Grand Theft Ordinary

White supremacy can steal a lot; our joy, our peace of mind, our humanity. But, perhaps one of white supremacy's stealthiest thefts is

the theft of mediocrity.

By normalizing whiteness as average, white people get to be just that...

...average.

The rest of us (especially women like me) have to be excellent all the time.

Or, as my daddy says,

"You have to be as good as some and better than most.”

We have to be extraordinary to avoid the ordinary course of things (spoiler alert: ordinary for me tends to include enough micro assaults to amount to a macro attack on my very humanity just about every day).

It’s exhausting. I don’t just think, I think ahead. That’s part of what makes me an innovator. I think years ahead about what the world can become, and I work my way backwards to determine what I have to do now to achieve it. But it’s hard to turn that off.

I set huge unreasonable goals so that, when I meet those goals, it can leave no doubt in anyone’s mind as to what I can achieve. Strangely, folks still manage to find plenty of doubts. Go figure.

Because my excellence thrives in my mind and spirit, my body becomes secondary, and the very tools I need to stay in this fight for freedom—balanced body, mind and spirit—drain and weaken at lightning speed.

When that happens, I don’t stop. Excellence won’t let me. Instead, I create energy out of the ether and keep going and going.

But I’m no bunny.

Nor am I a spring chicken. I’m exhausted. Not enough to give up, but just enough to understand that this level of energy output, which defies the law of physics, cannot last.

So, I reclaim average.

I reclaim balance.

The how seems simple. Some days I’ll put energy in. Equal days I’ll take energy out. Equal days I’ll do neither.

A real average Queen—my ordinary rule extraordinary only in its balance and longevity. Queen Rachel of Oakland by way of Gary, Indiana and Stone Mountain, GA. Long may she reign!