This essay by Roxanne Gray expresses her feelings towards the effects of black exceptionalism, underscoring her views regarding how society views blacks in society.
Gray structures her essay by not only analyzing the current state of attitudes towards black society, but by also providing a running commentary about her experiences as a successful black author. Gray starts her essay by expressing how her body behaves in two different ways, one that embraces her success, while another is reluctant to dwell on the present and is more inclined to looks towards the future, “wanting more”. The text also connects to the stereotypical story of a hardworking immigrant family to show Gray’ studios nature and the shame she felt when not performing up to expectations, “I vowed to be better”. She uses her success to bring back the topic of discussion to modern world. She brings up the valid point that in our culture individuals and brands alike engage in political correctness, however, she questions how genuine this actually is. By separating the uniqueness of black culture from society for a month she feels that it doesn’t do black culture just, instead of ‘segregating some of history’s most significant contributors’ we should be integrating them. Gray also uses the aspect of ‘black-conciousness’ to show how systems that may seem fair at first are in fact racist; she uses Dubois support of the “Talented Tenth” as an example. Through showing how it was whites who floated this theory, Gray shows how blacks, even those as ‘exceptional’ as Dubois have come to believe it too, this allows her to reveal how systemic racism is. Such systemic racism is further exhibited through her personal experiences. She laments how she felt she always has had to prove herself even more, “being a second-class citizen and needing to claw your way toward equal consideration and some semblance of respect.” Even in areas where one may think that people there would be open (i.e. Colleges), Gray shows how she has always been one of few blacks at such institutions, thus making her feel even more isolated as there are few people she can really share experiences with. She also comments that relying on blacks who are ‘exceptional’ does not help the entire community solve their respective problems, unfortunately many will still be ‘left behind’.
The language and craft of Gray’s essay aims to encourage her readers to do more to positive change for the black community. Her use of a running commentary of her past experiences is intended to highlights how problems that existed before are still prevalent today. She also presents multiple perspectives to issues to make her argument seem more fair. Firstly, she challenges the common misconception that a ‘big break’ changes your life, while also acknowledging some merit behind that argument. When introducing the My Brother’s Keeper intiivative, Gray acknowledges that the plan is promising, but then she also points out some of its shortcomings, “does nothing to address the systematic and structural issues that young men of color…face”. Her experience with racism is further introduced when she hears her classmate at high school mutters snarkily, “Affirmative Action”, when hearing that Gray has got into a college that the classmate was rejected from. Her experiences with racism help to strengthen her resolve, but also give light to a different perspective about the negatives of introducing such policy. Texts such as this essay connect to many of the ideas foregrounded during the Harlem Renaissance. Much like Gray, the poet Langston Hughes also focused on the promotion of black culture and the condemnation of racist social structures. In relation to other artists of the Harlem Renaissance (i.e. Malvin Johnson), Gray focuses intently on the black experience, putting the audience through a simulation of such experiences. Likewise, ads by multinational corporations such as Procter & Gamble also help contextualize everyday racism by highlighting how it is unfair that blacks need to work ‘twice as hard’ (The Look).