- Malcolm X was fond of saying, "Our history did not begin in chains." Yet every year that's where Black History Month lesson plans in schools across America begin. They begin telling the story of our history -- black history -- in chains.
I did an interview with Morgan Freeman once. It happened to be in February. He was adamantly against Black History Month because it marginalized and codified "blacks" as a class in need of special attention. (note: it was NOT this interview In effect, his argument was against affirmative action, really, which is a whole 'nuther can of worms. I'm not sure I agree, though. Possibly the best magazine I get is Saudi Aramco World. It's largely geared towards culture and education and exposure of the awesomeness that is the Muslim world, from Amman to Zanzibar. In it, you regularly hear all the elements of modern Western culture that are most decidedly Arab or Muslim in origin... which means, if they came from North Africa, are "black." And that, to me, is where "Black History month" goes totally wrong. In order for something to qualify as "black history" it has to include those sects of Africans who were in a position to be enslaved by White merchants and hauled across oceans. It must then focus on the achievements of these marginalized people against overwhelmingly-long odds. It must further emphasize the impacts these achievements had purely on American culture. In effect, Black History Month is like a talent show for accident victims - "look! They can still jump rope even though both their legs are broken!" I think it's done this way because if you focus on "black" history month without the handicaps, what you see is an advanced culture that has little to do with ours. You see that pretty much every text that led to the Renaissance was preserved by Islamic scholars who sat out the Dark Ages. You see that Europe didn't spread the enlightenment everywhere they went, they were just another invading force. You learn that Ibn Battuta was an order of magnitude more relavant to the world than Marco Polo and you've never even heard his name. The problem with Black History Month is that it's fettered and crippled to fit the USA USA Rah Rah Rah narrative of how the world works and as soon as you start emphasizing "black" achievement outside that frame of reference you start questioning every other month.
This is mildly off topic, but I disagree that Egypt was "the most influential" civilization. Practical geometry was primarily an Ionian invention, whereas the Egyptians used it for agricultural and religious purposes. The later, at least somewhat more unified Greeks provided a massive framework for which modern civilization is based off of. The Roman Empire is still affecting the world today. The Moors in Spain gave us access to the Greek knowledge, gave us a need to bathe, desserts, and three course meals. China gave us innumerable technologies here in the west, Italy in the Renaissance gave us perspective, accurate ballistics, and the understanding of surface area in terms of how it changed the speed of boats, Germanic states in the same time period gave us Protestantism and the idea that the government is above the church, and England produced the magna carta, the precursor to modern democracy. How is most important being defined here? Is it most technological contributions? Because that's all China. Most legal precedents set? Rome. Most cultural influence? Greeks. Most behavioral/values? Victorian England. And this is really just the west; the only reason I'm including China in there is because China has given the world vast amounts of technology that it didn't use nearly as effectively as the Europeans and has had such a massive influence on technological development its absurd. Egypt is important, yes, but the most important?
Interesting to juxtapose this image (from http://hubski.com/pub?id=67415) with this thread.
Malcom X was wrong. "Black" history most definitely did begin in chains. African history began a lot farther back than that, obviously, but that's not the point of black history month. The point of black history month is to try to raise awareness of important contributions that blacks have made to American history and to help raise the collective confidence and consciousness of black America. We can argue about how successful black history month has been, but let's not conflate black history and African history; they are definitely not the same thing. There is no Asian or Hispanic month, because we did not systematically steal these groups from their homeland, enslave them, and then fight a war to ensure that they would be kept in bondage, only to legally codify their sub-human status in law after their freedom was won for another hundred years. No other groups have that history--that's fucking black history.
You should check out thenewgreen's comment below with regards to Asians in America- particularly the Chinese. As for the rest of your comment, why would anyone want to be taught that they can trace themselves back to slavery? Why would you teach only what you call "black" history and not African history as well as African American history? The story you want to tell is, "Long ago you were slaves who came from some backwater place that no one cares about, but despite that some of you have done amazing things!" That's a pretty bad origin story, by my standards. Way worse than the one laid out in this article.
I'm not arguing it's well executed. You'll notice I already covered that. I'm arguing it's atonement for former sins. While Asians were not treated well during the 19th c, their treatment (and that if the Irsish) is qualitatively different. Each of those groups came here willingly, and none was subjected to Jim Crow until THE 1960s (and even that was only nominal; segregation has been de facto ever since). Hell, even your town (in the North) rioted in the 70s when they tried to forcibly integrate the schools. You all are making an extreme false equivalency, like saying that there shouldn't be Holocaust museums, because Christians died during WWII also. Does getting a month of recognition advance the cause of blacks? Probably not. But would anyone else who feels slighted by this recognition trade places with them? Absolutely not. You're a comedian, right? You should check out Chris Rock's bit about the busboy who won't trade places with him. Its brilliant.
It's such a touchy topic, anything to do with race. Take a look at all the comments in this thread and how many people are participating, yet not one comment about "race" has been "upvoted". Why? It's a touchy topic that we are told we should be wary of discussing. Just an observation that I found strange.
