OFF-BLACK EXCELLENCE: IDENTITY, RECOGNITION, AND THE INNER LIVES OF BLACK YOUTH
It can be argued that a bid for recognition and belonging has both plagued and propelled the Black community over the course of the last sixty years. In this lecture, Matthew Morris will address two questions: What does a bid claiming “Black Excellence” actually mean? And what does the hailing of this prescribed Black Excellence do for Black people in Canada? Black Excellence – the notion, model, and its contextual framework – is generally understood to be a positive assertion of identity construction, a hopeful catchphrase of Blackness and how it can exist in affirming ways. But what gets lost in the avowal of Black Excellence are specific values that are adopted with those terms. What goes unrecognized in the declaration of Black Excellence is the fluidity of Black aliveness.
