 "Photo: Kellie Jasso")
Ladies and gentlemen, educated citizens, fellow Aggies: am I the only person out there who has a problem with the idea of Black History Month?
I should clarify before I move on that my real beef is with the devotion of certain weeks and days and months to the causes and concerns of niche groups within this country. It is a continuation of the very segregation, racism, sexism and mindless regard of what makes people different that we are supposed to have gotten over as a nation.
I have been offended by this phenomenon since second grade, when I witnessed 28 days of full-blown celebration of segregation. The first time I really "celebrated" Black History Month was in 1996, after I had just moved to a predominantly black elementary school in Beaumont, Texas.
I hadn't been taught anything about Martin Luther King Jr., although I had heard his speeches. I suppose I learned more in that month about the Civil War, Emancipation Proclamation, Abraham Lincoln and MLK than I had learned in my entire life up. That was all good and well.
It was also the first time I began to pay attention to the fact that there was a real difference between my black friends and me, and that according to the lectures, projects and movies we watched, that difference should be one of the most important things in the world to me. I wasn't black. So what was I? Identity, please.
When elementary schools, universities and employers set aside February as Black History Month, they are practicing the very racism we should shun. If people are not supposed to make decisions based on the color of peoples' skin, should millions of children be taught for four weeks every year to think of black people as black people instead of accomplished scientists, businessmen, astronauts and politicians? I don't think so.
In an interview with CBS' "60 Minutes," Morgan Freeman put it beautifully: "Black history is American history." Black people have been part of America from the very beginning. I ask you the same question Freeman asked Mike Wallace: "You going to relegate my whole history to a month?"
Perhaps Black History Month is repayment for something. Many black Americans were slaves, but is the idea of Black History Month to repair the damages done by that horrible institution? If so, it hardly begins to do its job. Do we set aside February to make up for the evils of segregation? More segregation hardly seems to be the way to go about fixing that dark memory.
Furthermore, segregating the myriad accomplishments of black Americans into the shortest month of the year implies that other groups of people should be treated in such a way. Is there really room in the 12 months of the year to celebrate every race, religious, sexual, geopolitical niche, cause or group in the U.S.? Even if there were room, why celebrate disunity?
Wallace asked a pointed question: "How are we going to get rid of racism?" I think Freeman's response is classic: "Stop talking about it." Does anyone really expect rubbing salt in one group of peoples' wounds to benefit them, or any other group of people?
Will bringing up the differences in our society erase those differences? No. It will only perpetuate them. The battles of the Civil Rights era have been fought and won. The rectification of America's legacy of segregation and abuse of black individuals is not going to be carried out by stapling pictures to a wall and telling our younger brothers and sisters that black people are more or less important depending on what time of the year it is.
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