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It started as a week, now it’s a whole month. A month to draw attention to accomplishments and achievements of African-Americans in the United States. Carter G. Woodson successfully established Negro History Week in 1926 to celebrate the figures, successes, and culture of Black America. It was expanded to a month-long memorial in 1970.
Black History Month now meets with more resistance then ever from non-Blacks in the U.S., with questions about why there’s no white history month, why don’t other ethnic groups get a month, why is there differentiation of the American experience between the races. As many counter, every month is white history month. American history has been misappropriated for centuries as white history, and it has taken the intentional effort of scholars to point out the presence and contributions of African-Americans from the earliest recorded history of this nation. In spite of that effort, some people refuse to hear it. We’re now facing the banning of books that orate the factual and truthful history of America, as Africans and Blacks have experienced it from the Middle Passage to now, in school libraries. Teachers are prohibited from teaching actual historical references that include slavery or the dreaded and misunderstood critical race theory. The absurd justification for this is that the subject matter will be traumatic for young students, and it be biased and sensationalized. Hmmm. I must add that since critical race theory is part of advanced academic pursuits, it’s not even vaguely plausible that it would be taught at the elementary or high school levels.
It is nearly impossible to comprehend how much more sensationalized and biased stories of events like Paul Revere’s famously gritty ride through the streets of Boston, or George Washington’s patriotic army starving at Valley Forge during the first winter of the revolutionary war, or righteous mobs bringing criminally guilty Negroes to justice on any given day. What was not depicted in those stories, however, were the true details – Paul Revere’s ride likely did not take place as the romanticized version we all heard as children. It was more likely a relay of citizens throughout the colonial landscape. Washington’s army was definitely lacking resources, because the British had established a supply chain blockade. To survive, they began eating their horses. Lynchings were sometimes scheduled and publicized as community events; bring the wife, bring the children, bring fried chicken and potato salad and let’s have the pubic execution of a likely innocent person. Further, lynchings were often simple vigilante violence events with no due process of law, and they were not limited to men. Mobs would accost Blacks rumored to have committed some crime, including such transgressions as not addressing a white man as “sir”, whistling at a white woman, or talking back to whites.
In spite of the oppression and the injustice, African Americans not only survived but thrived in this country. To do so, however, was a constant struggle to move forward with a weight tied around your ankles. If progress was to made, it was because you had begun the race 10 steps behind the starting blocks and ran twice as fast as your competitors. In some cases, your race was uphill and you did not have the proper running shoes to wear. In other cases, the final tape at the end of the course was moved as you approached. If you dared to maintain success, an arbitrary mob could visit you and burn down your home, your business, or the entire town. And that is the nature of systemic oppression.
Because of the common experience of this kind of oppression in the Black community, Black History Month became more and more necessary. The oppressor has the luxury of defining the narrative, so Blacks learned American history that excluded them and exalted white supremacy the same way as everyone else. Decades ago, failure to do that could be life threatening; one always needs to know the rules of engagement. Today, promoting historical perspective that more closely aligns with actual historical evidence still meets with consequences that remain life defining. The so-called MAGA Americans seem determined to claim their comfort zone as entitlement, and they are willing to lie, cheat, steal, and kill for that privilege. They are willing to destroy the country they claim to love in order to edit the past and relive the lie.
This is 2024, and in November we’ll elect a President. We’ll either re-elect the incumbent President Biden to a second 4-year term, or we’ll choose someone new. As of today, the choice looks to be the former 45th President, and the games have already begun. The Supreme Court is hearing arguments regarding his appearance on the primary ballot in multiple states. He is doing all he can to crush his competition in case the Court rules in his favor. His cohorts in the House of Representatives are killing their own bills at his urging in order to provide a strategic advantage for his return to the White House. One of those bills involves humanitarian aid for Gaza, and military assistance for the Ukraine. People will die because the United States withheld that money, but nobody seems to care about that. The MAGA ideology says itis more important to return the 45th President to office than to be concerned with casualty counts.
This ideology is the same mindset that said packing bewildered Africans into the cargo holds of ocean going vessels was more important than doing the morally correct thing. It was for the good of the country, i.e. the good of the capitalist regime, the good of the economy, and consequently the good of the wealthy. This arrangement continues to exclude black- and brown-skinned people, as it has for now hundreds of years. Exposing the sheer toxicity of it would be the result of educating all of us to what really happened in the Middle Passage, what really happened in the British colonization effort, what really happened in the Jim Crow Era. And that is why such effort is blocked at all levels, because that is where the fear lives. If everyone knows the whole truth, the house of cards will fall and there will be a symbolic prison break; the overseers will be thrown from their guard towers and power dynamics among people will shift dramatically . Life as we know it would be over, and for many of us that would not be a bad thing.
So, Black History Month is dangerous. Showing people that Blacks in particular are not less intelligent, less innovative, less creative than whites is a revolutionary concept and would upset the status quo. It might eventually topple the economy, thrust the wealthy into the a new world that is based on equity and fairness. They are terrified of that, and the ultra-rich are pulling out all the stops to prevent it from happening. I predict that will only work in the short-term, and I think many of the upper class believe that as well. That’s why they are trying to leave the planet, go to Mars, the Moon or anywhere they can start over. Start colonizing, start a capitalist economy, and establish themselves at the apex of privilege. God help us all.
The Sound Hole 