The Myth of “Twice as Good” and the Bastardization of Black Exceptionalism
I am fully persuaded the moment Vice President Joe Biden and senator Kamala Harris won the 2020 presidential election will become one of those pivotal historical moments that people reminiscently reduce to an exercise in historical logistics. Discussions about the announcement will begin with a very vanilla anecdote as an individual’s state, “I remember where I was the moment I heard that Joe Biden became the 46th president.” The reflective storyteller will end the said statement with, “I will never forget…”. We remember things in this way. Whether the Challenger explosion, the capturing of Osama Ben Laudin, the cold-blooded murder of George Floyd, or the fall of the Berlin wall, every memory is time-stamped by where we were and what we were doing.
Some cultural ideas are reduced and passed down in the same manner as our most significant memories. For black people in America, one of the cultural ideas passed down from generation to generation is that Black people must be twice as good as their white counterparts to reach a respectability level in most situations. Not only have I heard this idea my entire life, but regretfully, I have also shared it with my own children. The statement is fraught with error. The focus of this comment is not meant to slight the efforts or abilities of white people. It is intended to…
