Why Do We Need a Black History Month?

Today MSN had a poll that declared that, of those answering the question as stated above, America is largely ambivalent as regards Black History Month. That made me angry.

For more years than our nation has existed as such, an entire race of individuals was enslaved and abused in every way possible according to the powers of human invention. They were torn from their families, torn from their native lands, torn from every possible semblance of a the only life they knew, to be forced to do the work their "masters" did not want to be bothered with having to accommodate in any other, more inconvenient, way.

Deprived of their personhood, their ability to live and move in freedom, they were used and abused sexually as well as physically, bred like cattle, and deprived of their children when the whim pleased the "owners" to either do in or sell the offspring, probably as future breeding stock. Treated with less regard than other farm animals, these people were the brunt of the absolute worst behaviors and deprevations of the human soul, yet they survived, not because they were valued by the stronger people they were imprisoned by, but because they recovered enough from the shock of what was being done to them to rediscover themselves and something of their lives prior to having been dehumanized by the persons who needed them to succeed financially and to feel that they were, indeed, somehow "superior" to those they mistreated and looked down upon and so shamefully abused.

Although things very gradually, and by very little margin, improved after these people were "set free" by the laws of our land, there were still those who saw fit to murder them to "keep them in their place" and who took it upon themselves to openly and viciously disobey the laws of this nation, who considered themselves a "higher law," as they continued to mistreat the descendants of the original slaves forceably brought to these shores, shores that the Pilgrims and others had found such a haven of hope not long before. There was no hope here for the "black" men from those strange and foreign soils who, because they were unlike the European "us," were seen as less than human simply because their skins were darker and their lives were lived on a materially simpler plain than those who saw dollar signs from Heaven, as it were, when they looked into the future of trading human flesh in the form of slaves as an economic boone. In this the European traders followed in the footsteps of all of the more "primitive" cultures that had given their own cultures naissance.

During the Civil Rights era of United States history, all of the worst, as well as some of the best, in each of those of us who have any memory of that time came out; was brought to a sad and belated fruition. The nation screamed to a halt due to the action of one, simple woman, Rosa Parks, taking a seat on a bus because she was so tired she no longer cared if the white men killed her for doing so. A woman sits down on a bus, refuses to get up, and an entire nation falls apart; who knew things were so fragile? It was also during this time I was growing up - white and privileged - and can recall the concern of my parents about whether it was safe or not to take us into our nation's capitol to see the Lincoln Memorial or the Washington Monument because of the rioting and demonstrations that had been taking place. I recall their concern but never heard a word from them against what was happening; not one word against the African American population who were, finally, asserting themselves in the absence of the true freedom which they had never been fully allowed to participate in, not only by those actually involved in the protesting but by the justice deprived generations of their families.

It may never have been explicitly stated to me while I was a child but the message of my parents was clear, these were people who had been wrongfully enslaved, horribly abused, shockingly deprived, who were now finding their voices and their strength and were finally fighting back against the ignorance, the political and economic expedients, that had continued to enslave them through unfair and grossly unjust laws. Through the shame of illegal arrest and enslavement in chain gangs, through segregation in all possible public venues, through tacitly and implicitly approved murderous behavior by the "white" people who deliberately involved themselves and their children in vicious, hate-filled groups, and despite those who willingly lynched men, women and children simply because the color of their skins set them apart from the pale and cancerous, these people survived. They survived those whose ignorance and political maleability kept them seeking affirmation of an imagined superiority through such actions and vile deeds. These strangers to our shores who were no longer truly strangers, these displaced, brave, courageous and persevering people, these sorely mistreated human beings whose intelligence and hearts could no longer absorb the shame and pain of the collective whole of white society, who could no longer tolerate the unjust and illegal behaviors and attitudes of the citizens of these United Sates, who could no longer keep themselves from crying out for freedom and equality; these were people whose cause and war were truly just.

Even today the repurcussions of that time, that shamefully glaring part of our national history, can be felt. The last lynching of a black man, who was only nineteen years old when he was so brutally murdered, took place within the lifetimes of a large portion of this nation's current population. The death of a defenseless man who was tied to the bumper of a truck and then dragged for several miles by the white men who overpowered and then murdered him took place only a few short years ago. The dearth of men and women of color in state and national politics, business, the entertainment industries, the upper eschelon professions, is slowly changing but the tide is still, somehow, against them.

Sadly, it is even sometimes due to the "bad apples" every cultural, religious, social, and professional group must contend with in their own ranks, that has caused some of these road blocks; these hamperings of financial and educational success. In a group previously, yet sometimes still, shackled such individuals can cause even more damage than others because the lesser number of individuals seems to increase the magnification the entire group is seen under by the whole of society. Black people calling one another "nigger," crime lords and drug runners portrayed as predominantly black even within the film and artistic endeavors of other African Americans, do not elevate the whole of the group or the whole of society. Divisions, religious and otherwise, also do not enhance the perception of the group as a whole. Every time an African American person is portrayed as a criminal, a prostitute, a child killer, a molester, a rapist, a thief, a gang member, a huckster, or a scam artist, it lessens the whole and demeans those who do not deserve to be demeaned.

So, you tell me now, do we need a Black History Month? I think every leap year being set aside for the study and pursuit of all things African American might still be too little under the circumstances.