The Black Mundane
as part of my year of rest and relaxation
💖Motivation Meows💖
Hello, and welcome to yet another edition of The Black Cat.
I want to start today off with some good news — Spelman College received $100 million, the largest gift ever granted to the university. That’s amazing, and I hope to see more large donations to Historically Black Colleges and Universities. As I wrote before, Spelman is one of the big graduators of Black STEM talent, and anything that helps create and sustain resources for the institution is bound to have a lasting impact on all of the students who pass through those halls. Elsewhere, Honey Pot was just acquired for $380 million, and ballerina Misty Copeland is working hard to get Apple and Unicode to make more diverse shades of the ballet shoe emoji since the only shade right now is “European Pink” (you can sign her petition here).
This month, I’m reading: The African Trilogy by Chinua Achebe
This weekend, I can’t stop listening to: Kill Bill Acoustic, SZA
💢From the Chatterbox💢
I’ve been having thoughts — about excellence, about magic, about perfection, about all of it. Black excellence is a hallmark; it’s what we strive for to make our people and our ancestors proud. At times, though, the heights we are expected to climb leave too much room for a free fall, and alas, when that fall inevitably comes, we shatter on the rocky ground. After Claudine Gay's resignation, I kept asking myself who and what Black excellence is for. So many of my friends are tired strivers who would want nothing more than to rest for once, yet we are pushed and pulled in all directors to be the best in everything we do. Why? And for what? Sometimes, it feels like the quest for Black excellence is less about living up to our own expectations and more about trying to prove to white gatekeepers that we are worthy of adoration, opportunity, and love — that we are exceptions to the rules they created and try to enforce upon us.
On one end, it feels like there is no place for African Americans to just exist. Every action or inaction is branded as a revolutionary act and, don’t get me wrong, it is — rest is an act, luxury is an act, an indulgence is an act, working hard or not working at all is all an act for a group of people who are not supposed to be acting at all. At the extremity of this end, there is a society that forces our benchmark for success and happiness to be derived from how well the Black community fares against its oppressors. The true mantra of freedom and revolution, then, is how well one is able to detach one’s mission in life from those very frameworks; that is also a privilege, a power, a position one spends their whole life trying to grasp, yet only a few have truly seized.
There are many sides to Black Excellence. On its surface, it’s really just a term, a statement of celebration, of happiness, of joy. It’s something to strive for, something to motivate you, to push you forward. I don't think there is anything wrong with the term at all. In fact, the only time I sigh at the term Black Excellence is when moments like Claudine Gay happen because I start to realize how hollow and empty it is. These terms are just nice reminders that sometimes, some people do better than others. At the end of the day, though, excellence is not enough to save the Black community because a lack of excellence was never the problem to begin with.
In the wake of Gay’s resignation, I started to see more people talk about Black Excellence in this way because her concession was a reminder that nothing is ever enough. Black people, Black women especially, work so tirelessly hard and receive only a fraction of what others receive — and they have to keep working hard; of course, they can’t stop; they have to be excellent to survive and to reach a level that is considered just normal for others. They do this all while knowing that the endless demand for perfection is most often rewarded with nothing, and it does truly feel at times that if you don’t strive for the sun, unlike others who fall among the stars, they will crash and burn into the ground. Black Excellence, in practice, is its own celestial paradox: the skies sought to fly in are still not quite inclusive or equitable enough and, instead, leave Black professionals gliding over those harsh terrains with winds that cause burnout and singe wings. I oscillate often between wanting to be the best and wanting to just enjoy the mundane triumphs of everyday life. But is that enough?
A 2021 thesis by Janelle Raymundo entitled “The Burden of Excellence: A Critical Race Theory Analysis of Perfectionism in Black Students” had an interesting take on the idea of Black Excellence. She isn’t Black and therefore gave an outsider’s perspective on this topic. Raymundo wrote that the pressure of “perfectionism is a form of oppression,” and though Raymundo wrote this essay about Black students in honor programs, I think the same can be applied to any Black person working in a high-level professional environment. She spoke about the double consciousness Black people in these spaces face: they are the noted exception to the rule of their oppressors, yet must always prove that they are so; they are second-guessed, unheard, and overlooked. W.E.B du Bois wrote in The Souls of Black Folk about the depersonalization associated with being an African American, and at times, it feels the quest for Black Excellence is, at its worst, another burden that leaves too little room for error.
I found Raymundo’s view interesting. It makes sense that the mental anguish associated with trying to be perfect at the time can be considered its own form of oppression, as it puts pressure on Black people to always aim for the sun, even though we know Icarus fell into the sea and drowned at the end. It would be quite dark, though, if this were actually a strategy people used to eliminate Black people from high positions — just put enough pressure on them until they collapse or until something terrible happens, or you use them as a shield and watch them shatter on the ground below. Like most people, I’ve always said there needs to be more room to desire mediocrity and to just exist or more leeway in finding the ways that serve us best. Poet June Jordan had a line from her book On Call: Political Essays that I recently came across online: “Like a lot of Black women, I have always had to invent the power my freedom requires.” I liked this line as I started thinking about how creative we often have to be in order to move through structures not designed for us and how resourceful and innovative we must act in order to get what we want — rest included.
Alysha, a publicist, told me whenever she hears Black Excellence or Black Girl Magic, she thinks of the terms as being aspirational. “Like — here's what it looks like when we're really outstanding, shining, and operating at our best and doing it in our own unique way,” she said. At the same time, she feels the term has come to put too much pressure on Black people to be exceptional. There is no room to be good rather than great, no space to just be alright. “Not everything we do can or should always be about showing up and showing out at maximum capacity; that gets exhausting, and it can wreak havoc on our mental health and wellbeing,” she said. “There’s gotta be space for us to sometimes operate at our highest, and sometimes not, and have that still be okay to show up in this world.”
Often, when I hear about rest spoken, it’s in the context of it being “part of the journey.” This year, I no longer seek to contextualize or justify my rest. It’s something that exists, that happens, that just comes, and that is more natural to us than this capitalist corporate machine we put our bodies and minds through. Actually, the idea of rest could very well be a generational thing, too. I read in The Standard yesterday about how young people are realizing that hard work doesn’t pay off the way it used to; that we will never own homes, or probably have social security, or be able to retire — there is no point in burning oneself out anymore because there is no payout, you might as well take that vacation, take that summer Friday every Friday and leave those fruitless jobs when they no longer serve you. In a world where we control nothing, I am happy to see people my age regain possession over their time. I think it’s time for a new counter-movement for people to slip into when they seek refuge or simply want to retire from the game. I vie for the Black Mundane, a phrase that encompasses the quest to just be happy, get by, and do just enough without the pressures to outperform or overcompensate. Just cruise at mid-altitude. It’s an answer to what happens when you see what the sun has to offer and you choose to just cruise along its rays.
🔥Please, Mind My Business🔥
Please consider subscribing to my work at TechCrunch (just click on one of my articles and subscribe on them, please!) and signing up to listen to the podcast I co-host called Found, where me and my colleague Becca talk to entrepreneurs about their startup journeys.
“Funding to Black founders was down in 2023 for the third year in a row’
“Tulsa’s tech scene remains resilient amid state’s anti-DEI efforts”
💫Kitty Talk💫
Here are some interesting articles I’ve read since we last met:
New Republic, “A Death at Walmart”
Town and Country, “In Our Future”
Teen Vogue, “Gen Z Voters Say They Are Opting Out of the 2024 Election”