Black Excellence Will Not Save Us. Black Power Will.

This essay was originally published in BlackBoard's Fall 2024 issue, Black in Business. It has since been edited for timeliness and clarity.

As I write this column now, right on the heels of Kamala Harris’ loss of the 2024 presidential run, the country appears to be at yet another precipice, with the stakes seeming even more dire than 2016. As we wring our hands and point fingers about how we’ve gotten to this point, the results of this election—as it is for most of the decisions made by this country—will have ripple effects worldwide.

I write with fresh memories of the celebratory mood that once graced my timeline. I witnessed joy at the possibility of a Black woman becoming the face of the U.S. empire, juxtaposed with Instagram reels of Palestinian fathers and mothers pleading for the world to sympathize with their children. I saw comment sections full of watermelon emojis and “water this plant” threads in an attempt to boost engagement for GoFundMe campaigns. I watched as pleas to have that same energy for Congo and Sudan fell on deaf ears. 

Researchers estimate that the death toll in Gaza could amount to 186,000, and that was published in the Lancet, a world-leading medical journal, four months ago. 

Given this fact, the celebration of Harris (and I can’t help but think of our country-wide victory lap after Barack Obama’s inauguration) is something that deserves to be questioned. I'm not talking about those who were arguing to vote for the “lesser of two evils.” (Lesser evil for who? Harris did not articulate any concrete policy plans to protect trans or abortion rights.) 

With the presidential election now decided, it begs the question, why should I belabor any further criticisms of Harris’ bid? I did not submit this piece to BlackBoard to rub salt in the wound of an undeniably wrenching four years that faces us, but to highlight belief systems within our community that will not be rooted out by one presidential cycle. To put it another way, I am hoping to dispel the myth that Harris’ presidential run is something to be celebrated. Rather, it was yet another case of Black radical aspirations being co-opted on the national stage. 

Black excellence and Black elitism

In the wake of Trump’s victory in the 2016 presidential election, Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote a six chapter reflection in The Atlantic on Barack Obama’s legacy and what an African-American president meant to the Black American conscious. In it, he offers an apt description of Black excellence. Describing the atmosphere of a BET-hosted party in the White House, he writes: “That night, the men were sharp in their gray or black suits and optional ties…There were women in fur jackets and high heels; others with sculpted naturals…When the actor Jesse Williams took the stage, seemingly awed before such black excellence, before such black opulence, assembled just feet from where slaves had once toiled, he simply said, ‘Look where we are. Look where we are right now.’

Black excellence, as Coates alludes to, is a uniquely Black American dream. It is not simply W.E.B. DuBois’ Talented Tenth. It is an extension of it, but it’s also different because it refuses to defer to whiteness in the same way its predecessors had to. In “Obama and the Myth of Black Excellence,” video essayist F.D. Signifier gives an example—think: Sidney Poitier’s poised eloquence (no doubt having to present himself a certain way to avoid racist remarks) versus Obama’s stilted swagger across a stage, his uniquely familial handshake that he only reserved for Black colleagues.

This does not make it less problematic. Though it was somewhat dampened during the final days of Harris’ campaign when she made a bid for the Republican-leaning vote, its shadow still haunts us in the form of marching band processions, AKA campaigning, and balloon popping campaign videos. While Black excellence celebrates Black ascension, it also blinds us from the purging of the most radical parts of our lineage—the very same uncompromising commitment to liberation that made space for HBCUs, Black Greek life and Black presidential candidates in the first place.

In “How We Get Free,” a 2017 book of interviews with Black feminists, Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor writes, “From Michelle Obama to Oprah Winfrey to US senator Kamala Harris, they, as so many other Black wealthy and influential people, are held up as examples of American capitalism as just and democratic.” 

Commenting on Michelle Obama’s speech at the 2016 DNC, she notes how warped the image of this country becomes when we measure its success by the few Black and Brown elites, as opposed to the lived realities of Black people on the ground. She reminds us of Charleena Lyles, a thirty-year-old, single Black mother, who was shot seven times and killed by Seattle police officers in June 2017. 

Seven years later, and we are still having the same conversation. I can’t help but think about Sonya Massey, the way she called on God before her murderers. After seeing our trauma and deaths broadcasted on television and online for years (and before that, hidden in plain sight, in jail cells, on street corners), I can understand how it was tempting to see a Black woman’s presidential nomination as a balm to the gaping wound that is white supremacy. The sooner more of us come to understand that it is not and never will be, the sooner we can go about figuring what will.

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

“How We Get Free”: We need Black power

Shirley Chisholm is often venerated as a predecessor to Harris. Perhaps in name—in 1968 she became the first Black woman in Congress and the first to run for presidential nomination—but I would argue that is where most of the similarities end. Some might retell Chisholm’s story through a lens of Black excellence, but I believe it is more accurately understood through a lens of Black empowerment. She ran as the candidate of the people—her explicit goal was to empower women and Black and Brown populations, not gain a seat of power. 

Chisholm did not win the bid for nomination, but she did unite Black and Brown folks under a united goal. If our ultimate aim is to free all of us, we should do so within ourselves first. Redefine what success means, trade excellence for empowerment. 

I distinctly remember the year Barack Obama was sworn into office. I was five, attending a predominantly Black and Latino elementary school. Above the entrance of the school's library was a poster of the then-president with one word on it: change. You’ve probably seen it before—Obama looks into some far-off distance, his face casted in the hues of the United States flag. 

I remember the way my tiny heart swelled with pride each time I passed it—the possibilities, the heights that Blackness could reach seemed endless. At that time, there was no difference between him or Malcom X for me. They were jumbled together in a narrative of ever-excelling Blackness that challenged white systems of power.    

It wasn’t until high school (and it wasn’t inside the classroom) that I learned that Obama approved 563 drone strikes that murdered approximately 3,797 people in Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen. How much more extreme is Harris’ vocal support for Israel, a settler-colony that has been blatant about its genocidal campaign against Palestinians, or her declaration that under her the U.S. would have “the most lethal military in the world”? 

That is what our deference to Black faces in high places can bring us to accept. Elite Blackness will not bring an end to U.S. terror against Black and Brown folks internationally. In this way, it is no better than white supremacy in Black face. The boomerang of global terror will most definitely circle back here. For many Black people, it never left. 

What are we doing between each election cycle to protect one another? How are we building a different kind of power that honors the seeds of liberation left behind for us? With yet another white supremacist holding office, let us use this opportunity to not just reflect, but take action to build the future that we want—join an organization that’s committed to bringing communities together and building power that’s not dependent on the government. Study the legacies of our Black radical ancestors.