Taraji P. Henson recently revealed in an interview that she has not received a raise in her salary, despite appearing in several successful movies and television shows. She mentioned that the last time she received a pay raise was after her movie “Proud Mary,” which was essentially a remake of the movie “Gloria.” Taraji became emotional and even shed tears as she expressed her frustration at the lack of pay parity in the industry.

Taraji’s experience in Hollywood is not unique, as many black people across various industries have faced similar challenges, because “whenever you don’t own something, you are at the mercy of those who do”. Recently, there was a protest by Lyft and Uber drivers over wages, where drivers claimed to earn very little money despite working long hours. Such drivers often receive a small fraction of the total amount paid by the rider to the company. When questioned about this, Uber said that drivers know how much they will make before accepting a ride, implying that they have a choice to accept or reject the offer.

It’s one thing to sit around and talk about the disparity in pay but it’s a completely different thing to do something about it. One of the main reasons blacks are paid less is because the employer can pay us less. After all, many of us are not willing to sacrifice as a group or individual. If we go back to the Uber and Lyft situation I would like to know how many of the drivers are willing to turn the app off and just refuse to drive for them.

These companies thrive off of average people using their cars to drive passengers around. If Uber and Lyft drivers refuse to drive for them, they will have no company, but as soon as you suggest this to them, the pushback would be how much they need the money, which is meritless because app workers can be deactivated at any time. Once an unhappy customer writes a bad review your tender with the company is in jeopardy.

I drove for Uber when the company first hit Connecticut, a customer gave me a bad review because I refused to get out of my car and open up the door for her when we reached her destination. Another customer gave me a bad review because a group of them (college kids) were standing outside waiting for me to arrive with undershirts on in the dead winter.

It was a 25-minute drive for me to get to them and Uber knew this when they sent me the offer, but instead of understanding the complaint Uber offered to send me to a customer service training class that was being given in Boston Massachusetts, (I lived in Connecticut), needless to say, my driving for Uber was done were over.