On my third year of college, I've managed to take an African-American studies class every semester. No one told me to do it and it wasn't required, I just felt interested in knowing the history of my people. Every teacher that taught me African-American studies was black and very well-informed of the subject, often so informed that they could just talk about it off the top of their head or relate it to their own experience.
The things I learned in these classes created a foundation for history that I had never known before. It was almost ridiculous to learn something new about the history I'd been learning all my life. Everything I learned stuck with me and explained everything that was happening in current events that I knew was wrong but didn't know why.
African-American studies should be a mandatory class for all educational levels because it provides a historical backing to all the strives and injustices black people continue to go through. Many people don't understand that the heightened racial tension our society faces right now is a consequence of historical systemic racism with the housing market, the school system, and legislature.
Yes, you know about slavery.
You know about the civil rights movement.
You know all the key leaders that transcended race and forever changed the rights of black people in this country.
But what our history books don't teach us is how slavery created a basis of systemic inferiority that has yet to go away in our society. Our history books portray every part of black American history as a static event or era that sticks between the lines of time and does not seep into our political and economic system forever.
The history books I learned from made progress a linear event that led us to the current time, a time completely free of racism.
That is simply not true.
African-American studies are important because it teaches the ignorant or the unwilling to understand black culture and how the racial tension in society today is reflected in untold historical events. An understanding of the history behind events like police brutality or black voting would make it easier to sympathize for those who still suffer.
Ultimately, normalization of black history should make it harder to perpetuate racism. While there will always be racists, reading about the horrors of lynching and the illogical evil black people faced might shape young people into those reverent for the lives lost with an understanding for covert and overt racism.
While African-American studies is American history, I don't believe it can just be worked back into the history books, making edits and tweaks on how the narrative was told. I think it should be its own separate class, that completely devotes time to the black side of history. It should be given the respect and dignity it hasn't been given in the past 300 years, free of white influence and framing.
Imagine what non-black people could learn if black people are learning new things in the class.
It could change the world.
