Ahh its February 1st. I can smell it in the air. All the teachers are redoing their billboards with the usual suspects. Of course the great Reverend Dr. Martin Luther “the” King has to go up first. Let me dust off my Fredrick Douglass picture, definitely only use this once a year! Let me throw up this one of Harriett Tubman too. I know all we are going to teach the kids about her is that she ran the “Underground Railroad”. Since that is likely the extent of the knowledge, they will probably think she created the subway system. And wait who’s this new cat they are putting on the board? Is that Barack Obama?
Ok so I will slow down on the sarcasm but I think you all get my point. On the same month, the same thing is discussed, about generally the same people, and using the same vagueness. I mean is there truly a point to briefly discussing individuals that are a huge part of the formation of this nation that we all know and love, if it will be reduced to small blurbs in the educational process? Why would I expect adults to know anything about these individuals if the true importance of their work is barely a part of a lesson plan in social studies when they are young?
We should be talking about all Americans throughout our history classes at all times! Not singling out African Americans during one short time. We should also broaden the horizons of what we learn as adults. But if we are going to focus on African-Americans during this month, there are plenty more individuals that made huge contributions that need to be recognized. We all love peanut butter so hey lets discuss George Washington Carver’s part in that. Don’t want to run around with your hair looking like Macy Gray, better thank Madame CJ Walker! Have a best friend in school that was of another race, sounds like a good time to learn about Thurgood Marshall.
So its kind of a double-edged sword. Can we abolish Black History Month? No unfortunately we cannot. This is the one time where the contributions of African-Americans are recognized exclusively. However I don’t think it should be that way. I think these contributions should be blended in with teaching throughout the year just as every war general and treaty signer is. I actually wonder when they will change it to African-American History Month! Got to be politically correct you know! At the same time I see the hypocrisy in it, that if someone wanted to establish a White History Month, we would be up in arms stating that it was racist. That’s probably the next blog! If we can’t get the information disseminated throughout the year can we at least do two things? First can we move it to a longer month? I mean would it really hurt to get in two or three more days?? And two, can we abolish BET? I mean if we are going to only have one month to talk about the good, do we really need 365 days to show the bad?!?!?
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