There is no Asian or Hispanic month, because we did not systematically steal these groups from their homeland, enslave them, and then fight a war to ensure that they would be kept in bondage, only to legally codify their sub-human status in law after their freedom was won for another hundred years. No other groups have that history--that's fucking black history.
Sounds an awful lot like what happened to American Indians, actually. But I get what you're saying.
That was more massacre. But I would also not complain about celebration of Indian heritage. Complaints about this or that group being slighted because blacks get a month are laughable. I bet most poor blacks would trade spots with you and be happy they don't "get" a month of feigned appreciation.
Is there a Hispanic History Month? Asian History Month? Etc... What qualifies a minority to get a month? We enslaved Chinese laborers to build our railways and detained Japanese citizens during WWII. Hispanics out number African Americans now, do they spend a month in the schools talking about their history? All these "racial groups" are comprised of specific cultures and peoples that are very different from one another. Is it right to lump all that as "Hispanic, Asian or Black"? This is not a critique but an honest question. Do these other "races" have a month? Should anyone have a "month"? Also, I should mention that I didn't read the article. Sorry, not a big Huffpo fan, even when posted by the great ButterflyEffect :)
Exactly, it's preposterous that one ethnicity should receive special attention, and even then just for a month. I've never understood the rationale behind it. I do not think that anybody should have a month, no one group should receive such attention. It's a problem because I can imagine some people feeling that it makes up for prior injustices committed upon Blacks, or Hispanics, or Asians, which is hardly the case. Just a couple of more things:
1. I'm definitely not "great".
2. What do you dislike about Huffpo? I'm not huge on them by any means, but don't really have any problems with them.
In response to both you and thenewgreen, I think that you're kind of right - we shouldn't have a specific time for special attention devoted to them. However, I think that such a thing is needed, at least right now. Why? Because without black history month, no one would ever hear about black history at all. How much does any given student know about Hispanic history? Asian history? Probably not much, and the reason is that no one is saying "ok, this month we are, as a nation, going to be aware of these people and their history." Now, we aren't exactly enlightened about black history, but on the other hand at least we put out that cursory effort which is a lot more than others get. So, long story short, we shouldn't want to have a specific month for black history, but right now, we need it. Otherwise we would never hear anything about it. The fix? Every month is black history month. And Asian history month. And Hispanic history month, and women's history and European history and native American history and Middle Eastern history.
You guys all are missing the point entirely, I'm afraid. The learning history part of black history month is the least important part. As long as you're looking at it with a macro lens, you will continue to not get it. Put on the wide angle and you can see that black were legally sub-human until 1964. Black history month is a chance to try to fix that by showing great contributions of blacks to the US and the world as a way to try to impart some humanity and self confidence to the community while atoning for a former wrong in some small way.
As someone who loves to study history, I have to disagree. You aren't wrong, of course - black history as we take it in America is a way to show the contributions and the value of black people on our culture and our history. And of course, it is to acknowledge the terrible pain that our culture brought upon a whole race for longer than anyone should have allowed. However, segregating a month (the shortest one, incidentally) to say "right, this is where we learn about black people and their struggles and successes and humanity, then we'll get back to our scheduled lessons" seems very diminishing. Why? Why not teach this, and reinforce this all the time? Why not integrate the teaching of African history with the usual curriculum of dead white males? How about when you're teaching American history throughout the whole course reinforce that there were slaves, that it was traumatic, and here's what was happening at the time through every chapter? Until college, every US history class I'd ever taken had one chapter, maybe two about black people, usually squeezed into a 100-year period sometime between just before the civil war and just after MLK. Outside of that, you could assume, by most lesson plans, that there were no black people. That is insane. So I ask - why do we only want one month to try to fix that by showing great contributions of blacks to the US and the world as a way to try to impart some humanity and self confidence to the community while atoning for a former wrong in some small way
This should be all the time.
Extreme bias, generally lower quality articles than, say, NYT or Forbes, etc. EDIT: case in point, the word 'epic' appears in the article's title2. What do you dislike about Huffpo? I'm not huge on them by any means, but don't really have any problems with them.
Yeah, I was iffy on that word appearing in the title. Thanks for answering the question and pointing those issues out. I don't read HuffPo very often, so I haven't noticed the bias. Often being maybe an article a month from them, but I thought this one was interesting headline notwithstanding.
Still read the article; it was short. The guy's got good points, I guess, in that his article is a pretty good jumping-off point to Wikipedia some names and learn some stuff about African history. But he's wrong about what Black History Month is. It's a month the government created so they could talk about Langston Hughes, Maya Angelou and the Harlem Renaissance. Maybe Delta Blues, if you've got an especially good teacher. It missed the mark. It's been shunted aside within the education system. I went to one of the best high schools in America, and they barely gave it a nod. Maybe we made a poster or two, read a poem. Fuck all that. If you're the type of person who cares about knowledge and equality, you'll teach yourself that black people are as smart as white people using the internet, and if you're not, the biggest amount of evidence in the world isn't going to convince you of anything.
Short isn't necessarily a bad thing. Why do we need a month to teach about those topics though? Those are important people and events that should be included in secondary school curriculum's. Is it then an educational issue that we're looking at? I feel that it should be interspersed throughout the year, Black history is an important part of American history and should be coupled with that, not relegated to a month.