Black Women’s History
Misty Copeland, the Dancing Swan
One of the Glowing Two Percent
Sometimes, I scroll through YouTube “shorts” as a pastime. I see fashion, politics, TV throwbacks, and Reddit AITA clips. But one day, during Black History Month 2025, two videos stopped me in my tracks.
Bear in mind this is a time when the overwhelmingly white male Executive Branch of the US has:
- called any competent black woman “DEI” as a racial slur, despite our often superior qualifications (see press secretaries Karine Jean-Pierre vs Karoline Leavitt);
- fired the first female head of a military service for no apparent reason other than her gender, giving her three-hour notice to vacate her housing (see Coast Guard Commandant Linda Fagan);
- painted over a wall at FBI headquarters with words like “Integrity” and “Diversity” on it;
- demanded that West Point ban clubs for women, people of color, and LGBTQIA cadets while keeping the French, Polish, and German clubs.
Much of this is illegal, anti-Constitutional, and just plain mean-spirited. The firehose of hostility can demoralize us. But as they try to shut down federal agencies that help educate special-needs children, agencies that post public health mortality rates, and agencies that inform the public of dangerous weather conditions, two very different videos featuring black women — one about a ballerina, one about a seamstress — help explain how we got to where we are and how we can still triumph. But the glow of that triumph will often be dimmed.
Misty Copeland is one of the very few black principal dancers in an American dance company. Ever. (Lauren Anderson, formerly of the Houston Ballet, is one other.) She dances for the American Ballet Theater, known for its leadership from famed Russian dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov.
She has spoken in the past of the trials of being told she didn’t have the body type for a classical ballerina (being too shapely), of having to search for tights and paint her toe shoes with foundation to match her skin tone (being too brown). In the video below, she is asked about one of the most iconic and demanding prima ballerina roles in all of classical ballet, that of Swan Lake.
For context:
In this ballet — with music by Pyotr Tchaikowsky, the same composer who gifted us with Nutcracker and The Sleeping Beauty — the prima ballerina must take on two roles, that of the white swan, Odette, and the black swan, Odile. (One guess as to who is good and who is bad.)
In the story, a wicked sorcerer, Von Rothbart, lusts after the innocent Odette. She refuses him, whereupon he turns her into a swan who can temporarily retake human form at each sundown. She can maintain human form permanently only if a man pledges his love to her and keeps that oath.
Seeking a bride, the handsome prince Siegfried finds Odette at night and makes that pledge. However at a public ball, Odile, the sorcerer’s daughter — in black costume, of course — disguises herself as Odette, then tricks the prince into repeating his pledge to her, which damns Odette to eternity as a swan. Still in human form that night, Odette throws herself into the lake, and the prince, having discovered the ruse, follows her in joint suicide. Their spirits are thus freed to be together forever. The curse broken, the sorcerer dies.
The ballerina who takes on this demanding role must not only dance two opposing characters but skillfully perform virtuoso solos and pas de deux with the prince. Very much like Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto for master violinists and Liszt’s “La Campanella” for virtuoso pianists, Swan Lake is the sine qua non for world-class ballerinas.
In the interview, Copeland is asked a standard question, a no-brainer — “How did it feel to do that role?” But her answer was both recognizable and heartbreaking for any black woman. Having received negative feedback throughout her illustrious career, she never expected to be offered the role.
When it was offered, the negative nellies shifted from “you’re not right for the role” to “if you aren’t perfect, that will prove you’re not right for the role.” She was set up to fail, yet she succeeded. But the constant putdowns tarnished the glow of her stellar achievement even as the New York Times describes her Swan Lake debut as having “courage and grandeur when you feel the heroic scale of Tchaikovsky’s celebrated drama.”
I remember this feeling in a completely different venue. Every black woman who achieves anything of substance has doubtless experienced this. Remember that Oprah, Queen of TV, was once fired from a TV station. Only our belief in ourselves and persistent drive move us forward.
Here’s what happened to me.
Despite objections from less than competent administrators, I was elected chair of the most important faculty committee in a university — Rank and Tenure, which recommends whether faculty keep or lose their jobs. The votes came from representatives of every campus department. For a professor in the arts — music in my case — to get vigorous support from faculty in business, math, and the sciences was something I’ll take pride in for all eternity. (Only two stooges from the two College of Education departments posed any objection and that wasn’t because they had anything against me, but only that their college in its entirety consisted of bootlickers extraordinaire.)
Anyway, I was elected. Then came the bad news. The underqualified, non-published academic administrator, who had been grandfathered into the position from the university’s junior college days, had violated policy by convening our committee two weeks after the written policy deadline. That meant we had four weeks, rather than six, to meet the hard deadline to read and evaluate all reports of each person from ten departments coming up for tenure and/or promotion. Our recommendations had to reach the president by a set date.
Although the administrator said we could take more time if needed, delicate and meticulous questioning made it clear she had not run this offer by the president. According to official policy, only the university president can change a deadline. Ah ha, I said to myself. This is what my dad would have called a “trick bag.”
According to the Urban Dictionary, a “trick bag” is
a situation which can lead to a disastrous outcome, normally initiated by someone who dislikes you.
For those new to the term, a good example of a trick bag is when our current criminal president, known for over 30,000 documented lies, promised certain Latinos that he’d only deport bad Latinos — criminals. They gave him their votes. Now, he’s deporting them all willy-nilly, including those, like Venezuelans and Cubans, who’d had a special dispensation to stay. MAGA Latinos got caught in a trick bag.
This administrator couldn’t catch me, though. Bear in mind, she had tried to block my election to the position, but colleagues in business and criminal justice kept repeating their nomination and seconding. After the third go-round, the vote had to go through. I won. Unanimously. (The two College of Ed people went along when it was clear I’d get all the votes but the two of them).
So, as I said, her offer set off my trick-bag sensors. Like the 92% of 2024 black women voters who knew a liar when they saw one, I knew this administrator would never do me any favors. It was clear she wouldn’t tell the truth if we missed our deadline. Some nervous nellies on the committee might support any lie she’d tell. Hmmm, what to do, what to do.
Casting a glance at the committee members, I sat there, gently smiled, and thanked her for the kind offer. But the moment she left the room, I turned to them, all business, flatly stating: “We’re meeting that deadline.” They sighed in relief, and we got to work. We met the deadline. The review of my debut performance? I was re-elected.
Like Misty in Swan Lake, the powers-that-be didn’t want me to succeed, but I did. And though I was proud, it still bothered me that they’d looked forward to my failure. The aura of hostility at my success slightly tarnished the glow of my achievement.
But there is a deeper connection. Misty and I are both part of a two-percent demographic. Black people are approximately 13% of the US population. Yet, fewer than 2% of us are full professors or prima ballerinas. I hope to live long enough to see us achieve great heights and celebrate full-throatedly. But while I wait, I’ll glow for Misty and myself.
