I used to feel the same way until I thought to myself “Why is there a black history month?” Because for a long time the contributions of black Americans was ignored in mainstream history books. Other then Martin Luther King Jr., Frederick Douglass, and Harriet Tubman we didn’t learn all that much about famous black people.
Black history is simply a subset of history in general just as Chinese history, European history, or Civil War history is. There is nothing inherently racist about it. They reason you don’t see an Anglo-History month is because history has pretty much been told from the anglo point of view.
What!? No. Are you suggesting that Indians are incompetent? Let’s not go the route of restructuring one another’s remarks into absurdities. All I’m suggesting is that remediation is accomplished by healing wounds, not by condescending lip service and the declaration of special months. “If you stick a knife in me nine inches and take it out six inches, that’s not progress. If you take it out all the way, that’s not progress. The progress comes when the wound starts to heal.” — Al-Hajj Malik El-Shabaaz
Wow, Lib’s got some Native American blood. I never knew this since you never bring it up. :rolleyes: Get off it Lib, nobody suggested Indians were incompetent so get off whatever high horse you happen to be on. Uh oh, some Native Americans were excellent cavalry, I hope you don’t take my comment to be an attack on all Indians.
I wasn’t suggesting that he was, MGibson. In fact, if you read what you quoted, you’ll se that I said such a suggestion would be absurd. I was equating that absurdity to his absurdity that I was suggesting that blacks just shut up. If you aren’t going to read, don’t respond.
I have not restructured your remarks in any way and I have certainly not suggested anything about indian competence. Since you had not put forth a thesis in this thread, I asked what such a thesis might be.
The “declaration of a special month” is simply one tool to highlight the information. The purpose is to consolidate efforts to present historical information to a broader audience. Such attempts are sometimes successful and are sometimes ludicrously unsuccessful.
Lawsuits, for example, are one method to attempt redress and remediation. However, lawsuits do not fight ignorance and prejudice as well as information and narrative do.
Given that any group is going to have little success in changing the pap that passes for history in the primary and secondary schools (even in regards to dominant white culture) and that there are a lot of people who continue to believe that non-whites have made no contributions to either World or U.S. History, I submit that the setting aside of a period for a group to pool their talents, energy, and money to present their case is not inherently bad.
Even given the poor quality of some of such efforts, I do not find the overall effort to be wrong.
If that is your goal, then why not simply always teach a fair and accurate history that takes in all viewpoints? If you talk about the enslavement of Africans, talk about the perspective of the slave and slave-owner. If you talk about the genocide of Indian nations, talk about the perspective from both points of view. Let students read Amerigo Vespucci’s letter to Pier Soderini, in which he brags about his conquests and the 222 Indian slaves he sold in Spain. Why not do this unilaterally simply because it is right to do so, rather than require that people band together and demand that a month here and a month there be allocated to these and those.
That would be nice, but they’ll fill the school drinking fountains with Coca-Cola before it happens. Heck, that’s probably an over-optimistic prediction on my part, we may just be a few years away from Coke fountains.
Libertarian, have you forgotten that much of the information that is provided during Black History Month is done by African-Americans? Are they condescending? Is what they say just lip service? Are all Black History Month contributions made by non-Blacks condescending?
I don’t like condescension either. But why do you refer to Black History Month as “condescending lip service”? Why make that assumption?
If African-Americans initiated the idea, then who am I to determine that Black History Month is not contributing to the healing?
Well, I am active in attempting to improve the teaching of history in the public schools, but it is a long, difficult, uphill battle with little support from the American public who believe, with Henry Ford, that “History is bunk.” Since no one is compelled to celebrate Black History Month, I am not going to take shots at those people who are working to get some information out to hoi polloi. There is nothing “official” about the “special months” beyond a Congressional proclamation that places them beside the “National Clean Colons are Healthy” week and “Take a child to Work” day. Black History Month is recognized because blacks have expended the energy and the funds to purchase advertising and fund TV and radio presentations emphasizing their history. They have been sufficiently successful that we now see networks and school systems recognizing it.
