"I'm here because I stand on many, many shoulders, and that's true of every black person I know who has achieved"
About this Quote
Jordan’s line is a quiet flex disguised as gratitude, and it lands because it refuses the mythology that America loves most: the lone genius who “made it” on grit alone. “I’m here” is deliberately plain, almost bureaucratic, but it frames success as a location you arrive at through collective labor. The repetition of “many, many” isn’t poetic filler; it’s insistence. He’s piling up the unseen people and institutions - mentors, organizers, teachers, litigators, neighbors, historically Black colleges, church networks, civil rights infrastructure - that make an individual career possible.
The subtext is sharper: if Black achievement is communal, then so are the barriers. Jordan is pointing to a reality in which Black professionals often carry not just their own ambition but a relay baton passed through segregation, exclusion, and political backlash. The phrase “shoulders” echoes the Isaac Newton cliché, but Jordan’s version reclaims it from a generic enlightenment fable and roots it in Black American history: progress as accumulation, not miracle.
Context matters. Jordan wasn’t a pop-culture striver; he was a power broker who moved between civil rights leadership and corporate America, advising presidents and navigating boardrooms where Black presence was still treated as novelty. His intent reads as both tribute and warning: celebrate the individual, sure, but don’t erase the movement that made the individual legible. The closing clause - “every black person I know who has achieved” - turns a personal anecdote into a pattern, quietly indicting any system that treats Black success as proof the system is fair.
The subtext is sharper: if Black achievement is communal, then so are the barriers. Jordan is pointing to a reality in which Black professionals often carry not just their own ambition but a relay baton passed through segregation, exclusion, and political backlash. The phrase “shoulders” echoes the Isaac Newton cliché, but Jordan’s version reclaims it from a generic enlightenment fable and roots it in Black American history: progress as accumulation, not miracle.
Context matters. Jordan wasn’t a pop-culture striver; he was a power broker who moved between civil rights leadership and corporate America, advising presidents and navigating boardrooms where Black presence was still treated as novelty. His intent reads as both tribute and warning: celebrate the individual, sure, but don’t erase the movement that made the individual legible. The closing clause - “every black person I know who has achieved” - turns a personal anecdote into a pattern, quietly indicting any system that treats Black success as proof the system is fair.
Quote Details
| Topic | Equality |
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