# Pitting Black History Month **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [February 18, 2004, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-black-history-month/229806 "2004-02-18T16:25:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![gluteus\_maximus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/f17d59/32.png) [@gluteus\_maximus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gluteus_maximus)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2004, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-black-history-month/229806/21 "2004-02-18T18:12:48Z")
> [@Sinful](#): > > **WARNING: the following is not researched, it will not contain citations, and will be filled with the opinions of the author** Oh, big, fucking deal! Truth in advertising! > [@Sinful](#): > > Already there are many people who believe, honestly believe, that you can either act “Black” (yo dawg), or act “White” (hey guys!). Gee… how many guesses do we get to name which way _you_ act? Fee, Fie, Fo, Fum! I smell the blood of… Oh, wait, wrong story… So, then, the third Billy Goat Gruff said… ---
**Author:** ![Stuffy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f17d59/32.png) [@Stuffy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stuffy)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2004, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-black-history-month/229806/22 "2004-02-18T18:13:22Z")
> [@John Mace](#): > > Am I the only one here who appreciates what the Pit is for? Sheesh, if the OP wanted an intellectual debate, he would’ve gond to GD. What’s wrong with letting off steam in an emotional way about something that is easy to take pot shots at, like BHM? What intellectual debate? I see people rightly pointing what an ass the OP is being. Ok on preview I see that **jarbabyj** has decided to add a few facts. There always one isn’t there. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2004, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-black-history-month/229806/23 "2004-02-18T18:14:09Z")
> [@jarbabyj](#): > > **John Mace** , sure,Sinful can come in here and bitch about the horrors of learning about black history…but if dissenting opinions were unwanted, she came to the wrong place. Caught in my own web of logic. Dang you, jarbaby! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![heater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/858c86/32.png) [@heater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/heater)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2004, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-black-history-month/229806/24 "2004-02-18T18:15:31Z")
This shizzle is all fuzzizzle. ---
**Author:** ![London\_Calling](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@London\_Calling](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/London_Calling)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2004, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-black-history-month/229806/25 "2004-02-18T18:16:04Z")
> [@jarbabyj](#): > > There are still people in this country who believe black people are nothing but worthless gang members. And now we’re saying “fuck you in your big black ass” for people trying to prove that wrong? Give me a break. Okay, so you’re saying it’s playing catch-up; educating white folks about black folks. Sounds reasonable, assuming white people are listening, or not already such a product of their white education that prejudice is ingrained so they don’t care. Any fewer black folks in poverty or prison, though - what’s it doing for the black folks ? ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2004, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-black-history-month/229806/26 "2004-02-18T18:24:56Z")
> [@](#): > > Screw it right in its big black ass. Harriet Tubman says: You can kiss my runaway-slave-saving, shotgun-carrying, hankerchief-wearing black ass! Nate Turner says: You can kiss my slave-rebellion-starting, hallucinating cowboy black ass! Booker T Washington says: You can kiss my vocational skills-emphasizing, Tuskeegee Institute-founding black ass! Madama CJ Walker says: You can kiss my self-made-millioniare, hair-products-creating, Harlem socialite black ass! Malcolm X says: You can kiss my by-any-means-necessary, bean-pie-eating, praise-be-to-Allah black ass! **monstro** says: Once you screw black history in its “big black ass”, don’t expect to appreciate white history ever again. You know the saying. Once you go black, you never go back! Well it’s true. ---
**Author:** ![London\_Calling](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@London\_Calling](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/London_Calling)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2004, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-black-history-month/229806/27 "2004-02-18T18:45:08Z")
Hey **jarbaby** – if you’re still there and for anyone else should they care: I tell you what it is (for me); I’m tired of this bullshit liberal agenda, and I’m tired of it now because it’s what the received wisdom was here in the 1980s. We did it, I grew up supporting this shit. It’s bollocks. Maybe it’s even destructive. All events such as this Month do, imho, is appease the liberal conscious without actually contributing anything meaningful; by all means preach to the converted but don’t think for one minute its addressing any root issues, or the ignorance that feeds prejudice. Who out there – which ignorant whitey – is going to suddenly embrace integration, equality and the whole agenda because a teeevee show he’s not going to watch (because of his ingrained thinking) is telling the already converted some black dude twigged the filament. It doesn’t even begin gto scratch the surface. Again (imho); you’re preaching to the converted, making ‘em feel better, helping them delude themselves into thinking things are on the up. Meanwhile out there on the streets and in the prisons, things get worse and worse. That was my experience of all this bollocks in the early 80s. It’s a learning curve, and this part is all about making the mistakes you’re later going to be learning from. Feed the world, baby. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2004, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-black-history-month/229806/28 "2004-02-18T18:49:55Z")
