Black nerds are having a moment. Black Panther was huge. Trihex, a video game Twitch streamer, is one of the most popular on the platform. Black intellectual podcasts, like PushBlack’s Black History Year, are doing record numbers.
So why are they getting backlash from Black AND white communities?
Whites have always argued we lack intelligence. In 1444, Portuguese writer Zurara wrote that Africans had no intellect – to justify enslavement. In 1787 Thomas Jefferson, famous for writing “all men are created equal,” also wrote that we had “dull” imaginations and would NEVER be equal.
Do some of us believe them?
Smart Black boys still feel the pressure to ditch school, but today’s Black nerds are challenging stereotypes. Jordan Peele’s exploring science fiction on TV, Ryan Coogler’s popularizing comics, and Barack Obama is a proud intellectual.
Levar Burton broke barriers on Star Trek, and Neil deGrasse Tyson has been a leading astrophysicist for decades. But it actually goes WAY back!
7,000 years ago, Black geniuses created the world’s oldest astronomical site in the African desert. Onesimus, an enslaved man, brought vaccination to the Americas. And inventors like Garrett Morgan and Lewis Latimer demonstrated our brilliance.
We can do anything we put our minds to, from labor to sports to art to intellectual pursuits. We must celebrate Black nerds – and NEVER let white supremacist stereotypes tell us who we can be!