Why I Loathe Black History Month...

this is one of the most intelligently written articles I have seen on this subject in a LONG time!

Why I Loathe Black History Month
How long will it be before my oblivious, white-looking biracial children notice that their militant black mother has no use for Black History Month?
By Debra J. Dickerson

Teaching our children to expect and embrace failure

Nearly a decade ago, I obediently suffered through an interminable Black History Month oration at an inner-city black Catholic church in honor of its newly formed diocesan basketball team. I held my peace while a 50ish black lay worker offered up pathetic McNuggets of black history. (“Who invented the stoplight? A black man, that’s who! White folks don’t want you to know that.”) It was the heaping side dishes of black bigotry I couldn’t stomach. His hatred of whites was so virulent, it contorted his very features just to speak of them; looking around this room of Christians, the only consternation I could see was my own.

When he happily told that group of adolescents to “expect to be cheated and to lose most games they played against the white churches,” I almost fell out of my folding chair. He was luxuriating in the hopelessness of any encounter with whites and teaching our future to do the same—he was advising them to expect and embrace failure! Much as I was used to hear this kind of “guidance” from my elders, for some reason that day, I reached a breaking point. I had to know what my inheritance truly was, so sure was I that this was not it.

I raced home and finally dove head first into that stack of books blacks quote out of context every February and swear we’re going to read some day (outside of excerpts in college survey courses)—books like The Miseducation of the Negro, The Souls of Black Folks, the collected works of Frederick Douglass and Dr. King, Anna Julia Cooper, Mary McLeod Bethune, Sojourner Truth, Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin, Albert Murray, every slave memoir I could lay hands on.

Our forebears couldn't take the easy way out… too bad we can

That’s when I learned that I’d been robbed of my true intellectual and moral heritage, but not by whites. It was my own people who lied to me about who I was because, post-civil rights movement, we’re too comfortable in our protected protests to put ourselves on the physical and philosophical line the way our brave forebears did. They couldn’t afford to take the easy way out; too bad we can.

Those books have stood the test of time not because they are about the evil of whites (they’re not, to my surprise) but because they’re about what is required of blacks to live in a world which despises us. They are internal critiques. These works celebrate an oppressed people’s manful responses to their oppression but, most often, catalogue the ways in which we have failed to rise to the challenges that face us; they are notable for the minimal amount of time they spend discussing the perfidy of whites. Their focus is on a love for, and belief in, their people that sets high standards for our behavior in the face of adversity. DuBois and Truth and Woodson—reaching out from across the centuries—were such a rebuke to me as I remembered sitting silently while racism was preached that I actually stopped reading repeatedly to hang my head.

Knowledge truly is power and, knowing what I now do, I can’t bear Black History Month. For my children’s sake, however, I’ll have to try. Somebody’s going to teach them who they are and I’ll be damned if they’ll quietly listen to 35 years of lies and racism the way I did. They’re only 5 and 3, so they’ve got a few more years before they inherit Mom’s books and have to offer dinner table critiques of all the pointless nonsense they hear every February.

In the same way this woman will teach her children not to fail from the begining, I think we, as white people, need to stop silently giving them the edge because "they need that extra little help." We need to stop perceioving them as "disadvantaged" and really perceive them as human beings. And more than that, equal human beings.

SOURCE: lifestyle.msn.com...

Originally posted by XphilesPhan

In the same way this woman will teach her children not to fail from the begining, I think we, as white people, need to stop silently giving them the edge because "they need that extra little help." We need to stop perceioving them as "disadvantaged" and really perceive them as human beings. And more than that, equal human beings.

Speaking just from my personal life experience, I have never thought of the world in shades of color, being 50% Okinawan and 50% American mutt, I fortunately was raised non-racist, and the added opportunity to live on a military base overseas for 3+ years during my youth. The diversity was there and never an issue.

I can honestly say that my 12+ years spent in the US Army/ Army National Guard have showed me that the race issue is overrated. My friendships gained while in the service had nothing to do with skin color. To me it seems to have become a political chess piece to be played when it can hit nerves to bring votes to those who could give a crap about the consequences.

Like pouring salt into a wound, politicians rely on this method to stir up the constituents in an election cycle.

There are other people who exploit this issue to advance their own personal gain. You know who they are, sometimes they even try to enter the presidential election.

For the most part, this country's citizens appreciate the opportunities to become what they desire and are willing to risk all in an effort to attain their dreams. Many fail, but many succeed, and of the many I guarantee there is a great diversity in those who have fulfilled their dreams.

To continue to play the "guilty" role of the forefathers deeds, only prevents the country from moving forward and dealing with real issues that affect everyone, no matter what color on a painter's pallette you may be from.

I'm not racist against anybody. I feel to be racist is to limit yourself. I try to learn about other races and cultures because I have a thirst for knowledge and I realize that no matter what color a person is, we all bleed the same.

The only reason I don't like Black History Month is I get sick of hearing all the snide remarks made about it from people I know and work with. The minute Feb hits and people start talking about "Black History" the offensive comments start.

I would rather it be abolished and let the ignorant stay ignorant because they sure aren't learning anything during that month. If you truly want to learn Black History then pick up a book anytime during the year and read it.

This is just a personal observation from my youth.

I grew up in the South, and didn't start attending public school until the second grade. Up until that point, I had lived on a military base in Italy where the measure of a man or womans character was more important than the color of thier skin...the American public school was my first exposure to racism.

Now, bear in mind my father ws still enlisted - so, I attended several schools during my education.

Sometimes we would move in the middle of a semester, or I would find myself in a new school teaching the same ciricullum I had learned in another school the previous year. It was very chaotic - but there were some similarities I noticed.

