The End Of Race As We Know It

The End of Race As We Know It is an essay by Gerald Early.

I often feel disconnected when I read essays by older African Americans. Their obsession with black victimization, black place, black pride, and just blackness in general is beyond me.

I feel like a black man when I am sitting - when I am standing still. I feel black when I am idly talking to my friends, when I am at church, when I am in my fraternity, when I go to the movies, to a gallery opening, to an open mic, to a nice restaurant, to a university or school.

However, when I am moving - when I am doing things, I just feel like a man. When I am accomplishing whatever goals I want to accomplish I don't define my achievements in terms of my "blackness" but in terms of whether I am the best.

For me being the best is far more important than being black, or male, or even American.

Although never discounting my race, there is a joy in doing something that gets to the ideal of "you are just as good as anyone."

It is a joy discovered abruptly because we all know that "you are just as good as anyone" is a lie. You are not just as good as anyone until you start to actually do something. Then you will probably be worse than someone, and better than someone else.

However, that is why I am always seduced by the idea of "bestness". That in somethings I can really be "just as good as anyone" - that I can reach a level where no one is actually better than me.

And it is in this pursuit that I don't feel my blackness hanging around my neck like an anchor, or propelling me upward like a pair of wings.

I feel free, like every other man who has ever chased what made his heart flutter.

And for those moments, I am always thankful.

Keep striving upward.