5 Successful Black British Women Talk About The Pressure To Be Excellent

BY PAULA AKPAN via https://www.elle.com

Many of us know ‘black excellence’ as the hashtag that began accompanying stories of black people graduating, becoming the first or youngest black person to do something, or earning eye-watering amounts of money.

However, while popularised online, for many of us, the expectation to be black and excellent goes back as far as childhood.

I will always remember my dad telling me during my formative years that because I was both black and a girl, I would always have to be twice as good; I would always have to strive more than my peers to demonstrate my value – a sadly not uncommon story for black women and girls.

Yet even when black women are hilarious and over-achieving, they still only get half the air time. We see this depicted in literature, TV and film time and time again, with brilliant, black women  …

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