Why We Need Black History Month

The news is running faster than the people can decipher it. From the allowing of a enemy of our country, the United Arab Emirates, to run the ports on the eastern seaboard, to the whitewash of the Katrina investigation in which, it was brazenly decided that "no one was to blame," and with the empty caveat that we have to do better in the future. From the news that our domestic mishandling of the public trust in the form of bribery and the criminal acts of politicians and their lobbyists to the sell out of our Health Care to the craven vultures that own our insurance and pharmaceutical companies. However, this is Black History month, and if you think that isn't relevant to all that is going on then that is why we need Black History month, and indeed the teaching of honest history to all our citizens, with all its flaws and blemishes.

Recently on CBS 60 minutes, the multimillionaire actor Morgan Freeman was interviewed and he said, "the concept of a month, dedicated to Black History is ridiculous, you're going to relegate my history to a month. I don't want a Black History month. Black History is American history." With all due respect to Morgan Freeman, he can afford to say such things not realizing perhaps unwittingly that he is playing into right wing prejudices. He naively says, regarding racism, "stop talking about it, and it will go away." He says, "There is no white history month." The reality is that there doesn't have to be a white history month because history is already presented as white history and not much else. Unfortunately, white history is presented blandly and without much room for analysis of why something happened. Most high school students groan out of boredom with much of the history that is presented to them and the way that many teachers pedantically teach. Regarding black history specifically, the history books that our young people have been weaned on, and indeed most adult's, do not give a clear and honest accounting of what has been going on with the black race since the beginning of this country. Ideally, Freeman would be right, but no way is history being taught so democratically.

In that light, how can you explain the abandonment of the black population of New Orleans during then Katrina disaster and continuing to the present, when Katrina is old news, and the former inhabitants are a fogotten diaspora across our country? People from this country, and all over the world sent in donations yet we see thousands who have been dispersed around the country trying to figure out where their next meal is coming from, and now we are hearing of many who are being evicted to go to who knows where. People have to beg the question, where did all that money go that was donated to Red Cross, United Way and the many small foundations and individual donations. It would seem there was enough monies to build at least temporary housing and enough food for all that were left behind. You would have to say, yet another scam. The goodwill of the Americans that were concerned was shanghaied, because the money and help certainly hasn't been distributed, even as this administration in Washington has absolved themselves of any blame.

So this the result of all of our great education on equality. Do you think perhaps we might not be getting the truth and the facts on how the least of us have been living for the last millennium? How do explain people calling the black people beasts when they were trying to get some food and water or mothers who were trying to get milk for their babies? How do you explain troops coming into New Orleans to subjugate the victims instead of bringing help? How do you explain a whole town denying entry to people fleeing from disaster across a bridge because of their color? Denying them by gunpoint. What in the hell must Martin Luther King be thinking of all the work and sacrifices of life and the countless beaten bodies, that was done during those civil rights years? Maybe Malcolm is saying, "I told you so." The ugly reaction to the unspeakable tragedy of Katrina speaks volumes about why there should be Black History month, since black history has always been relegated to the realm of invisibility.

Along with the many mistakes or misgivings this country has made throughout our history we must reconcile, yet again, the proverb by George Santayana that said, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Racism is alive and well, raising its ugly head whenever there seems to be a choice that this country chooses between serving only the advantaged or all of its citizens.

Quoting from the book, Lies My Teacher Told Me by James Lowen, "Events and processes in American history, from the time of slavery to the present, are what explains racism. Not one textbook connects history and racism, however." Paraphrasing the same author who also wrote the damning book on racism, Sundown Towns, "the climate of race relations has improved, owning especially to the civil rights movement. But massive disparities remain, inequalities that can only be summarized. In l990 African American medium family income averaged only 57% of white family income. Money can buy many things in our society, life itself, in the form of better nutrition and health care and freedom from danger and stress. On average, African Americans have worse housing, lower scores on IQ tests and higher percentages of young men in jail." Lowen says, "The sneaking suspicion that African Americans might be inferior goes unchallenged in the hearts of many blacks and whites. It is all too easy to blame the victim and conclude that people of color are themselves responsible for being on the bottom. Without causal historical analysis, these racial disparities are impossible to explain." How mush more has the problem been exasperated exponentially under the reign of George W. Bush? To understand why Freeman gets it wrong on thinking that we are covering history well enough to not warrant Black History month, James Lowen says, "High school students have a gloomy view of the state of race relations in America today, according to a recent nationwide poll . Students of all racial backgrounds brood about the subject. Another poll reveals that for the first time in this century, young white adults have less tolerant attitudes toward black Americans than those over thirty. One reason is that the younger generation is pathetically ignorant of recent American history. Too young to have experienced or watched the civil rights movement as it happened, these young people have no understanding of the past and present workings of racism in American society. (this book was published in 1996 so the demopgraphical age is a generation older) Educators justify teaching history because it gives us perspective on the present. If there is one issue in the present to which authors should relate history they tell, the issue is racism. But as long as history makes white racism invisible in the nineteenth century, neither they nor the students who use them will be able to analyze racism intelligently in the present."

It is too bad that our bankrupt school system, particularly in the inner cities, have abdicated the disemination of much historical information to hip hop, instead of augmenting and stimulating a further historical examination of one of the most pressing problems in America. It isn't just going away, and we all lose.