“You have to work twice as hard to get half as far.” It is a truism shared with African American children in preparation for the unfair reality of a white supremacist society. Based on their experiences, the elders hoped to spare us the disappointing discovery that our efforts and successes often would not correlate.
These words were offered as a way of getting ahead of our self-doubt and validating an unavoidable experience. It is to say, “It’s not you, baby.”
To the contrary, it’s the way the system is set up. It’s not the cards you have been dealt. Instead, there are specific cards stacked against you.
So, it won’t add up. It won’t balance out. It may not work out.
But, be prepared to do more than other students and colleagues because they are racialized as white and for opportunities to fall in their laps. Do more with a smile and without complaint, lest it be held against you or you be stereotyped as angry. Do more without acknowledgement or appreciation—just to keep your seat and your job.
Demonstrate daily why the ominous “they” should let you stay. Prove that you belong here.
Your intelligence will be questioned and your competence mocked. As a result of ingrained biases, plan to work harder than is expected of other employees who identify as white and still not exceed the expectations of your employer.
But because African Americans are a remedy-making people, they created the phrase “Black excellence,” which developed alongside “Black power” to describe both their achievements and potential. The response offered a counter-narrative to oppression and an acknowledgement of their accomplishments in a society determined to deny them.
Now, African American women are the most educated demographic in the United States and the country is being run by “a mediocre white man,” who hasn’t done a hard day’s work in his life.
The term refers to the concept popularized by Ijeoma Oluo’s book Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America and describes how certain privileges are granted to men racialized as white regardless of their actual merit or achievement. A critique of manufactured power dynamics, it suggests the concept of white male superiority is a myth and that power is maintained by devaluing the achievements of others.
By June of this year, roughly 300,000 African American women had left the workforce. In addition, Trump is targeting African American women in high-profile positions. These women, who likely worked twice as hard to secure their roles, are now subjected to the political tantrums of an insultingly undereducated man, who is also a convicted felon and a rapist.
Still, he is the head of state and government, “the highest office in the land.” Because it was never about work ethic. So, after the November election results, African American women decided to give it all a rest.
“Whiteness and masculinity are threatened both where their station or behavior begins to approach that expected of Blackness and femininity and where Blackness or femininity strays from its expected role and no longer serves as a direct contrast to whiteness and masculinity,” Oluo points out. “These dual constraints are important to realize because while whiteness and masculinity are the two most powerful identities in a white male patriarchy, they are also wholly dependent on the identities they oppress.”
A repositioning not calculated may cause the crumbling of the pyramid of white-body supremacy. It is a lie built on the backs of the fittest because we survived the Middle Passage, chattel slavery, a failed Reconstruction, Black Codes, Jim and Jane Crow segregation, the “war on drugs” and ongoing police brutality.
Yet, there are discussions regarding the noticeable decrease in African American participation at protests when compared to the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020. But 92% of African American women didn’t vote for the Trump presidency. And given our record of relentless activism, working twice as hard to ensure the security of our rights and that of others, many have suggested it’s time for other communities to do their fair share.
- About the Author
- Latest Posts
Director of The Raceless Gospel Initiative, an associate editor, host of the Good Faith Media podcast, “The Raceless Gospel” and author of Take Me to the Water: The Raceless Gospel as Baptismal Pedagogy for a Desegregated Church.
