Black History Month is Stupid

Every year people take the Morgan Freeman quote out of context and use it as a reason why we don't need Black History Month. Usually the group of people quoting him are the same people yelling that Tamir Rice was a thug. You know, racists. But, I can agree with them on one front. The idea of Black History Month is stupid. However I think it's necessary.

"Why isn't there a white history month," This question annoys me more than any other black history month question. There isn't a designated white history month. But there are 11 other months in the year that we only learn about white people in. It's like the "Why don't white people have a BET," question. It's called everything else. It's not like black people chose February anyway. Why would we choose the shortest month in the year?

Black History Month is stupid because February is when every teacher crams in the Civil Rights Movement. Not even the entire movement. They teach about Martin Luther King Jr, Rosa Parks and if they're really pushing Malcolm X. They rarely cover anything else. February is also the month were teachers try to rush through that whole slavery thing. They make sure to look at the black kid in the class like "Is this okay to talk about," I don't know. I'm the student.

Black History Month is stupid because we get the spark notes of black history in 28 days and everyone feels like this are going to be a little better now that we've learned something about our ancestors. Everything that black people have lived through can be crammed into 28 days so snugly so why would we need to talk about black history the rest of the year?

Here lies the problem. Black History is American History. It's the ugly part of American History people don't like to talk about. It's delegated to the shortest month of the year so that there's only time to discuss the happy parts. We don't discuss the full extent of slavery and the sharecropping afterwards. We don't talk about Franklin D. Roosevelt spying on members of the Civil Rights Movement and painting them as communist. We don't talk about how black people built Washington DC.

Why is Black History Month necessary? Because it's the only time kids will ever hear anything about black history. Why is that? I hate the idea of Black History Month. It's a stupid idea but it's better than nothing. Black History is American History but nobody wants to talk about it because it makes them feel bad. It should make you feel bad. You should go "Damn, not a lot has changed over the last 50 years." You don't need to go out and give reparations to every black person (We never did get that 40 acres and a mule) but, acknowledge the bull shit that we had to go through and still do.

Black History Month is stupid, but it's necessary. Until Black History is taught as American History we're going to need a month. Hopefully one day a Black History Month won't be needed. Until then, we just have to provide as much information as we can in the short time frame.

You can hear Darrell on the CP Time and Powerbomb Jutsu podcasts. He also plays classic arcade games on The Cabinet
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