Morning Black Excellence

“To be young, gifted and Black…Oh what a lovely precious dream”

NINA SIMONE

In 1969, Nina Simone and Weldon Irvine sat at a piano and turned an unfinished play into a civil rights\ anthem. To Be Young, Gifted and Black became the soundtrack of the Black Pride movement in the 1970s, resonating from the streets of Oakland all the way to Sesame Street. The lyrics extolled the possibilities of youth, and a life lived without the constraints of fear and self-doubt. But life, even one where our wildest dreams are possible, carries with it the specter of death. Indeed, the song itself was written in memory of Simone’s dear friend, the iconic playwright, essayist, and civil rights activist Lorraine Hansberry who died after a two-year battle with pancreatic cancer at the age of 34. 

In 2019, while accepting a Screen Actors Guild award with his Black Panther castmates, Chadwick Boseman reflected on the movie’s impact on the industry and its potential impact on himself, his castmates, and other Black actors. Almost 50 years after Nina Simone sang those words, Boseman repeated them, “To be young, gifted and Black!” He amplified his belief in a future where Black artists could dream, create, and give life to art unburdened by the weight and expectations of the White gaze. A year later, because 2020 really doesn’t care about us, our Black Panther, our James Brown, our Jackie Robinson, and brown-skinned Thurgood Marshall died after a four-year battle with colon cancer at the age of 43. 

Death comes with the privilege of being alive, but the manner in which death has loomed around us this year has been hard to bear. Some say if you can pinpoint the ache, you can heal the wound. Unfortunately, it’s easier to articulate some pains.

Death comes with the privilege of being alive, but the manner in which death has loomed around us this year has been hard to bear. Some say if you can pinpoint the ache, you can heal the wound. Unfortunately, it’s easier to articulate some pains. The pain we feel at seeing Black women, men, and children killed by state-sanctioned violence feels too familiar. Those wounds have been festering for hundreds of years, and healing them – by dismantling white supremacy – isn’t our burden alone. But, how do we process the pain of death that isn’t necessarily violent, but nonetheless feels too soon and too abrupt?

There is no “right way” to navigate illness or disability for public consumption; this isn’t a commentary about that. This is about the heaviness we are conditioned to carry in pursuit of Black excellence. 

Believe it or not, Black does, in fact, crack. The wisdom of fragrant moisturizing oils and shea butters passed down through generations may keep our skin plump and pliant, but the fissures are there. Like tiny little cuts that you don’t feel until you squeeze a lemon, they’re there just waiting to remind us that we are indeed fragile. Like Hansberry and so many others, Boseman masked his private struggles while continuing to work on behalf of collective Black excellence. To be clear, folks don’t owe us a front seat to their pain. There is no “right way” to navigate illness or disability for public consumption; this isn’t a commentary about that. This is about the heaviness we are conditioned to carry in pursuit of Black excellence. This is about imagining a new reality where there are no singular heroes, one where we successfully dismantle the systems and structures that only allow one Black person at a time in the spotlight, where our vision of excellence is absent of the insidiousness of white supremacy—a world where we don’t need to kill ourselves or die in an effort to be heroic.

We shouldn’t have to announce our private struggles in order to reap the benefits of public mercy; death should not be the impetus for grace. 

We shouldn’t have to announce our private struggles in order to reap the benefits of public mercy; death should not be the impetus for grace. Why do we have to work so hard for compassion from other Black folks? It’s almost as if we’ve accepted the most racist and abusive ideas about ourselves – that our positioning in society is somehow a by-product of laziness or a failure to work hard enough, to want “it” enough. Even during a pandemic, the first inclination of far too many was to scoff at those who weren’t proving resourceful enough – those who dared to share their struggles out loud. If you weren’t baking bread, sourcing vegetables from your urban organic garden, or turning a $1200 stimulus check into an LLC, what were you doing? Even the idea that Black folks have been through worse and survived worse was re-emerging. Except, we didn’t all survive, did we? We definitely didn’t thrive.

There is no “right way” to navigate illness or disability for public consumption; this isn’t a commentary about that. This is about the heaviness we are conditioned to carry in pursuit of Black excellence. 