> [@JuanitaTech](#): > > Well, yojimbo, it’s like this. Colgate airs its commercials with black people in it (during primetime on NBC, no less!). The black people are brushing their teeth just like their white counterparts except the black people say things like “this toothpaste is phat” and “yo! did you try that new colgate toothpaste?” Showtime airs a black movie (a black movie is just like a white movie except the characters say things like “nigga, please!”), Comedy Central has a Black Stars night with performances by black comics (black comics are like white comics except they say things like “black people don’t ski” and “did you hear about those crazy white people - they tried to pet a bear!”) and BET, well, it just does the same old thing. ROFLMAO! I think Lifetime celebrates black history month by colorizing a Meredith Baxter “Disease of the Week” movie and dubbing the words “Sickle Cell Anemia” over “Chronic Fatigue Syndrome” or “Lyme Disease” (whichever malady Meredith’s suffering from that week). ---
**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2004, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-black-history-month/229806/29 "2004-02-18T18:50:26Z")
> [@jarbabyj](#): > > How about a black man originally inventing the filament that goes inside a lightbulb. This isn’t entirely accurate. Edison originally invented the carbon filament electric lightbulb, but it was [Lewis Howard Latimer](http://www.ideafinder.com/history/inventors/latimer.htm), the only African-American member of the Edison research team, who subsequently developed and patented the process for manufacturing them. ---
**Author:** ![Stuffy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f17d59/32.png) [@Stuffy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stuffy)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2004, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-black-history-month/229806/30 "2004-02-18T18:57:38Z")
Fair enough **LC** but that’s quite a different debate, in fact one I might like to particapate in if you care to start one up in GD. If you want my opinion on the matter, it’s mainly commercialization thats fueling the TV and print ads (McDonald’s goes all out)rather than a liberal . Simply another way of reaching a demographic. Whether or not they changing minds is an interstesting question. ---
**Author:** ![SanibelMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e4f/32.png) [@SanibelMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SanibelMan)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2004, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-black-history-month/229806/31 "2004-02-18T18:57:43Z")
My campus paper carried an op/ed in this week’s edition about Black History Month from a black student, and since we all know all black people speak for the entire group, I thought I’d share his opinion. (Please mind the possibility of sarcasm in that last sentence.) [He says this has been the “worst Black History Month that I can recall.”](http://www.webujournal.com/news/2004/02/18/Opinioneditorial/Do.Not.Forget.Black.History-610384.shtml) ---
**Author:** ![Kalhoun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3bc359/32.png) [@Kalhoun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kalhoun)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2004, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-black-history-month/229806/32 "2004-02-18T18:59:08Z")
> [@London\_Calling](#): > > But hang on, if a country needs something called a ‘Black History Month’ isn’t that implicitly saying there are some serious fundamental problems here and that the tokenism this Month represents is actually distracting from addressing those real basic problems ? > > It’s like ‘Okay, we’ll do this Month thing, we’ll all hold hands and then the huge percentage of young blacks in prison doesn’t matter so much’. > > Or maybe I’m just your hic Old Europe dude trying to hang with the righteous. Do black people really feel that this is a token gesture? I certainly don’t. I’ve learned a lot about contributions by blacks since Black History Month started. I certainly didn’t learn it in my anything-but-diverse white suburban education. I agree that it is not enough, but it’s better than it used to be. ---
**Author:** ![5que](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/5/3bc359/32.png) [@5que](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/5que)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2004, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-black-history-month/229806/33 "2004-02-18T18:59:10Z")
> [@London\_Calling](#): > > Okay, so you’re saying it’s playing catch-up; educating white folks about black folks. Well, _I_ learned from the Sears commercial that the black man invented the law mower and thus was the cause of all those “mow the lawn” fights with my father while growing up. Damn “those” people! ---