I think that those who have successfully challenged and modified actual curricula are in a position to criticize the “special months.” Criticizing them simply because they are not sufficient when nothing else is there seems counterproductive to me.
Because attempting to cram an overview of every different world culture into less than 30 days (no school on weekends!) would be an even sillier and less effective way of teaching children about diversity than the silly and ineffective ways already in place.
It is possible to design a curriculum that attempts to reflect, in a respectful and serious way, the diversity of American heritage, but this takes a lot of time and effort and is almost never seen in mainstream public schools. I attended an alternative high school that did a pretty good job of things, but even there we had our share of students whining about “Why do we need to learn this stuff?” and “I think you just want me to feel bad about being white!”
I’m glad you described your work, and I support it wholeheartedly. Please understand that not all groups have the political clout and wherewithall to make their cases heard. If ever you have the time and opportunity in the course of your struggles on behalf of blacks, kindly give a nudge here and there on behalf of equally oppressed and neglected people who are something other than black.
Lib, in my rather typical small-city school system in the 1950s, the only contributions of Blacks mentioned were those of Booker T. Washington and George Washington Carver, with perhaps a passing mention of Frederick Douglass in high school. We did (being in a formerly Iroquois area) note the influence of the Five Nations and the work of Denanawida and Hayawontha and its influence on (to the New York delegates at least) the Articles of Confederation. And Sequoyah (George Guess) was touched on in passing. Westward expansion mentioned the Plains Indians in passing as opposing continued settlement, and I seem to remember the Comanche as being capable warriors opposing continued expansion.
Anything I know beyond that of either Black or Indian contributions to America, I learned after High School – and I’d welcome continued assaults on my ongoing ignorance about either subject, or anything related.
From the perspective of a thoroughgoing Indian-perspective historian, Mothchunks the entire nine or twelve months of American history is the celebration of the contributions of illegal immigrants! :rolleyes:
And as for your last suggestion, since you don’t like the voluntary efforts of some Americans to promote a neglected aspect of our common history, are you volunteering?
I don’t see why people make a such a huge deal out of its existence. Does it really affect you all that much that people celebrate black history. C’mon now folks.
I tend to agree with Monstro’s post earlier, and Slash immediately above. It’s really no big deal that there’s a “Black History Month” but it does promote a certain sense of seperateness. I can remember back in the late 60s/early70s when the nightly news used to end with 5 minutes of “Black News”. Needless to say, that didn’t last very long.
But the idea of a different month for each nationality is, of course, not realistic. Not unless we redefine the calendar with 600 months. No matter how you cut it, some group is going to be left out. There are just too many-- and maybe that underlying truth is really the whole point of what this country is all about anyway. (Not that some group should be left out, but that there are too many to enumerate.)
I haven’t read every post word for word, but I’ll risk pointing out that, in order to be truly proportional in our thinking, we should celebrate a “Black History Month-and-a-Half.” Since African-Americans comprise roughly 12-13% of the population, a month-and-a-half would seem appropriate, being 12-13% of the calendar year.
Of course, the rest of the time, we’d have to concentrate on other ethnic histories. Perhaps by May or June we’d be able to broach subjects like George Washington and the U.S. Constitution.
They need to draw emphasis to it because so little of it is considered important enough to be taught. Seriously, do you think the man on the street would be expected to know who invented peanut butter if he wasn’t an early African-American scientist? Well, that and the fact his name is easy to remember.
History, at least as it is taught in American schools, is the study of leaders, conquest, and exploration. Our books focus on those singular people who were crucial in the events leading to the formation of our modern nation. I don’t think great African-Americans are being ignored, or their importance down-played. I just believe that circumstances prevented them from accomplishing much. They’ve spent most of the last 500 years as slaves and third-class citizens. What can a person in that situation do that will get them in the history books? Over the centuries there must have been dozens of potential Napoleons, Washingtons, and Lincolns, who never met their potential because of the color of their skin.
Things are changing, and there are many very important African Americans today helping decide the course of history. I’m sure that African Americans will be well-represented in history books 500 years from now.