Magical Me, Not Magical You

Do-do-doooo…there I was just walking through Target, headed over to the card section to pick up a birthday card for my baby sister, Bethany. I stop at the birthday section. I’m scanning…scanning…<insert record scratch here>. What…is…this? I picked up a card. Black Girl Magic?? I looked back at the card rack…scanning…scanning…for the White Girl Magic card I knew good and well I’d never find. Why? Because our society has turned a whole new level of racist, that’s why.

Look. I’m not gonna lie. I tell my daughter, Sienna, how amazing and wonderful she is all the time. She is natural, powerful, and beautiful. She has one of the biggest hearts of anyone I know. Her compassion for people is moving. Her musical and literary creativity know no bounds. Her voice is angelic. Her almond-shaped eyes are stunning, and the lashes that surround them are the envy of all her friends—and her mom. She’s highly intelligent, and save for the 50 times a week I have to tell her to keep her room clean, she’s one of the most responsible teenagers I’ve ever met. I tell her these things because, like most young girls, she appreciates the encouragement. Truthfully, the same can be said for most, if not all, women. We all love to be told we’re magical in our own way. We all need that ego boost every now and then. But my daughter, Sienna, is all those wonderful things I mentioned because that’s how God created her—not because she’s black.

You might ask, “What’s the problem with telling black girls they’re magical? What’s wrong with ‘Black Girl Magic?'” The problem is, it focuses on the very thing we, as a black people, fought so hard not to be characterized by—the color of our skin. I won’t go so far as to say I don’t want people to see color. See my color. I’m a different color than most of my friends and associates. No one needs to pretend that I’m not. But neither does anyone need to point out my color as my source of “power.” When I give a good presentation, I don’t want to hear, “Wow, that black woman did an excellent job.” When I won my award for an essay I wrote, no one needed to say, “Man. That black woman can write!!” I don’t deny that I have particular talents; however, I don’t have them because I’ve got some sort of black girl magic. I have them because God graciously gave them to me. I’m not magical; I’m blessed, and I work my tail off. And to say I have some sort of black girl magic is insulting. Which brings me to my next point…

I’m insulted.

For a long time…centuries even, black people were disparaged and disregarded. We were considered less than our white counterparts. In the racist eyes of far too many white individuals, we weren’t even acknowledged as humans. We were non-humans. Animals. We were property only worthy cooking, cleaning, picking cotton, and procreating against our will. Those are the cold, hard facts. So some might think, given all we’ve endured, it’s high time we get a little credit—that we get some positive acknowledgement. To that, I agree! See us as more than a slave, please and thank you. See us as your equal. That’s all we asked. And we got that! White people stood up and fought for us when we couldn’t fight for ourselves. Black people asked for a seat at the human table. We asked for our fair share. And our fair share was granted.

But then…we kept asking…for more…and more. Then, we stopped asking and started demanding. It was no longer enough for us to be viewed as equal. We needed to be viewed as better—better than white men, better than white women, better than white boys and girls. For some reason, black people began to demand the very superiority that kept the literal and proverbial foot on our necks for four centuries. We began to perceive ourselves as better than we really are—better than our white counterparts. “We don’t just want what you have, we want our own!” Black America shouted. And finally, some poor, white sap, bludgeoned over the head by our blackness, guilt-ridden, acquiesced and started granting our wishes. So we got our own awards shows, our own entertainment television, our own collegiate social groups, our own…magic.

I’m here to tell you, black people are not magical. Black girls aren’t magic. Black boys aren’t magic. And the problem with continuing to tell them they are, is that they’ll begin to believe they’re entitled. When one is entitled, they believe there’s nothing they have to do to earn their recognition. Quite conversely, when they fail, excuses and concessions are made. And before you know it, no one focuses on the life of poor choices that led to the life of crime that led to the knee pressed down into their back, snuffing out their life of madness and mayhem. Whatever magic you believe you have ceases to exist when you find yourself on the wrong side of the law. Ask the locked up black men, women, and sadly, youth, how magical they feel from behind the prison bars of their own making. Their magic can’t save them from that.

Let Hallmark come out with a White Girl Magic birthday card and watch participating retail stores burn to the ground. (That’s par for the course these days though, isn’t it?) The hypocrisy is sickening. And I will not participate. My daughter will not participate. The only ones who think my beautiful Sienna is magical are God and her family. But I aim to teach her that outside the walls of her home is a world where everyone is equal. Whether she believes that or not, it’s the truth. But that’s where many go wrong, isn’t it? Truth fades into the background of the foreground of one’s beliefs. People think if they click their heels and wish it, it shall be so. Maybe that’s why black girls believe they’re magical. But you’re not a Disney princess, boo, and this ain’t Arendelle. Sorry.

My message to the black community? Stop it. You’ve got about as much magic as that card I was holding. You have no magical properties that warrant any elevation above the rest of society. You’re just as good, just as intelligent, just as flawed, and just as capable of failure as the rest of the human race. See it. Own it. Embrace it. It’s all you’re getting.

My message to the white community? You stop it too. Stop acquiescing. Stop bowing down. Stop feeling so guilty for your white skin that you take to the printers to mass produce copies of a lie wrapped up in a birthday card. It’s a lie. A shiny lie and in a fancy font, but a lie nonetheless. You’re not doing anyone any good. You’re not elevating us. You owe us nothing. Thank you for what you’ve done for us in the past when we needed you, but you can be done now. We’ve got it from here. And those who don’t “got it from here,” well, that’s on them. Maybe they can conjure up a spell with their “black person magic” to help them get it.