Exceptional Negro
\ik-ˈsep-shə-nəl\ • noun: A black person who does not fit or follow the ‘rules’ (stereotypes) of blackness, and therefore becomes an anomaly, a person who is “not like other black people” an exception to the ‘rule’ rather than the rule itself.
Note: the Exceptional Negro is remarkably like the average black person and isn’t all that exceptional.
I know I can’t be the first person to coin this term, but I don’t know for sure whether or where I could have seen it before. If you know of someone who said and defined it first, please enlighten me. (Yes, I am too busy thinking I might just be brilliant and I don’t want to have my bubble burst with a Google search.)
is an exceptional negro like a super negro?
It’s Super Negro’s cousin, along with Magical Negro.
So, that means that Exceptional Negroes are a part of the talented 10th but in the virtual sense?
No. It’s not that we are actually ‘better’ or ‘different’ or more talented than other black people.
It’s that our very existence — a black person that they actually consider a friend, or that doesn’t scare them — f*cks with people’s world view about what black people are like. So they make an exception for us rather than revise their stereotypical beliefs. They can just keep saying that their black friends are “not like other black people.”
Oh, you mean in white people sense. I get that one. Yeah, I am one of those exceptions from some of my so called white friends. I hate that “I am different” talk that they do behind my back but then in reality they are only impressed because both my parents are professionals. Thank you for the clarification.