We have all been guilty of this at some point. However bright or dim we may be in a particular moment (depending on how many drinks we have had) we have all repeated phrases without really examining their meaning or interrogating their veracity. My theory is that over time we have come to accept the ideas behind these phrases as truth solely on the basis of their familiarity in our minds and presence in common parlance. There is a real danger in taking mental shortcuts like that; especially if you are a member of a group that has been working like hell for decades to redefine and reposition itself amongst its group peers. In the off chance you missed my point: that’s Black folks.
Because I am as committed as anyone to doing my part to craft healthy and constructive discourse for my group, we’re going to dig into that danger and the implications involved. But this engagement is well worthwhile for all. Words are so powerful they can both start wars and bring peace; or just free the mind so the ass can follow. This piece is aimed at that target — with some unconventional perspective thrown in as well. Where else can you see Martin Luther King, Jr. and Biggie Smalls in the same discussion?
“We Gotta Be Twice As Good To Get Half As Much”
If you’re a 70s baby like me and your loving mother and demanding father told you this, they were telling the truth. But if this is still true for us to tell our Black kids in 2025, we are not just wrong, we are at fault for repeating this. We have all been there: we’ve grown frustrated with an underachieving and unmotivated kid. Maybe they’re a little spoiled by lack of struggle so in an effort to light a fire under them, our mental Rolodex pulls out this old card: “Don’t you know you gotta be TWICE as good to get HALF as much as those white kids??!!”
The reality is that the more we say it, and pass this self-defeating message on to our impressionable young people, the more we validate its truth. And while we are trying to motivate them, we are inadvertently handicapping them. The record is clear that racism, in all of its varied incarnations, has acted as a suppressant to Black advancement, Black excellence, Black independence, and even just Black equality. If you can’t roll with me on that fact don’t even bother passing the pleasantries when we cross paths. My fuse and my time are far too short to explain to your dumb ass why 2+2 will always equal 4.
At bottom, the “twice as good” trope simply is not true anymore. A heavy price was paid by our predecessors who sacrificed to make it untrue. I am well aware of the stats reflecting the stubborn racial stratification in employment opportunities, but breathing the idea into being that a Black person can only expect to get 25% of his or her worth in the open market is nuts. That mindset can do as much to suppress Black achievement as that country-club, good ole boy network can.
When we pass that phrase and the pathos it carries into the psyche of our children, we are embedding the mindset of oppression and injustice in them before they have had a chance to get out here and compete for themselves.
We are telling them that the refs are cheating them before the game even kicks off. Even worse, we are implanting in them the mindset that IF they really are twice as good (and who in the hell can ever really know what that means) they should only expect to be rewarded for one quarter of what their work or expertise is valued at. Do we really expect to ever put our history of exclusion, injustice and disadvantage behind us where it belongs? It is history that we should not just know, but master, so that we never repeat it. But if we adopt the mindset of perpetual oppression it will never be history, it will be the current state of affairs.
Besides, do we really want our young people to index their own performance to what “they” get? The funny thing is, to their white counterparts, the “they” is the Black kids. Many white kids have been mentally warped into believing that any competitive disadvantage is their burden to overcome, and the Black kids get all the breaks. After all, who out here today has it harder than the heterosexual white man?
If we keep going the “twice as good” route, white people are determining what we — and by extension our children — can aspire to. The truth is that those beloved 70s babies are on the hook to pick up more economic ground so that our children are as likely to be interviewing for professional opportunities with companies owned and/or operated by people who look like them as their white counterparts are. As it stands, nine out of every ten Black people in the workforce has worked for an employer owned and operated by white folks. Whereas the number of white people who have worked for an employer owned and operated by Black folks is less than 1%. That is where the game is. Then we have less insidious biases to fret over: because our kids are almost certainly NOT going to be twice as good as anybody else. Just being average needs to be good enough.
“More Money More Problems”
When you hear a brother repeat this phrase (and I have only ever heard brothers saying this bullshit) you are in the presence of shameless posturing and self-promotion. You are in the company of a guy who is signaling or not-so-subtly suggesting to you that he is flush with cash; perhaps suddenly so, and it is overwhelming him. Of course the subtext of the message is more important than the text, and it depends on who the brother is talking to. If he is talking to a white man, the real message is: “I have successfully climbed the steep mountain of capitalism from the deep valley of poverty, but you still need to feel sorry for me because now that I have made all this money, I am still not happy.” If he is talking to a Black man, the real message is: “I have made so much more money than you, I know you may be jealous enough to harm me. But please don’t, because despite all this cash I am still not happy.”
