I remember my days of elementary school, specifically when the month of February came around. During those days, on a five-year annual basis, we’d take about a week or two to learn about the same black activists our curriculum had covered the previous year- Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, George Washington Carver, Thurgood Marshall, and Booker T. Washington. We’d listen to the same excerpt from the “I Have a Dream” speech every year, followed by a traditional viewing of My Man Martin. We’d learn that the idea of racism was especially bad in the South, as if white people across the Mason-Dixon line were somehow fundamentally different. We’d learn about the idea of boycotting every year, as well as the importance of the education that would be fed to us for at least twelve years out of our lives, every year, using the example of these five figures as templates, in hopes that we would grow up and “make something” of ourselves. Every year, our teachers would end our “education” in black history with eyes glossed over, content over the substantial “progress” that had been made, claiming that we have these figures, specifically, to thank for our modern lifestyles.
It was all with good intentions, I suppose. However, as middle school came about, and even the limited curriculum of the last five years started to fade, as weeks passed in the increasingly normal month of February, as I asked English teachers if we’d learn anything about Zora Neale Hurston during February, science teachers if we’d learn anything about Bessie Coleman, history teachers if we’d learn anything about the Moors, math teachers if we’d learn anything about Benjamin Banneker, and was always given the same answer of, “If we have time,” (we never did) I began to see that Black History Month wasn’t one of sincerity, or even necessarily education, but instead one of convenience at the very least, and control at its most extreme.
This conclusion that I came to at the otherwise naïve age of thirteen, has been maintained throughout most of my life, even in my latter years of college. How else can one justify a country’s action of not only giving a person his own federal holiday after spying on him, infiltrating and sabotaging his movements, and quite possibly facilitating his murder? How else can one justify ignoring or misinterpreting parts of his history in order to use him as an arguing point against people who still fight against oppression? I’ve lost count the number of times I’ve heard a white person claim that Martin Luther King would be ashamed of “those people,” referencing modern-day rioters and protesters, while ignoring the fact that there would be no need for such demonstrations if the teachings of Dr. King were actually heeded by this country. For that matter, I can’t recall the number of times Republicans have claimed to be the party of Dr. King, while ignoring the fact that less than half a century prior, their party had branded him a communist and a terrorist, who advocated for the COINTELPRO, and who did not mourn his death. How else could these people advocate for the second amendment, while simultaneously condemning people like the original Black Panther Party and the Huey P. Newton Gun Club?
How else, besides the earlier premise made, can one justify the blind faith in an education system that was never designed for us in the first place, that won’t even teach us about our own history, aside from a few token figures?
And with Donald Trump’s seemingly harmless alteration of the month of February, dubbing it “African-American History Month,” as opposed to “Black History Month,” there have been even more limits established. Not all black people are African-American (in fact, most aren’t) and this new name, perhaps characteristic of America’s arrogance and narcissism, seems to suggest that black history couldn’t have begun until America’s history (when we were brought over as slaves), despite black people being the oldest group of people in history, and Africa being the cradle of human civilization.
This new America-Centric take on black history threatens to erase the historical relevance of Marcus Garvey, Alexandre Dumas, and Toussaint L’Ouverture. It threatens to ensure that while my elementary-age cousins, both black and white, will always learn about the Medicis, Cesare Borgia (the alleged model for white Jesus), and Julius Caesar, they will never understand the significance of Sobekneferu of Egypt, Queen Nzingah of West Africa, or even Mansa Musa. Though, I guess I never learned about the latter three in school either.
The irony in this is that even in the new era of “African American” History Month, I doubt that it will be taught that the first person to die for this country was Crispus Attucks, a free black man.
I’ve come to the conclusion that February is the month attributed to our history as a means of appeasement, not education, and that any surface level “education” we receive is conveniently watered down, careful to glorify the ideas of docility and “turning the other cheek,” so to inspire a marginalized revolution, of education and obedience, so to satisfy the egos of those who refuse to change their perspectives, and of half-truths and retrospect, so to protect the comfort of those who’d have to face their own demons in the mirror otherwise. This has never been for us, or really even about us. So in the spirit of Black History Month, I’d discourage all of my peers from depending on America for anything when it comes to your wellbeing, especially when it comes to your education and sense of pride in your people. It starts with you.
P.S.
Just because I heard it recently, I’ll bring it up.
For anyone thinking, “If you don’t like the system here, you should just leave,” I would argue that I deserve to be here just as much as you do. Your family fought and died for this country? So did mine. Your family came over as immigrants, and made it on their own by working hard? So did mine, at least partially. They were brought over from another country as well, but they didn’t get to enjoy the same resources as your family, on account of them working hard, helping your family make it “on their own.”
If you think any of us should leave simply because we criticize this country, drop us off on your way back to Europe, since you were likely our ride over here, and since this isn’t your ancestral land either.
Peace.
