Confidence Without Permission
Self-trust shaped by Blackness
Black confidence has never depended on outside affirmation.
It can’t.
Affirmation from the outside world has never been consistent or reliable for us, and that absence shapes something powerful. Black confidence is internally generated. It is self-sustaining. It does not rise or fall based on approval that was never guaranteed in the first place.
There is a strange clarity in being both doubted and dismissed while also being copied, imitated, and quietly followed.
We are told we are too loud, too much, too unrefined, while watching the very things we are mocked for become the blueprint for what is cool, cutting edge, and culturally relevant. Our language becomes mainstream. Our style becomes trend. Our creativity becomes capital.
It is genuinely funny to be both imitated and envied.
But when your confidence isn’t dependent on being seen, validated, or understood by the outside world, it looks different. It moves differently. It doesn’t ask permission before existing.
Black confidence isn’t fragile because it wasn’t created with applause.
It can’t be undone by rejection because fear of rejection wasn’t part of its origin story.
That kind of confidence creates a freedom.
Freedom to experiment.
Freedom to take risks.
Freedom that only exists when you’re not seeking the affirmation of white supremacy.
It allows for a level of creativity that can’t be matched by people whose self-worth is contingent on acceptance. When you are already accustomed to being misunderstood, you are less afraid of getting it wrong.
You don’t ask, Will they like this?
You ask, Does this feel true?
That internal grounding, forged in the absence of permission, is part of what makes Black creativity so expansive, so innovative and so difficult to contain.
Confidence that isn’t borrowed can’t be revoked.