Blah History Month
This is going to sound wrong.
I’m sick of Black History Month. I really am. This isn’t a petition for its banishment because I still grasp its significance; but after nearly 30 years, I’m just tired of it.
Don’t worry… I have my reasons.
For one, I am a serial optimist – since I became an entrepreneur, I made a habit out of finding the silver lining in everything. As a result, I try to eliminate everything that isn’t positive out of my life. Unfortunately, Black History Month is so depressing that it simply doesn’t fit my life’s motto. For a long time, February has been a month long reminder that being black in America sucks, has sucked and probably will continue to suck. I know this sounds pessimistic, and possibly a contradiction of my earlier statement, but Black History Month is implicitly negative. The sole purpose for having the month is to attempt to counter hundreds of years of oppression and prejudice. It just bothers me that we as black people still have to make the annual case that we aren’t 2nd class citizens.
Another thing that turns me off to the month is boredom. It’s the same thing every year – we were slaves… underground railroad… we’re not slaves… Jim Crow and the KKK… Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks and Malcolm X… Civil Rights Act… Wash, rinse and repeat. Literally every kid in America is writing the same book report. Again, my complaints have limits because all of those people and events deserve recognition. However, the Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964 and it is now 2012, am I to believe that nothing of worth happened over the last 58 years? So not only would I like to break the monotony but also I would like the world to know that black people didn’t take a few decades off. President Obama is most certainly going to be a new fixture in February but as amazing as he is, there has got to be more to talk about besides sports and entertainment.
Educating people (especially young people) about black history is paramount if you want to accurately tell the story of our country, so not having a month dedicated to awareness would probably do more harm than good. However, all good ideas need to be amended over time. Progress requires progressive measures and its time we take a look on how to improve the effectiveness promoting racial equality. Having a single month was a great start but I think its time we start figuring out what we can do during the other 11 months to finally fix this problem.
Good point but I had to disagree with "educating our youth" part of it. See working for the Board I have actually noticed a change in choice of topics. Expansion is growing yearly trust. Its just certain incidences throughout OUR history were way deeper than a lady not wanting to give up her seat. Issues that your child may not understand and may cause them to react in a manner in which had they truly grasp the full concept they would've been able to leave it in the past as we did. Remember when they showed us "ROOTS" in junior high. Don't know about you but I remember how I felt. With that said a school's curriculum may look repetitive from ther outside liking in, but that's because the story of Emmit Till may be too graphic or Scottborough Boys too vulgar or Brown vs BOE too complex. So we stick to what we call reliables. Since we interact with children who for the most part come from religious backgrounds, whether Christian, Muslim, Jew, etc...all deal with some kind of prophet or saint that the children can relate to. We just give the people what they want, which is a story with an ending that praises chance and hope. And that's where MLK, Malcolm X, etc...play such a huge part in our teachings. Soooo, sorry the broken record has to come at the expense of our beloved month. But don't look at the glass as half repetition my dude, look at it as full of simplicity. (Pardon the rant)
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