The Last Great Migration: The Hustle, The Lies, and the Exodus Out

The Growing Exodus Out of the U.S. by American Descendants of Slaves

A Cultural Report Essay

By Lisa N. Alexander

🔹 This is Part One of a new series, The Last Great Migration—an exploration of why Black Americans, particularly ADOS, are leaving the U.S. in search of something better. Through my own experiences and the stories of others, I’ll be exposing the economic, social, and historical forces fueling this growing exodus.

🔹 This first installment—The Hustle, The Lies, and the Exodus Out—dives into capitalism’s relentless grip, and the broken promises of the American Dream.

TEKEL 

“You have been weighed on the scales and found wanting.”
Daniel 5:27 (NIV)

“You’ve been had! You’ve been took! You’ve been hoodwinked! Bamboozled! Led astray! Run amok!” — Malcolm X, Speech at Harlem Rally (as dramatized in Malcolm X, 1992 film)

The Grind That Broke Me: Trapped in a High-Pressure Sales Job

“Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!”

“Good morning! Good morning! Good morning!”

“It’s a new day! Let’s get those cameras on!”

This is how my coach greeted us every morning for our daily sales meeting and I’d position my camera so that you could just see my forehead. I didn’t want anyone to see the tears streaming down my face.

I absolutely hated this job.

I was angry.

I didn’t know what I had done in life that this was my only option.

I cried every day for the first four weeks of training. 

We had to be on camera for eight hours straight. 

When you’re used to having your days free, this was a nightmare.

My body hurt from sitting all day. 

This was not who I was. Disarming an unsuspecting guest and getting them to immediately buy a vacation was not how I did business. I always had a long sales runway but now I was expected to perform and “be on” the moment the guest answered the phone. I was to expect the sale and not let them get off the phone without a fight.

This job drained me.

I lost my hair. 

I gained back some of the weight I had lost.

Everything about this job was an enemy to my soul. 

The Death of the American Dream: Wages, Wealth, and the Cost of Survival

After shutting down my business, I found myself needing this job—and I hated that one paycheck wasn’t enough to live on.

And I know things weren’t always like this. Not too long ago, wages slightly outpaced the cost of living. Families could survive, even thrive, on a single income. People had the luxury of rest without feeling like they were falling behind.

In the decades after WWII, wages and productivity grew together. A single income from a factory job, a teaching position, or even a government job could pay for a house, healthcare, college, and a decent retirement.

Of course, this version of America wasn’t built for all of us.

Black Americans were often shut out of the very programs that made middle-class life possible—denied home loans, good union jobs, and the same GI Bill benefits that helped white families build wealth. Still, for those who could access stable employment, the wages were enough to survive.

Today? The system isn’t just squeezing Black folks—it’s squeezing everyone except the ultra-wealthy. The gap between rich and poor has widened, and now even those who once benefited from the system are barely staying afloat.

But by the late 1970s, that balance was broken. Wages stagnated while the cost of living soared. Housing prices, healthcare, and education costs exploded—but paychecks stayed nearly the same. In 1965, the federal minimum wage was $1.25 an hour—equivalent to $12.29 today. But the 2024 federal minimum wage? Still $7.25.

That version of America—the one where everyday people could actually live? It died long ago. If only this was what they meant when they said, ‘Make America Great Again.’

Now, we’re expected to grind endlessly—not for wealth, not for prosperity, but just to keep our heads above water.

Who Benefits? The Dark Side of Capitalism’s “Opportunities”

Prior to being left with zero options and having to take this job, I owned my own business. I worked mostly with nonprofits and the work was life-giving even if it wasn’t as lucrative as I would have liked. It nourished me deeply because I knew I was making a difference. 

I gladly helped nonprofits tell their stories through producing videos and documentaries, I created marketing campaigns and presented their stories and accomplishments to the media. I loved this work. The late Senator John Lewis admonished us that if we were to get into trouble it should be “good trouble.” And doing this work? It allowed me to put all ten toes in.

But this? This wasn’t trouble—it was entrapment.

This was where capitalism, consumerism, and grind culture collided—and I was caught in the fray.

