson, an assistant professor of sociology at the university, was part of the “Freedom Tour” of Southern cities that is hosting discussions on the intersections of the “Black Lives Matter” movement and “Show Me 15,
the fast-food workers campaign for a living wage.
Freedom Tour is an initiative of the Freedom Fighters, an activist group that organizes to protest inequality issues that affect black communities across the nation. It was formed shortly after Ferguson, Missouri, police officer Daren Wilson shot and killed Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager.
“I’m here to tie in the whole Black Lives Matter with the economic issue of us seeking living wages for our workers,” said Sha’ona Coleman, the primary organizer for Shut It Down Memphis.
Although each panelist represented a different employer and activist group, their concerns were consistent: black communities are depleted of resources, including a living-wage in service industry jobs, and it’s this depletion that keeps cycles of crime and poverty alive in their communities.
“Maybe I just don’t understand how the system works,” said Jeanina Jenkins, a Freedom Fighters organizer. “But, spending millions sending in more police, instead of jobs with a living wage… it’s not working.”
Christopher Smith, an organizer with M15, a Memphis organization pushing for a $15 minimum wage and the right to form a union and a Church’s Chicken employee, said he is all too familiar with a lack of opportunity that often leads to desperate and illegal measures.
Desperate to make ends meet, and seeing no legal means to do so, Smith started selling drugs in his South Memphis neighborhood in order to survive. When Smith decided he needed to make a change and move away from pushing drugs, he sought and found employment at a Church’s Chicken. It’s a full-time legal job, but it’s not enough to survive on.
According to Smith, people caught in poverty “don’t want to sell drugs, but they have to survive somehow. We need more, we need more.”
“All of this stuff really connects,” said Jenkins. “When people are forced to sell drugs or steal…people get caught up in a system, and in a country where they have little chance of making ends meet, you’re forced to go to prison, do your time, and become a felon.”
According U.S. Bureau of Crime Statistics data, one in three black adult males will go to prison in their lifetime.
“Then you’re a second-class citizen, and you are locked out of opportunity as a second-class citizen,” said Jenkins.
Jenkins sees the minimum wage increase as an important step in eliminating an endless circle of crime and poverty.
“So many black and brown individuals are getting caught up in this cycle, and it’s unfortunate,” said Jenkins. “That’s why we’re demanding $15 an hour, so this cycle won’t happen. We could possibly phase this out over the next two generations, possibly.”
Those in attendance asked questions about how they could get involved with growing movements for higher wages and how to begin the difficult conversations about the link between poverty and crime.
As the panel facilitator, Robinson was more than happy to foster a discussion around inequalities within the black community for multiple reasons, including a challenge from university president David M. Rudd.
“I feel as though the takeaway from tonight is that all of these struggles are connected. Black Lives Matter and economic issues – they’re connected, said Robinson. “If we want a better city, these are the issues we need to address specifically and head-on. We need to have these conversations, even if they are uncomfortable.
“Imagine what Memphis could be like 20 years from now, if we really take it seriously right now.”
