What does it mean to be ‘good’?
From childhood, we are taught to desire to be ‘good’ and make ‘good’ decisions – decisions that are rewarded. As a child I was the good little black girl who sat quietly in class and sang at church. I was ‘poster child’ good and goodness was something I strived towards, but being good felt like a burden and a pressure. No matter how hard I tried, I could never really fulfil it, sitting still in class, finger on lip, barely breathing, but still not good enough.
I soon realised ‘good’ differed for me. In comparison, this tyrant of ‘goodness’ prescribed itself upon the identity of blackness, especially on little black girls, and found error. It wasn’t enough for us to be ‘good’, we had to be the “Good Black”.
But what does that mean and, perhaps more importantly, where did this concept come from?