**Author:** ![Stuffy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f17d59/32.png) [@Stuffy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stuffy)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2004, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-black-history-month/229806/34 "2004-02-18T19:00:35Z")
Note to self: Preview, preview, preview!!! “Agenda” should have appeared after the word liberal in my last post. ---
**Author:** ![SkipMagic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skipmagic/32/20706_2.png) [@SkipMagic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SkipMagic)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2004, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-black-history-month/229806/35 "2004-02-18T19:02:33Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > You know the saying. Once you go black, you never go back! I thought it was: “Free your mind and your ass will follow.” Or, “Black don’t crack!” Or, “The only thing I have to do is be black and die!” At least, these are the things **auntie em** is always telling me. She already knows that I’ve gone black and I can’t go back. Or she won’t let me go back–I’m never quite sure about that one. Wait, is someone humming “Black Butteryfly?” ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2004, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-black-history-month/229806/36 "2004-02-18T19:03:44Z")
I actually agree with you, **London\_Calling**. It’s interesting to know that a black person invented the folding chair, but does that kind of knowledge really impact me as a human being? Make me a better person? Solve all the racial disharmony and tension? No. It’s interesting and makes me feel proud sometimes, but they are just mere facts. It wasn’t until I took a black history course when I realized how trivial mainstream black history really is. I wish black history didn’t have to be relegated to its own month. I wish it could be seamlessly incorporated into the regular curriculum. I wish the heros and heroines of black history could be praised alongside their white counterparts without the “black” descriptor in front of their names (as in, black scientist, black politician, black leader). Maybe one day it will be like that. The best thing about black history month, though, is that the chances of flipping on the TV and finding a movie with a predominately black cast increases a bunch. And I like all those civil rights documentaries on PBS. ---
**Author:** ![SkipMagic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skipmagic/32/20706_2.png) [@SkipMagic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SkipMagic)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2004, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-black-history-month/229806/37 "2004-02-18T19:05:21Z")
Damnable extra “y”! I like my winged insects with margarine, only. ---
**Author:** ![tiny\_ham](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a183cd/32.png) [@tiny\_ham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tiny_ham)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2004, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-black-history-month/229806/38 "2004-02-18T19:07:12Z")
> [@Q.E.D.](#): > > This isn’t entirely accurate. Edison originally invented the carbon filament electric lightbulb, but it was [Lewis Howard Latimer](http://www.ideafinder.com/history/inventors/latimer.htm), the only African-American member of the Edison research team, who subsequently developed and patented the process for manufacturing them. Thank you captain nit pick. My point is, for a great deal of us we were not a party to learning about African American/Hispanic/Asian culture growing up, and I’m not going to sit around and bitch because a segment of the news or a commercial or a special on the history channel is produced to try and enlighten me. More important was sinful’s proclamation to NOT RESPECT ANYONE who observes Black History Month. Extreme? I think so. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![UselessGit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/74df32/32.png) [@UselessGit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UselessGit)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2004, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-black-history-month/229806/39 "2004-02-18T19:08:17Z")
I agree wholeheartedly with the OP… Black History Month? What the fuck? Why isn’t this just a part of History? Black History Month can only sustain seperation between the races and I’ve always found this to a spectacularly stupid way to “make up for” what your history books may have been lacking in the past (And may be lacking now, what the fuck do I know about American history anyway?). So continue your eye-rolling feast if you will but I, for one, think all these “Other Race Celebrations” are completely asanine. In hindsight I see that I am, as so often before, a bit lacking in the sense-making department so … what London\_Calling said. ---
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2004, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-black-history-month/229806/40 "2004-02-18T19:12:44Z")
Yay! I love it when pit threads reach the 40s and the OP doesn’t bother to respond! Maybe we could make it a rule where a thread gets a maximum of 10 posts, and then it locks up until the OP comes back by. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-black-history-month/229806.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-black-history-month/229806.md?page=3)