Every year, without fail - when the subject of the civil war and slavery issues were brought up, many of the students tuned into what had happened all those years ago and began parroting the seperatist mentalities on the schoolyard with renewed vigor.

Lines were drawn everytime the subject was introduced.

Some kids weren't even aware of the unsavory part of the past and the concept of inferiority until that fateful day in class....it stuck with a lot of them, fueled schollyard fights, and eventually grew into the gang scenes of today.

Yet the cycle continues.




[edit on 10-3-2007 by GENERAL EYES]

Wow, XphilesPhan, that is an EXCELLENT article! Good job!

You all make some really good points.

I have said that if I were black, I'd not celebrate Black History Month. What kind of honor is that to dedicate a month to a race's history? I really feel where this author is coming from.

Nice find XphilesPhan!

Anyway onto Black History Month.
Personally I don't see a need for it, as all it does is fuel racial tensions and promote black separatism.
All it seems to be is another 'band aid' solution to the remnants of segregation. If not why not include white, Asian, Hispanic etc history months etc?

yes, why must we say that it is unfair to take a man who lived in shackles for his whole life and put him in the olympics?

he definitely didn't need a head start

and then after we took him out of the shackles he was pelted by garbage from the crowd

but it was still fair because he got to run

Originally posted by madnessinmysoul
yes, why must we say that it is unfair to take a man who lived in shackles for his whole life and put him in the olympics?

he definitely didn't need a head start

and then after we took him out of the shackles he was pelted by garbage from the crowd

but it was still fair because he got to run

And he won, madness. He faced unrivaled opposition and rose above it, as many blacks have and will continue to do. They dont need our help, they have done it themselves. Like the gladiators in rome who won their freedom and the respect of those who witnessed, the blacks have.

Thanks benevolent and Chaoticar, I appreciate the praise and am glad that I wasnt misunderstood and labeled as a bigot.

Originally posted by XphilesPhan
And he won, madness. He faced unrivaled opposition and rose above it, as many blacks have and will continue to do. They dont need our help, they have done it themselves. Like the gladiators in rome who won their freedom and the respect of those who witnessed, the blacks have.

there is still a lot of racism towards blacks in this country. just look at statistcs pertaining to "driving while black" and how it's enough to get you pulled over. blacks have been free for what, 30 years? that's enough time to make up for slavery, jim crowe, and a history of bigotry?

Originally posted by madnessinmysoul


there is still a lot of racism towards blacks in this country. just look at statistcs pertaining to "driving while black" and how it's enough to get you pulled over. blacks have been free for what, 30 years? that's enough time to make up for slavery, jim crowe, and a history of bigotry?

You have a good point and im not saying it doesnt play a role in current society. I am merely saying that I dont think it is a conspiracy of cosmic proportions or anything.

I totally understand the non-racists opposition to Black History Month. From my limited point of view, history should just be history when it is taught.

My history books from both high school and college were white male history books. I think we need to embrace a balanced approach to teaching history that includes as much of the whole story as it is possible to tell. If we do that, would there ever be a need for Black History Month?

As an NAACP member with white skin, I can tell you that the divisions between white and black are still deep and detrimental. I think that anything we can do to create unity should be done - I think it is going to be best in the long run.

I don't know about America, but here in Australia, it's hard to find a white who is genuinely racist, but you can go around to any non-white (asian, indian, black, doesn't matter), and they hate whites in some form or another.

They're just living their own fantasy where whites are still the racists, and we're just being inferior by sucking up to their demands.

As I see it, the only people who are truly racist in the human population are the ones who keep racism alive to further their personal agendas. In America, we see people such as Rev. Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and Louis Farrakhan — who at one time in our nation's history actually did participate in the Civil Rights Movement — reduced to perpetuating the very evil that they claimed to oppose years ago.

Look at Jesse Jackson, for instance... Here was a guy who was physically at the side of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as he died from an assassin's bullet. Not that Jackson was a leader of men at the time (he was just a flunky), but Jackson was there as a new age dawned for Civil Rights in America — so you would think he would be keenly aware of the distinction between the good and evil that men do.

Today, the Rev. Jesse Jackson extorts money from corporations and organizations through racist threats. I was blown away when I heard that Jackson shook down NASCAR for a quarter-million dollars, because there weren't enough professional race car drivers of African-American heritage. Say what? It's true, Jackson approached the officials of NASCAR and told them that, in order to avoid the appearance of racism, they should give him money...and they did. Whereupon, Jackson gave them his seal of approval, NASCAR was no longer in the hot seat, and Jackson moved on to extort money elsewhere.

I won't dwell on the truly questionable exploits of Louis Farrakhan except to note that the Leader of the Nation of Islam in America is well-quoted spewing anti-Jew, anti-Asian and anti-White racist rhetoric wherever he goes, and he urges his followers to continue his work. This guy's record speaks for itself.

Al Sharpton, another "leader" of the black community in America, who has repeatedly called for apologies and reparations from the U.S. government to the descendents of black slaves, is notorious for injecting his anti-White racist venom into any issue involving blacks, often traveling across the nation to do so in person.

What is hilarious to me and embarrassing for Sharpton is that he recently discovered that he is descended from a black slave who was owned by the family of U.S. Republican Congressman Strom Thurman (Thurman died a few years ago at some incredibly advanced age). The beauty part is that Al Sharpton is unsure if there was inter-breeding between his ancestors and Strom Thurman's — which was a fairly common if discreet activity between slaves and slave-owners back in the day.

So, the very racist Al Sharpton doesn't know if he's the descendant of a black slave with a little white slave-owner mixed in, or if he's a descendant of a white slave-owner with a little black slave mixed in. Could this mean that Al Sharpton may have to pay reparations to himself??



— Doc Velocity

[edit on 3/21/2007 by Doc Velocity]