You have to be twice as good to get half as much.

A sentiment that black children are taught from a very young age. We live in a society that promotes the narrative that an educated, poised, self-assured, confident black person is atypical. It propagates the idea that these mythical characters are without fault and make no mistakes, but when one of these unicorns does slip up, they are hyper-scrutinized and penalized. Case in point, Simone Biles, Barack Obama, Serena Williams, Naomi Osaka, Nikole Hannah-Jones, Meghan Markle, do I need to go on?

Black excellence has become the shield we use against unfairness, racism, sexism, and discrimination. However, we have come to see the fallacy in that idea. The more we achieve, the higher the bar is set. Black excellence is not a choice, but it is also not attainable. Black excellence has gone from an aspiration to an expectation, a blessing to a burden. We have been trained to seek the approval of a system that was not designed for us, and when a black person does advance despite insurmountable odds, they are placed on this pedestal they can never step down from. We are held to a higher standard and cannot make mistakes for fear of being disqualified.

Black excellence has become a way to justify black humanity. Every time an unarmed black person is unjustifiably killed, a declaration of personal niceties and positive attributes becomes the rationalization for why they didn’t deserve to be killed. This narrative is problematic because it enforces the idea that black people are only deserving of tolerance, dignity, and compassion when they are exceptional and that if they have made any mistakes or engaged in any wrongdoing, they are irredeemable.

We are taught to engage in and play by respectability politics. If we behave the “right way” and achieve the “right things,” we will have access to what we “deserve” or what we have “earned.” We have been led to the notion that black excellence will earn us respect and makes us deserving of decency. What we have failed to see is black excellence, no matter how difficult it is to live up to, is not sustainable. We are killing ourselves trying to reach a mirage. Black excellence has come to mean working harder and longer, sacrificing and enduring, striving but never quite reaching. Beating the odds, booked and busy, and hustle culture has become synonymous with black excellence.

While black excellence fosters representation, we’ve gotten away from doing it for the culture and being our ancestor’s wildest dreams. Black excellence has become an expectation placed on black people to perform at any cost. It places unrealistic standards upon us and can become suffocating and mentally degrading.

For too long, mediocrity and incompetence were equated with the black expectation. Black excellence became a way to reclaim our power but has somehow morphed into performance for white validation. Your excellence should not be determined by someone else’s expectations. By no means should we stop being exceptional and cultivating our magic, but we should refocus the lens by which we strive for and measure excellence. We will continue to exude black excellence, but it should be on our terms. Black excellence should be defined by what you deem exceptional, regardless of what the system says.