It is so easy to feel empty and directionless in a predominantly white institution without examples of Black excellence in front of me. I used to blast “Young, Gifted and Black.” by Nina Simone into my ears in hopes of absorbing the confidence, the audacity. Now I crumble under the weight of the pressure of my own ambition. But where did I get this astronomical ambition? Who gave it to me? Did I give it to myself?

I say I think history gave it to me. My dad asks me why I think so many exceptional Black artists and athletes have been found in such a short time in the U.S. How is it we found all of our Duke Ellingtons, our Nina Simones, Aretha Franklins, Billie Holidays, Jimi Hendrixes. I shrug. He mentions the Harlem Renaissance, pokes around at it. He focuses, though, on the opportunities for Black people at the time to funnel themselves into the entertainment industry. 

Entertainment was, and still is, one of the few avenues where Black people can compete and talent can flourish: sports, arts and music. It’s hard to see such concentrated Black talent in other forums, not even here at Yale, where everyone is expected to thrive on every career path.  Here, Black students are especially expected to thrive, to play their prodigious part within an institution that was built off of the collective Black historical trauma of slavery.  

What resulted in this need for Black people to perform for an antiblack nation was an extraordinary constellation of Black talent. The process of competition to make it was insanely hard: iron sharpened iron. One had to be hyper brilliant to make it through, or at least appear to be so; there was a narrow funnel to pass through. The process was hypercompetitive, nurturing and grilling the “genius.” In order to survive anywhere, you had to be the best — there was no room for Blackness otherwise.

Wrestling with the burning light under a magnifying glass, one finds it terribly easy to be paralyzed. This is the situation I find too often amongst my Black peers. Black youth are trapped by a pressure to be “different” and “excellent”. Maybe it is the effect of being surrounded by whiteness, and an obsession with coming out on top despite racial barriers and obstacles. I recall middle school dances in predominantly white areas where I was asked to dance for them. And now I am here, at Yale, and still feeling like something is missing. After writing countless essays on my Black struggles, in hopes for acceptance, I still feel that to the world around Black people, our win is not quite so beautiful as is our struggle to achieve said win. 

However, the phrase “Black mediocrity: feels equally as trapping; we are rarely loved in our in-betweenness — we must be an extreme, an archetype. In a modern twist of dehumanization, narratives involving Black life barely escape the godlike or caricature. Outside of spectacle, we simply aren’t interested in Black life. We aren’t interested in seeing Black people outside of situations of extreme heroism or extreme poverty. 

There is a tendency for people to accept damaging stereotypes due to a pleasant surprise of the stereotype’s seeming positivity. I understand. But I beg us to let ourselves rest and exist in our bodies without feeling the need to be superheroes and prodigies; it’s impossible. Even God rested. 

We are obsessed with the “rose blooming through the concrete”— Black perseverance through pain. With striving for excellence, despite, despite, despite. Choosing to funnel ourselves into the areas where we were most allowed to thrive. It’s only natural we harden. The ferocity that results from hardship can be beautiful, but we forget the pain, and fear of being trampled without said ferocity, behind it. We obsess over the confidence, the audacity, the novelty of the Black genius. We never did this to be beautiful, or gods. We did this to survive. We deserve this month not only to celebrate the blossoming of our talent and how we performed, but how we lived day to day, how we survived and how we took up space, reaffirming our own lives. It wasn’t the process of a struggle that made us beautiful when we were already beautiful to begin with. 

SEMILORE OLA  is a Sophomore in Timothy Dwight College. Contact her at semilore.ola@yale.edu.