The phrase Black Excellence has been around for quite some time, but what does it really mean? Urban Dictionary defines Black excellence as: “Someone that is Black and portrays great qualities and abilities that make the Black community proud.” Some have argued the term is used too much to praise those that are at the top of the financial structure in the Black community or those that follow only a certain lifestyle that the general society would deem excellent.
I didn’t know exactly what black excellence meant to me. I just knew that it was something that involved Black people doing great things for the community. In a search of a more concrete definition, I revised everything I affiliated with the phrase. And it finally hit me.
The Black Excellence Mindset
Black excellence is the mindset, backed by continuous action, to look within ourselves and act in ways that progress our communities without discrediting the effect of forces outside of our communities. That’s the best way I can describe it.
In other words, Black excellence is the audacity to look at the place where hundreds of years of being exploited and abused, on both the mother land and beyond, has brought us and say we can rise and prosper. Of course, the self-help idea is not new to the Black community (Black Wall Street and Black Panthers are prime examples). It has been believed in and practiced for as long as we have existed. It is just time to bring it to a whole new level.