Many of the Black icons are in the process of dying because they were very young when they were recognized, and time has passed. While a lot of people are mourning their losses, I am considering what it means to be a Black icon, and the downsides of such an existence. As people, they spent a lot of time working for the supposed betterment of the Black condition. What I now see is how a lot of beneficiaries and sycophants of the dominant narrative needed to be entertained by those who “overcame” oppression that never really ended, leaving the rest of us struggling for survival while they were used as “examples.”
Creating unnecessary competition for existence is one of the key features of the dominant narrative, and almost nobody questions such actions. Whether for a publication or a job, people continue to make excuses for the need to outperform others to gain the resources necessary for a very basic lifestyle. Within the Black community, this amounts to needing to be crowned to make the rest of us strive without acquiring anything, which is one of the reasons why there was such a push to attend predominantly White institutions. Even when we did “everything right,” people spent a lot of time telling us that we did things “the wrong way,” tone-policed how we asked them for “recognition,” or flat-out rejected us. Needing the crown makes all Black people more vulnerable instead of more connected.
Obviously, offering the “crowns” given were more about creating division within a community that is considered “threatening” instead of genuine progress. It is statistically impossible for everyone to be the “best,” but among a deliberately marginalized community, that mindset can be debilitating. This is one of the biggest reasons for intergenerational strife and younger generations being less trusting of the prospect of opportunities. We have spent our entire lives being unhealthily compared to one another and now, when a lot of us need to come together, those bonds have been severed due to fatigue and general sadness. Several people have been talking about resting not just because of competition within the dominant narrative, but because we have been relentlessly pitted against each other.
The power to remove the crown reaffirms the authority of the dominant narrative, which was the main reason that Trump was elected and the job market has been highly problematic for Black women on a regular basis. Nothing says, “I have the unmitigated right to control you” like the capacity to take away all the supposed glory someone has, whether through election or income. For that reason, so many Black people have lost our sense of self parading in front of people who, at their whims, decide whether they support our efforts, or directly ignore them to crown someone new. We never get true recognition, just the idea of success that can be taken away with the “wrong moves,” the definition of which continue to change.
As long as we keep defining success along with the dominant narrative, Black people will continue to flounder as a community. Only when we stop seeking crowns will it weaken the power because it proves the power was fake. If predominantly white institutions–whether colleges, businesses, or political positions–have no interest within the Black community, they cannot inspire us to hate ourselves. When we refuse to imitate such behavior, we reclaim our communal roots. There is no glory in striving within an empire that is desperately clinging to relevance in a world that sees it as a clown.
Chasing A Dying Empire 