Ain’t I A Woman? Ain’t I Genius?
I get excited every year when the MacArthur Genius are announced. I first heard about the award on an episode of the NBC show ‘Mad About You’, and I was struck that an organization can deem people as geniuses. I wanted to be a genius when I was younger. I thought of myself as being as smarter than average.
However, I have awful study habits, and I hated college. I have one bachelor’s degree, and I don’t see a Ph.D. in my future. It doesn’t take a strong academic career to be a genius. It takes a body of great work and a lot of people to confer that you are one.
Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson, Prince- geniuses.
I never thought of Kanye West as a genius. I don’t think of Donald Glover as one (yet).
Most of the geniuses we talk about are men. However, it doesn’t mean that men are more likely to be geniuses.
Who are the black women geniuses? It is hard to come up with a deep bench of black women geniuses mainly because they are not often afforded the opportunity to create with limits.
These are some of the ones I have thought of:
Lorraine Hansberry, Audre Lorde.
Toni Morrison, Oprah, Kara Walker, Beyonce Janelle Monae.
Comedian Rae Sanni tweeted this and it was like she read my mind.
A much smarter friend offered that white critics using “genius” (“goddess” w women) is a tacit admission they haven’t the cultural backlog to engage black art fully; deification bc the inability to engage fully w deeply human black art (He said it better than this though) https://t.co/ezqbLThD1r
— Rae Sanni (@raesanni) May 7, 2018
Also this tweet by @stankofa:
Janelle Monae just put out a masterpiece with fresh, new commentary on the Black Queer experience. Beyoncé drowned a damn cop car in Katrina water TWO YEARS ago. Why do y’all wait for Black men to do half of what Black women stay doing??? https://t.co/ktTQ6fFNTW
— Queeriam (@stankofa) May 7, 2018