Cobb

Back in my "young father/activist" days (coinciding with the emergence of the Afrocentricity movement), I took the same point Freeman made to the next level. I also felt that black history should not be confined to February, so I created a newsletter of black history, and working with the principal of the school where my daughter attended first grade, issued a copy to every student every month.

If we want to eliminate the "need for Black history month," we can do so by integrating it into every month. Until and unless we do that, I would not be in favor of eliminating February as BHM.

I saw the interview and think what he said is totally being taken out of context. I've often said the same thing ... that black history is American history and the only reason we need black history month is because it was so brazenly left out. It is ridiculous that there is a need for it because of attempts to erase us from history completely.

This debate always reminds me of an American History class I took in college (at a Jesuit school no less) and the white instructor (who apparently had a new found interest in black people because his niece married a black pro-football player) decided that in every chapter we discussed, he would interject the black contribution to that particular decade or event. I fully appreciated it because normally blacks are only brought up when discussing slavery and the 60s.

The next year, I enrolled in another one of his classes. It was actually a black history class. He apparently was spurred on to teach it because of he comments he got in the evaluations for the "enlightened" version of American History he'd taught the year before ... Apparently many white students didn't appreciate it and remarks like "I didn't take this class to hear about a bunch of niggers" were in abundance.

So, while I do agree with the sentiment that black History is American history and it is ridiculous that it has been relegated to a month you see what happens when people try to integrate it into the American experience as more than a footnote.

My daughter's high school American History textbook included a section about black people in each chapter. Unfortunately, it was about how black people were being screwed at every turn, and unfortunately, for a lot of America's history, that was pretty much true. It's important to talk about all the bad stuff, but I wonder what it would be like to be a black kid trying to figure out what it's all about, and to have to hear over and over and over how hostile the world has been to black Americans. (It makes me think of the black comedian - was it Chris Rock? saying that if he had a son he would beat the crap out of him so he would know what to expect from white folks. And thank you, Mr. Rock (if that's who it was) for doing your part for harmonious race relations.)

Frankly, for years I've felt kind of embarrassed that we need to have BH month any at all. It's even worse now that, basically, many of these "page in black history" spots are short interruptions of (black) ass-all-out videos. Sure, we're not monolithic and we're entitled to a range of tastes, moods and interests, but it's still a conflicted message, all round.

Would that (say) black churches took it upon themselves, like the mosques and synagogues do, to teach/inculcate these lessons to our young deliberately...and quietly. Nowadays I think the lessons have to be soaked up more internally than externally. Surely white folk have learned to tune this stuff out by now anyway.

Our (?) history has been interrupted and suppressed mercilessly and so BHM served a purpose once. Like AA, that needs to be phased out at some point if we're to escape the double-edged bonds of eternal indebtedness.

Multicultural History Month anyone?