Tapping into my #Blackgirlmagic
It’s such a great time for black people. For black women. Despite the rampant spray of police bullets and hair policies, we have managed to rise and rise and rise in the act of expressing ourselves: our anger, sadness, grief, and resolve.
We are finally well-represented in the media. We have Lemonade. A Seat at the Table. Hidden Figures. Michelle Obama. Amandla Stenberg. Willow Smith. Misty Copeland. Viola Davis. Kerry Washington. Melody Hobson. Myleik Teele. Janelle Monae. Taraji. Oprah. My mom, Jia. Her mom, Janice. My grandma, Carrie. And so many more black women stepping up and out to represent us at our best and brightest.
There are many of us who are doing so well despite the odds pitting against us at every waking step. But for the longest time, it felt different for me.
Whether I’m dodging bitchy white girls at work who want to find any reason to drown me, trying to get your point across some know-it-all white guy at the bar, or simply just trying to build something on my own, it feels often like I’m fighting the wind just to exist.
Sometimes I feel like I’m not living up to the standard of black female excellence.
Any black girl you know, knows of this unwritten standard. It goes like this: Because we are so often overlooked, underestimated and ignored, we are forced to work twice as hard towards our goals to prove to others and to ourselves that we deserve to have our rewards and our credit. This has created abounding excellence for us, earned us nice little salaries, an impressive boudoir of designer clothes, or a sweet ride, all sorts of phenomenal slayage! But there’s something particular caustic about those times we fail.
When I don’t meet my goals, or live up to this fantastical vision of black woman excellence, I feel like a total and complete failure. The weight of that failure can be so very isolating and demoralizing.
Growing up, I felt pressured to succeed. Of course, I would describe that pressure initially, as a positive push towards a better life from society. But, because of this pressure, I also felt a crushing weight of embarrassment and shame when I did not succeed as I had planned. When I did not get the grade I wanted, the feedback I wanted, or the positive attention for doing an excellent job. And those failures made me feel so out of touch with this concept of #blackgirlmagic. From that moment, I was out of the loop, and then on, when my sisters would hashtag the phrase #BLACKGIRLMAGIC!! with exclamation points, I always felt the need to add under my breath, “but not me though.”
All of a sudden, because of a failure with work or school, or even in my personal life, I wasn’t living up to the code of black girl magic. I had no finger-snapping, get-it-done-and-done-well excellence about me anymore. I wasn’t all together. With the loss of success, I had lost my ever-loving mojo, my work ethic, my drive, and my ambition.
Suddenly, the world was making me dizzy with thoughts of my doomed future— it would be no time at all before I’d be a nameless homeless woman begging for change and liquor at stoplights. And then, after all that hard work in private schools and liberal arts colleges, I’d be a yet another stereotypical black woman in the eyes of a racist, sexist society — poor, destitute, and illiterate. A failure and ill-fated statistic in the eyes of many — including the ones I love the most.
I see these stunning sculptures of black women like Beyonce, Michelle, and Oprah, and feel like I’m not working hard enough — as if I could never live up to being even slightly close to them in power, intelligence, beauty, influence, and talent. I’m just regular. I put myself down. Tell myself I couldn’t do whatever it was I was working toward. That there was no point, that someone else could do it and better anyway. That I was too stupid and lazy. That there was not enough time to reach these goals.
That inherent thing that black women have in them that helps them achieve anything they set their mind to…maybe I just didn’t have that. Maybe it fell off after college. Maybe I never earned it from schooling.
Then again, I think of when these incredible women were my age. I’m certain at one point or another they may have felt confused, overworked, undervalued, afraid or even doubtful of their future. I’m sure instead of seeing that straight line to power and glory, they saw many different paths to take, some darker than others, and felt afraid. I’m positive they dealt with annoying people trying to put them down or to make them feel like they didn’t belong at the table. I’m sure they might have felt at one point like the pressure to please and provide for their family was stronger than the pressure they put on themselves to be happy and fulfilled.
When I think about that, I feel comforted that maybe I’m not alone in feeling this way. With such an intense drive, maybe black women are scared to admit that they’ve caught themselves feeling confused, dejected, rejected, sad, angry, and fearful. Worst of all — they’ve certainly must have caught themselves feeling like a failure.
On the other hand, I know if they can do it, that there is a chance for me. It requires hard work, perseverance, and conviction, but it can be done. I know I’m better when I’ve accepted my humanity in its wholeness, whether I’m failing, succeeding or somewhere in between. I know that running this race of excellence and comparison will only burn me out. That I am my only competitor and that it’s up to me to determine how far I want to go in life.
