February is Black History Month and instead of celebrating this month by reflecting on all the amazing things African Americans have done for our world, people are asking why there is no White history month. Here are three reasons why Black History Month is needed (Stacy Dash you should read this) and why a White history month is not.
1. Every day seems to be white history month except that we don’t talk about all the truly horrible things that whites did historically. If there was a white history month, the truth of their history should first come to light. Now don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that whites have not done amazing things but rather that the negative things they did do in history have either been sugarcoated or whitewashed. Even today we see how America censors the truth about white history. In example, Gary Paulsen spent years researching the life of Thomas Jefferson’s slave Sally Hemings. He searched through all forms of archives and with the information he found he wrote an excerpt that was meant to appear at the beginning of his book Nightjhon. Paulsen dedicated Nightjohn to the memory of Hemings. In his excerpt, Paulsen explained that Jefferson had many children with Hemings. That he cared for her and the wellbeing of his children but he never set them free. After he died, Hemings and her children were sold into slavery. Yet this excerpt was banned by Random House publishing because they were afraid of the backlash they would get if they published a book with such controversial details about a former president. Luckily, the excerpt was not banned in Europe. It seems like America, which in some cases still seems to be primarily for whites only, likes reading about the horrors of other races and cultures but when it comes to their own they shove things under the rug. If you goggle Hemings you can actually watch a YouTube video, which contradicts Paulsen’s claims and states that after Jefferson’s death Hemings was set free.
2. White history is taught in school everyday. Black history always begins with the story of slavery, which is usually kept to minimal details and is a part of our history that white America just wants us to forgive and forget. Yet, the fact of the matter is that people of color can still become slaves in America; we just call plantations different things now, like prisons for instance. Black history in school then ends with Martin Luther King Jr. because he helped us gain rights and end segregation. So, we end on a happy note right? Wrong. Yes, Dr. King was amazing and it is thanks to him and many others like him that we all are able to gain an education. Yet if we look at our education system, take our inner city schools for example, aren’t we still segregated? Just think about who goes to the affluent schools and who attends our inner city schools which are usually underfunded or at risk of being shut down. Thus Black history needs a whole month to educate the world on what use to be and how it continues to affect people of color.
3. I thought that after the Civil Rights Movement it had been made clear that all lives mattered. Yet I was apparently wrong. In today’s society, the accomplishments of the black community seem to be moving backwards. After all Black Americans went through to gain equal rights in this country, we see how they lose those rights in the hands of a system that murders our Black men and women before they ask questions. So now America's actions do not seem to show that all lives matter and so we have have to remind America that Black Lives Matter because they fail to see blacks as humans. Sadly, it just sounds like the past is repeating itself. Therefore we need Black History Month because we need our generation to learn how to stand together like our ancestors once did in order to create the change we want to see.
Personally, I can write a novel about why Black History Month should exist but I believe that these three major points are enough reasons to keep Black History Month circulating. You see, the need for Black History Month extends farther than a celebration of culture to an opportunity for learning. Black History Month recognizes our history, a history that so often is missing from our children’s textbooks. Without Black History Month our nation would be at a greater loss than it is today because the true origin stories of America would never be told.