What I would later realize is that this entire experience wasn’t about me. I had done nothing wrong. But in those moments, you couldn’t have convinced me otherwise. I had sinned and this was my retribution.

One day, between the forced smiles and the endless calls, I stopped asking ‘Why me?’ and started asking ‘Who benefits?’

I realized that I had been given an opportunity. And I chuckle as I write this because “opportunity” was a word constantly thrown around in daily conversations. 

We were constantly reminded of this ‘amazing opportunity’ to make a lot of money. But this operation functioned exactly like every direct sales marketing meeting I had ever seen—the constant hype, the relentless motivational speeches, all pulled from the same playbook designed to keep the weary and exhausted engaged.

Directors told us often that this was one of the few opportunities in this country where people without degrees could make six figures a year if only they worked hard and sacrificed. And it was not by happenstance that our sales floor motto was “no sacrifice, no reward.” 

The opportunity I had been given, however, was to witness the grind culture that fuels capitalism’s machine—where urgency is weaponized, and exhaustion is rewarded.

ALICE Families: The Impossible Climb Out of Poverty

I reluctantly took the job just off the heels of producing a short documentary for a client who supported ALICE families—families that are Asset-Limited, Income-Constrained, Employed. After spending time with the client and hearing their clients’ stories, I came to a deeper understanding of what it was to be poor in this country. 

🎥 WATCH: The Spiral—A Docudrama on ALICE Families

My client was vehemently opposed to a “come up” story and I was a bit stunned. Why wouldn’t they want to show a family who had worked their way through the ranks and achieved what’s been billed as the ‘American Dream?”

When I asked why this approach was off the table the response hit me hard. 

“Because, if you’re born into a certain level of poverty in this country, the likelihood of you working your way out of it is impossible.”

So for some, no matter how hard they work, it will never be enough.

The brevity of that truth silenced the room.

I understood my marching orders and we set off to create a story that painted a “what would you do?’ scenario. If you were a struggling single mom with a sick child, what lengths would you go to make sure your child stayed healthy? And how should morality and “rightness” factor into these scenarios. 

I understood ALICE families in theory—my client’s words had made it clear: some people, no matter how hard they worked, would never make it out. But witnessing it up close through my husband’s story made it real. It wasn’t just a statistic or a talking point—it was a man stranded on the freeway, trying to figure out how to afford a used tire just to make it to work.

At the time, my husband, a manufacturing supervisor, told me about an employee who called out absent. His tire had blown out on the freeway during his commute. The plant was far outside the city—a long trek if you didn’t live nearby. My husband approved his absence and informed the other supervisors. Their response? Confusion. Why does he need the whole day off? Just get a new tire and come in late.

But my husband knew better. He and I both understood what they didn’t—that someone would have to help tow the car to safety, and that he’d likely spend the day searching for the cheapest used tire he could find. And that was only after figuring out where the money would come from in the first place.

The High Cost of Consumerism: When Buying Power Becomes a Burden

Back at my job, I am being told, “Lisa, the guest’s finances are none of your business.” I am to introduce the company’s financing option so these guests can get the vacation they deserve. 

My guest, we’ll call her Chandra, called and she was panicked. The entire family was going on a vacation and she’d found out at the last minute. She and her significant other were desperately trying to go.

After finalizing all the details, it was time to pay for this “vacation they deserved.”

Credit cards were declined.

The mother-in-law was called in.

Her credit card was declined.

We tried the financing option. 

Declined.

They asked me to hold but didn’t mute themselves. 

I didn’t think to put the call on hold because I had no idea it would turn so intimate and so revealing.

I listened to them count the days before paydays, consider using their entire Christmas bonus, and file taxes early so they could use their refund. But the one that hurt my heart most? Maybe they didn’t get their kids Christmas presents.

Here was an ALICE family on my phone trying to give their kids a holiday vacation and the money wasn’t adding up. 

My coach was genuinely kind but still, she worked for the company. And when it came to sales, there was little room for empathy. When I brought up the family’s financial struggles, her response was dismissive. She insisted they had known about the vacation in advance and had simply waited till the last minute. In her words, ‘buyers were liars.’ Their financial struggles were not my concern.