Over the course of my life I have been broke more than my fair share of the time, and I swear to you on everything I love, this phrase is bullshit. This is just plumb dumb and it reflects our lack of discernment as a culture in where we draw insight and inspiration from. I am not mad at The Notorious B.I.G. for propagating this silliness. I have no reason to believe that he knew any better at his young age.
I doubt very seriously that I am alone in this experience, but the more cash on hand that I have had, the fewer problems I have had. Nothing brings more problems than being broke. Being poor is even worse because poverty is a mindset and a lifestyle that oftentimes defines a person. Brokeness is not like that. It is a temporary problem that can be readily addressed; about like dropping a few pounds to fit into a dress for an upcoming wedding or a class reunion. And the truth is that when you finally break away from brokeness forever, it is a magnificent feeling and everything in your life is better. Having money is never a burden and it is highly irresponsible to suggest such a thing when you are a Black man with a Black audience.
I am not a wealth worshiper. I realize that money does not erase all of your problems, but it does not bring problems either. If you think money brings you problems, the problem is you, my friend, not the mattress of money you are sleeping on. And that is okay because facing problems is a part of life. Money can change the type of problems you have, but no rational person believes it is the miracle cure for being an idiot or for living recklessly.
“The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice”
This is a tough one because it would be impossible for anybody to respect and revere The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. more than I do. If I were ranking the greatest human beings of all time (which I acknowledge is a pretty reckless undertaking in the first place) he would be right at the top of my list. Suffice it to say, any admiration you may have for this man can only match mine, it certainly cannot exceed it. And because I have listened to every speech he ever recorded, and read every book he ever published, I completely understand why he was so fond of this phrase. And it was appropriate for the times. But that time is gone. Regardless of what any hopeless or faithless doom-sayer tries to tell you, 2023 is very different from 1968. And if you doubt that, ask any Black American who was out here trying to make a life for themselves in ’68.
Here and now, we are ill-served by the soothing idea that no matter how bleak this day may be, a better day is on the way. This goes for those who are in power whether they are fence-sitting or actively resisting progress, as much as it goes for the marginalized who are fed up with the labored crawl and snail’s pace of social justice.
It is a violation of my personal code to call bullshit on Martin Luther THE King, but I must at least respectfully decline to buy what one of his favorite phrases is selling. When King began inserting this phrase into his sermons he was under a ton of pressure. After years of sacrifice, strain and suffering, the people were weary and restless. His most ardent supporters and strident detractors alike were losing faith despite the gains being made and were frustrated by the pace of progress. More and more young people were frustrated to the point of pursuing violent militaristic movements. Meanwhile, more and more older people were wearying to the point of surrender. King knew both of those options could sink the movement and squander the hard-earned gains that had been won.
So in the fashion of a true Baptist preacher, King crafted a message designed to shift the focus to a future that those within the sound of his voice implicitly understood might not include them. But they still had to remain encouraged to keep sacrificing, straining and suffering to preserve the possibility of that bright and just future coming into being. Thus the salient theme of “the arc of the moral universe is long but bends toward justice.”
In this millennium, in this decade, in this year, Black people are better served by expecting the payoff in any public accounting to be executory. We want what is ours now. TODAY. Here is how that translates in real time politics: To hell with future justice. We demand a formal recognition of everything that is owed to us, and acknowledgment that although everything that is owed cannot be paid all at once, a payment plan is in place. (Note: This position is why so many white folks freaked out over The 1619 Project.)
Instead, too much faith and patience in that “moral arc” has brought us to a place where there is more urgency in denying the existence of the debt owed to Black people than there is in getting that debt paid up to current, much less paid in full. Keep an eye on the Supreme Court. Within the year, Affirmative Action will be eradicated. Within the year, public schools will be upheld in outlawing any teaching that explains why America needed Affirmative Action in the first place. I don’t know about you, but that does not look like anything bending toward justice to me. That looks like more of what we instinctively know is true but hate to admit: Might makes right, so what’s right doesn’t matter. So the arc of history will never bend toward justice unless we bend it. Those who are good must overpower and overrun the wicked- or the change we bring will never satisfy our needs. And if you wonder who in this scenario is who, Martin Luther King, Jr. was the good and those who opposed him were the wicked.
