I did a little more digging on the topic, and found what seemed to be a similar idea presented by the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People): "We should emphasize not Negro History, but the Negro in history. What we need is not a history of selected races or nations, but the history of the world void of national bias, race hate, and religious prejudice."- Dr. Carter G. Woodson on the founding Negro History Week, 1926
Mr. Roth and Dr. Woodson make the same claim: celebrating during a certain time actually creates more separation. It "just doesn't taste right" to separate American accomplishments into racial categories. What do you think? Is it better to not have a Black History Month and not look at accomplishments in black and white, or celebrate African Americans specifically for an entire month?
I completely agree with you, Glenna! I would even go so far to say that black history month is ironic because it makes what little difference there is between races even more pronounced. At one point perhaps, when black history month first started, African Americans may have felt they were under appreciated. Now, I think it might be interesting to find out how an African American person feels about the acknowledgement of prominent African Americans and black history month as a whole.
ReplyDeleteGlenna and Nikita-
ReplyDeleteThis is a great point! I've always felt a little off about calling a month of the year "Black History Month". Doesn't that imply that every other month of the year is "White History Month"? I'm all for appreciating black historical figures, a lot of their history has been left out of textbooks over the years due to racism, but I think they should be integrated into the classroom throughout the year instead of setting them aside until February.
Emma,
ReplyDeleteI don't think that having a black history month necessarily implies that the rest of the year should be dedicated to white history. I think it just implies that there is only one month where we need to study black history, and then forget about it for the other eleven. This is a backwards way of thinking. What Nikita said was right, the month only points out the differences. If you're going to study history, do it all at once. Separating it by race is just silly.
Black History month is sort of silly to me since I just sort of hear it and am like, okay, cool, they struggled and I've been hearing about this since elementary school, and the most I really learned about black history was from some poster of black innovators. The school for black history month put up posters about various successful black people. Is it supposed to be more impressive that they were black? It's like we can't just see them as talented people
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