My friend is a mental health specialist who works in schools. She is frequently up on a stage doing trainings for educators. She’s my age, sixty-one. Often, she is introduced as a “legend.” She’s had school administrators fawn over her “contributions to the community” over “so many years.”

“They act like I’m some Cosmic Granny,” she said to me.

She is great at what she does. But when she was in her fifties no one marveled at her being a “legend.” Or her forties. It’s almost always white men who crow about her legendary status, sometimes repeating it like a stutter.

It’s the kind of overcompensation I’ve seen throughout my career. Instead of saying out loud, ‘wow, I can’t believe you’re actually here’ there is the faux effusiveness, the casting about for commonality to demonstrate connection.

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