A few days after the rest of her family left, I sent her a short email saying that I wished things could have worked out differently and we could plan a vacation for the following year. 

She called me weeks later excited that she had the money for her deposit and to call her on a certain date. I called, there was an issue with the card. She would have to go to the bank to resolve. I called back. She didn’t answer. She never booked that vacation.

“Just One More Dial”: How Consumerism Mimics Sharecropping

Being one of the chosen few granted this money-making ‘opportunity’—and the privilege of sharing this amazing ‘opportunity’ with guests—I dare not forget to stress the ‘urgency’ of this exclusive, time-sensitive offer.

Urgency wasn’t just a sales tactic—it was the premise for every encounter. Every call, every pitch, every moment designed to make someone believe their window of opportunity was closing fast.

If I had a penny (well, we don’t make those anymore)—no, a nickel—for every time I heard the word ‘urgency’, I wouldn’t have needed to make a 150 cold calls a day, leaving voicemails for people who had already marked my number as spam. That alone could have gotten me to six figures.

I sailed through the interview process. Said what needed to be said. Played the part well.

‘What motivates you?’ they asked.

‘Money.’

‘Money motivates me,’ I said.

It wasn’t a lie. There’s a Bible verse that says, ‘Money answers all things.’ But here’s the thing—I wasn’t then, nor am I now, greedy or lustful for money.

But that was all they needed to hear.

Because in their minds, I was willing to risk it all—my health, long hours, time with family, time for myself—to chase down 100+ calls a day, 200 bookings a month, and a six-figure income.

They didn’t know me.

Honestly? I don’t think they Googled me either.

Because if they had, they would have seen the chasm—the impossible divide—between my values, my beliefs, my commitment to being ten toes into good trouble, and their ‘no sacrifice, no reward’ grind mentality. They were as vast as the current political divide.

When Union troops arrived in Galveston, Texas, on June 19, 1865, with news of emancipation, many of the last enslaved Africans in the U.S. finally learned they were free—more than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation. But freedom came with new forms of exploitation. With few resources and nowhere to go, many newly freed Black people became sharecroppers, working as tenants on the very land that had once extracted their labor for free. Now, they farmed for a percentage of the harvest, but the system rarely worked in their favor. There was always some deterrent, some crisis, some unexpected debt that kept financial and physical freedom just out of reach.

Work for me one more season. One more harvest and all will be settled.

And then, in one of our team meetings, it clicked.

Just one more dial.

Just one more voicemail.

It could be the breakthrough to ten, maybe 20 bookings.

Keep pushing. You may not be where you want to be now, but the end of the month is coming.

I gasped.

This was the same language used to stretch people beyond their capacity. I was hearing it every day on the job.

And then it hit me—I’d heard this before. In church.

Just one more praise.

Your deliverance is one more seed offering away.

Just one more shout.

Everything was always just one more act away from the thing promised, the thing desired. Just enough to keep you going, just enough to make you believe that freedom was coming—your break from sharecropping, your first five-figure paycheck, your long-awaited blessing from God. But what did ‘just one more’ ultimately cost you?

Breaking Free: Why I Chose to Exit America’s Economic Trap

I saw what this grind culture philosophy was doing to the people around me—in real-time.

Instead of resting in the ICU after learning he needed a heart stent, he called into the daily team meeting.

Instead of following the doctor’s orders, a colleague demanded to be released so they could attend the company Christmas party—some thousands of miles away.

I’d heard countless stories of people working through illness, praised for their dedication as if sacrificing their health was admirable. Inspirational even. Employees were celebrated for working holidays—because guests were home too, making it the perfect time to seize an opportunity. But I knew—I would not sacrifice myself for this.

What I witnessed only strengthened my resolve to unplug from this matrix and seriously consider joining the thousands of Black families migrating out of ‘the land of the free and the home of the brave.’

They tell me life doesn’t have to be this hard.

Lisa N. Alexander

Lisa N. Alexander is the author and founder of This Woman Knows and What Million-Dollar Brands Know. She is an award-winning filmmaker, director, producer, and writer and is the owner of PrettyWork Creative.

www.lisanalexander.com