the divisive effects of exceptionalism amongst BLACKs

**the divisive effects of exceptionalism amongst BLACKs **

by Maleke Montshiwagae Mahlomaholo

when I first came across and really got head to head with the cold ugly face of exceptionalism was in my early days of schooling when I was in Jouberton after I had left Valspan where I was born. I must admit that at that time it didn't mean anything to an untrained, young, unsuspecting and naive mind, it was business as usual and life was going on. In other words, it was built within and incorporated into the DNA of life as it were. So we saw nothing wrong at all!
One example of how this phenomenon manifested was when it was during those athletic seasons when competitions were held within schools and between schools and those that came out tops would proceed to compete at regional levels etc. Because of the apartheid spacial design of segregation, black people competed amongst themselves while white people competed amongst themselves as well.

it was only later at the advent of the so-called model-c schools where black people because of their socio-economic status, could mingle and compete with whites at a school level on athletics. Apart from this socio-economically
driven integration which actually collapsed over the years as whites began to migrate and move out of those schools as they began to feel uncomfortable been shoulder to shoulder with the subalterns, the competition amongst blacks and whites really occurred at higher levels such as regional levels.

From our school there were guys who could really sprint and were really fast. It was out of these guys that one of them, after winning at the intra school competitions made it to regional levels and went toe to toe with his white counterparts. Therefore, it was not long that news began to spread like fire in the school and classrooms that, apart from the fact that this chap did well in the race even though he didn't win the race, he was the only black amongst whites and for that reason it was considered an exceptional achievement indeed! Even when the poor chap came back to school and was paraded around, the teachers made it a point that the whole school got it through their skulls that the champion was the only black there!

And when I think about it now, it's actually scary how normal this was, how the whole school appeared to have internalised this whole "thing", how our presence alone amongst white presence was considered an exceptional performance! . . 😦😦

fast foforward to 2017, the many and various black centered readings by yours truly have served as a trigger to what was happening and what was at play then. Black inferiority complex playing itself out as exceptionalism and fed into the younger children to cement the supremacy of whites against which standards of excellence were to be measured, "if you are the only black amongst whites then there must be something exceptional about you and therefore you are not like the others" type of thing.

From my latest reading of "Die nigger Die", a beautiful autobiography by Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin indicates that apart from the mental damages and scars this "exceptionalism" inflicts upon the black community, it actually devides the community.

Jamil writes that "...had I identified with most of the white-minded negroes at school, I wouldn't have been able to relate to brothers on the block. Worse than that, I would've thought that I was better than them.

It's like the whole school busing thing now. Busing Black children to schools outside the Black community is nothing but a move to divide the community. If integration is what's wanted, then bus the whole community.

But to take individuals out of the community is a very dangerous and immoral thing. The "brightest" students are taken, students who can fit into the white man's program best, and they're bused out of the community so they can come back and articulate the white man's program. That splits the community. Parents who sent their children to white schools in the South made a mistake. They injured those students mentally for life".

what comes out of this is that, "exceptionalism" is used to "develop" individual students in accordance with white standards of education, which instills individualistic sense of self-importance instead of a collective orientation of development which would go a long way in resolving the material black conditionality of the community instead of dividing it along the lines of "exceptionalism", which in turn breeds class divisions where blacks see themselves as being different to other blacks.

Prof Mabogo More, a scholar and philosopher by training, relates an event where a fellow white Professor at a conference expressed surprise to the fact that he was indeed a philosophy Professor, the white interlocutor said to Mabogo More that "wow, you must be good and different being a black professor of philosophy", so Prof Mabogo became what somebody elsewhere refered to as an "anthropological curiosity", an ointment of interest to the white window shopper. Also, the Prof was meant to feel "exceptional" and different to other blacks in accordance with white approval. Fortunately the Prof was conscious and aware of these subtle but mentally violent characters of whiteness.

so in all, you are presented as this mysterious alien with super special capabilities simply because you could enter spaces previously reserved for whites only, and that should make you feel good and special from the "others"...

Lessons to be learned are,

blacks must be aware of the subtle yet divisive implications of seeing oneself as an exceptional case within the black community's social constructs.

If our excellence is measured by our mere presence in white establishments which in turn instills individualistic sense of "exceptionalism", we need to be careful of its toxic effects in how we relate with fellow blacks. so to strive for excellence must not equal to striving for a place within whiteness and its heaven or to become a different black

our individual excellence must be seen as something that can contribute to the collective benefit of the community instead of something that affords us imagined social status that further divides us,

.. .. . #BlackUnity ✊.