Believe it or not, Black does, in fact, crack. The wisdom of fragrant moisturizing oils and shea butters passed down through generations may keep our skin plump and pliant, but the fissures are there. Like tiny little cuts that you don’t feel until you squeeze a lemon, they’re there just waiting to remind us that we are indeed fragile. Like Hansberry and so many others, Boseman masked his private struggles while continuing to work on behalf of collective Black excellence. To be clear, folks don’t owe us a front seat to their pain. There is no “right way” to navigate illness or disability for public consumption; this isn’t a commentary about that. This is about the heaviness we are conditioned to carry in pursuit of Black excellence. This is about imagining a new reality where there are no singular heroes, one where we successfully dismantle the systems and structures that only allow one Black person at a time in the spotlight, where our vision of excellence is absent of the insidiousness of white supremacy—a world where we don’t need to kill ourselves or die in an effort to be heroic.

We shouldn’t have to announce our private struggles in order to reap the benefits of public mercy; death should not be the impetus for grace. 

We shouldn’t have to announce our private struggles in order to reap the benefits of public mercy; death should not be the impetus for grace. Why do we have to work so hard for compassion from other Black folks? It’s almost as if we’ve accepted the most racist and abusive ideas about ourselves – that our positioning in society is somehow a by-product of laziness or a failure to work hard enough, to want “it” enough. Even during a pandemic, the first inclination of far too many was to scoff at those who weren’t proving resourceful enough – those who dared to share their struggles out loud. If you weren’t baking bread, sourcing vegetables from your urban organic garden, or turning a $1200 stimulus check into an LLC, what were you doing? Even the idea that Black folks have been through worse and survived worse was re-emerging. Except, we didn’t all survive, did we? We definitely didn’t thrive.

The reality is that there are no real-life superheroes, there are only the ones we create, and our fantastical versions shouldn’t serve to make us feel inadequate. 

We kill ourselves trying to be superheroes. We suffer in silence and compare our struggles to what we see in others. But what we see is a mirage – a highly curated version of the truth. The reality is that there are no real-life superheroes, there are only the ones we create, and our fantastical versions shouldn’t serve to make us feel inadequate. After all, they are our fantasies – what we wish we could do. Our “what if” in character form. What if our people had never been brutalized and colonized? What if we could fully live our lives without the shadow of white supremacy hanging over us like an ominous cloud? What if our innate strength was enough to save us? 

Real or fictional we have always needed superheroes- those capable of confronting evil forces with one hand while reminding us with the other that we are reflections of the Divine. How else could we believe that another version of this world was possible despite history and the glaring evidence around us? Perhaps this is how we came to fashion our ancestors as superhuman, how we learned to keep names under our tongue, stories of infallible beings, unshakable leaders from a time long ago. These stories tell us who believed in freedom, who sacrificed it all, and came back to get their people. Yet they will never tell us who cried at night. Who prayed and waited for signs that never came.

 This is not simply about the past or how we die–we have very little control over that. It is about how we live, about the necessity of honoring Blackness as more than pain, and about seeing Black excellence as more than the few of us who do extraordinary things or the ones who “made it.”

Those before us mastered the ability to bend pain until it resembled power, to endure as if it were a part of our cultural DNA. We are so attuned with their example that anything else feels out of step, so attuned that we criticize ourselves and each other when we stumble or can’t carry the world on our backs. This is not simply about the past or how we die–we have very little control over that. It is about how we live, about the necessity of honoring Blackness as more than pain, and about seeing Black excellence as more than the few of us who do extraordinary things or the ones who “made it.” Just because our heroes walked alone does not mean they wanted to. If you sincerely listen, you’ll find that “Thank God I don’t look like what I’ve been through” is not a prayer or a mantra but a cautionary tale. 

We don’t need no lonely heroes; we all got a part to play in getting free, and it begins by recognizing that our true strength lies in our collective effort and care. 

We can honor Boseman, Hansberry and those who spend their talents to move us forward without canonizing hardship but instead, we can embrace the complexity of being human. We need to figure out how we do that for each other. What does that look like? Hansberry once said, “the thing that makes you exceptional, if you are at all, is inevitably that which must also make you lonely.” We don’t need no lonely heroes; we all got a part to play in getting free, and it begins by recognizing that our true strength lies in our collective effort and care. 

We must learn to guard ourselves and each other in the same manner we protect our ancestors’ memories. Which means giving ourselves what America never will: space to mourn, space to celebrate, space to breathe, the space to create a version of Black excellence that is rooted in the collective and that values our connectedness. Caring for each other and offering compassion for the wounds we can’t see is an act of resistance and requires truth-telling, so here it is:  progress through Black capitalism or a “hustle till you die” ethos is a myth and has yet to lead anyone to true liberation. No amount of arduous labor within the confines of white supremacy will liberate us or even keep us safe. When we realize that we deserve better, that our worth is not connected to performance, degrees, or accolades, that love and community care must be embedded into our liberation efforts, we all will move closer to freedom.