Another February...and I Still Hate Black History Month

Comment

Comment by Lalita Amos on February 6, 2009 at 2:02pm

Stephen, you and I are in agreement in principle. I think if we did a better job of telling the complete picture of American history, we'd all be better for it.

Comment by Stephen James on February 6, 2009 at 1:08pm

I often thought it might be advantageous to have a civil rights month or something that would be encompass everything--even white males (think non-noble, non-property owning in 1500) and the struggles that have occurred to get to where we are now. Is there such a thing as an oppressed peoples history class?

Comment by Theresa Ortega on February 4, 2009 at 6:52pm

Wow, Lalita, I loved your re-post! I sit on a university diversity council, and one of the things the students taught me was a term called "diversity fatigue".....a term I'd never heard of, but it reminds me of just exactly what you mentioned in your post. The students often feel that diversity efforts are rammed down their throat, hence the "fatigue". Interesting. And what an interesting life you've had! I really appreciate your comments.

Comment by Lalita Amos on February 4, 2009 at 6:32pm

Nice conversation, guys. Really. What worries me is that, after all this, we're still so ignorant of each other's experience. Pat and I were just talking, recently, about the gaps in participation by Blacks in "mainstream" networking groups...and participation by white in traditionally minority-focused networking opportunities.

As a black woman of the American racial and ethnic melange, I think we can interest more whites in black history when they can see themselves as coming from both the heroes and the villains of American history. Similarly, black people (85% of whom are multi-ethnic/multi-racial--seriously!) can do well to find heroes who sacrificed (no matter how imperfectly) for their/our freedom and rights.

When black people were able to rise, significantly, above the horrific limits to full participation, it lifted all boats here. I used to be an Affirmative Action/Diversity officer for a Fortune 150 company. In that capacity, I was called upon to teach diversity and inclusion classes throughout the Midwest and near-South. I was stunned by the numbers of white participants who said, in session, how constrained they felt by the Jim Crow system (and its gentler, though no less virulent Northern cousin) to keep silent in the fact of injustice...to keep from being marginalized. How they listened to people they loved tell them how Blacks or Asians or...were "less-than."

At no point here, have there been serious efforts to help whites heal the wounds of segregation, discrimination and Jim Crow. Why is this important? I worked for several months in Namibia, a Southwest African country at the heart of the Pretoria apartheid regime, Their Truth and Reconciliation program, flawed as it was, sought to help heal the Afrikaners and African blacks of generations of wrongs and complicity.

It has been largely successful and I got to see the early stages of it unfold.

What would change my mind? If school systems with no black students, faculty or staff took on substantive black history programs.

Because it was important...to their knowledge of American history.

Comment by John R.(Dick) Troll on February 4, 2009 at 5:46pm

OK OK the aging white guy will step out onto the thin ice to say: may I offer a different perspective?

I won't even try to dismiss the idea that black history month- as conceived by white folks- is perhaps a well intentioned but thoughtless and indeed insulting concept that marginalizes black folks by separating "their" history from its rightful place as a part of American history. But consider this:
1. All Americans are woefully ignorant of American history. So a decently presented segment on Black history or a thougtul book for a class to read can help to demonstrate that although we aree often two cultures we are also inevitably linked- past present and future.

2. Noboby=black or white- over the age of ?? ever got any real exposure to the contributions that black folks have made to our culture. So for us - whether we are black or white- there can be many " I didn't know that" moments when a short segment is shown during the month. Or a special is on PBS.

3. Like so many other well intentioned but ham fisted efforts that we all make to come to terms with race in our culture- it is perhaps a way station on the journey we are all taking. A journey that perhaps now we can really begin to take together.

Comment by Lalita Amos on February 4, 2009 at 5:05pm

Yeah, Pat, I'm gonna burn.

Comment by Pat Coyle on February 4, 2009 at 5:00pm

Lalita...I don't really have a comment, but suffice to say I'm both laughing and crying as I read your post...thank you for that. I feel better too!

Comment by Lalita Amos on February 4, 2009 at 2:21pm

There! I feel better. Now, to try to find a way to sterilize that post so the IN Touch (Indy Star) will post it. I don't think there is enough Wheaties on the this big, blue marble for them to post it as is.