“Respectability Politics”
Whenever you hear this phrase, you have almost certainly gotten caught in the crossfire of an age-old, inter-generational, intra-racial, philosophical class-conflict. But keep in mind that the position one takes on so-called “respectability politics” cannot be accurately indexed to one’s own socio-economic or demographic status. You will hear just as many broke Black folks as flush Black folks pissed off about the ridiculousness of young men walking around with their asses hanging out because their pants have been intentionally set to sag down low enough to expose cheeks and briefs.
These Black people are disturbed by the message being sent to the world by these Black men who are, literally and figuratively, showing their asses in public. They object to Black men making a spectacle of themselves and reflecting poorly on the rest of us who are associated with them whether we like it or not. There is a powerful resentment toward the cheeky young men because the anti-cheekers are convinced that somebody somewhere along their journey taught them better than to go around looking like that. So the cheeky young men are not only disgracing and embarrassing our entire race, they are dishonoring the parent or grandparent, uncle or aunt, teacher or coach who would die of humiliation if they saw how they were being represented.
On the flip side, there are those who aggressively object to the objections of the anti-cheekers. On principal, they would rather accept the exposed Black ass-cheeks in the streets than co-sign on mainstream conceptions of appropriate dress, conduct and speech in shared spaces.
These conscientious objectors tend to be motivated by a desire for Black people to silence the voice of the White man ringing in our ears after years of social control and psychological conditioning. In general, they reject the idea that adopting a personal style of speech and dress that is calculated to win the high regard, e.g. the respect, of White people, is admirable. I dig where they are coming from, but they are wrong. Encouraging other Black people to comport themselves in a manner that promotes respect and admiration in shared spaces is nothing but right. So long as that encouragement is not served on top of a garbage can lid of personal insults and invective, the more we can serve up the better.
The reality is that rejecting “respectability politics” is a cop out from competing in a competitive economy. If you cannot carry yourself in a generally respectable fashion, you will not be able to compete in any meaningful way. Your options will be confined to the spaces White folks have set aside for you to play: the basketball court, the street corner, the stage, the pulpit, and of course, a prison yard. Most of us cannot feed ourselves and our children like that so “respectability” is truly a prerequisite to economic viability. Rejecting “respectability politics” is often being done in the name of encouraging understanding and patience within the community. Of course that is a worthy motivation. But sacrificing actionable truth in favor of feel-good messaging is not the move. Bill Cosby gave the infamous “pound cake” speech, but he also invested millions and millions of dollars into the education and development of young Black people. Which matters more?
“My Nigga,” “Nigga Please,” or any other casual invocation of our peoples’ degradation
This plea has fallen on deaf ears for years but I cannot stop asking. We’re closing out this exploration with another request that we, as a people, abandon the word “nigger” in almost every context in which we use it. It seems like we always find a way to work the word created for the sole purpose of degrading and dehumanizing us into casual conversation and in commercial artistic expression. And I say this without anger, only somber acknowledgment. It seems like Black people love the word. And as long as we keep it alive, I truly believe that White folks never have to worry about us really competing on a scale that threatens their primacy.
The “taking ‘nigger’ back and using it as a term of endearment is empowerment” explanation just doesn’t hold up under even the mildest scrutiny. The possibilities of language are infinite. We could easily use something else.
Repurposing the word “nigger” makes as much sense as repurposing the feces you leave in your toilet. We would never do such a thing because it is disgusting and toxic. Our bodies ejected that poisonous waste so we could be healthy. And so is the word “nigger” poisonous waste in our collective psyche. We should eject it and flush it down the toilet once and for all.
We can find another way to express whatever it is we have to say when we wind up using the same word that was spit at our forebears on the auction block, in the cotton fields, on the whipping post, at the lynching tree and every place else where they went through hell. It is impossible to believe that with all we have achieved, we are not up to the task. It’s time to give that word back to the wretches who gave it to us. If we won’t do it for ourselves, I wish we had it in us to do it for those who were forced to hear the slur, and answer to it. They did not have the freedom to choose. But we do.
This post originally appeared on Medium and is edited and republished with author's permission. Read more of David Saint Vincent's work on Medium.