Being first is never easy. Living with the label can be just as hard.
By William Wan April 22, 2016
When the United States elected its first black president in 2008, it felt like a turning point — a cultural milestone for our country, a moment of grace in its fraught history of race relations, the fulfillment of an equality long promised by our founding fathers.
Seven years later, a new turning point awaits: What next?
No one knows. By their very nature, such “firsts” thrust us into uncharted territory.
But ask other black pioneers about their experiences, and they agree on this: Being first is never easy, but life afterward can be just as hard — both for the person who broke the barrier and the country at large.
Like Obama, they endured the challenge and scrutiny of breaking barriers, and they emerged with victories of their own: the first black governor. The first black billionaire. The first black Ivy League president.
If becoming a first requires determination and sacrifice, they say, then life after that first takes an equal amount of patience and perspective.
The label, they say, is something you contend with for the rest of your life — questioning it, probing for what it means, striving to preserve an identity outside of it and, if you’re lucky, learning to harness its power in a way that helps others.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/obama-legacy/first-black-heroes.html?hpid=hp_hp-more-top-stories_olp-afterthefirst-906pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory
No comments:
Post a Comment