Black History Month is for White People Too

At the beginning of the month I saw quite a few articles about whether Black History Month is still necessary. Most of the articles I read were in response to Actress Stacey Dash’s comments against the annual observance of February as Black History Month. I won’t rehash that debate, but I am honestly wondering what positive things, if any, are being done to emphasize Black History to all Americans, not just Blacks.

I remember when I was in elementary school, we all would have plays and pageants while wearing African attire each Friday in February, culminating in a Festival where we would get to cook and taste the various foods and dishes of the African diaspora and Black American people.

Honestly, I did it mostly because it was on the school calendar and that’s what we were expected to do. During that time though, I often wondered why I had to wear Kinte cloth and a head wrapping to show my Blackness when I had perfectly good African (American) features in the form of my nose, lips, and skin color. I wear them every day, not just to school and not just in February. Overall though, I have to admit my home, school, and church did a great job of teaching me the undeniable contributions of Black people world wide and I still maintain a great deal of pride in my Black history and culture today. I only wished the same effort was still being put forth across the country.

I’ve taught in three different school districts in the last five years. Each district, demographically unique, in and of itself, observed February as Black History Month. Of course, each had bulletin boards decorated by teachers with pictures of Black heroes. Black History facts were read every day during announcements, but all in all, I don’t really believe any of the students, black, brown, white, or yellow, were paying any real attention. They certainly were not retaining the history.

This school year, I teach in a school with predominantly Black and Latina students where I gave a writing assignment in November, asking each student to write an essay about a person from the past that was influential in this country and/or the world. Of about forty children, about thirty-five of them wrote about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. It should be noted, the assignment absolutely did not require the individual to be a Black American. After reading the students’ essays I thought, while Dr. King certainly did a great deal for the rights of all people, he absolutely should not be the only person who comes to the minds of our young people when they think of their American history. I certainly do agree that Dr. King was a great leader and champion for the rights of all people. However, I found their almost reflexive mentions of him, at best, vapid.

Black History Month should be something that is more meaningful and more authentically an integral part of American History for all children. That said, I am concerned that schools and parents are not doing more to be certain that all children have the opportunity to see reflections of Black people in our country’s history outside of the often demeaning and humiliating images of slavery and the Jim Crow Era. All children also have a right to see positive images of today’s Black leaders, activists, and entertainers by way of news and social media, not just demonized images of them, drawing lines where they should not exist.

Even as I was writing this article, I was perusing the internet for children’s book titles and came across this website: 8 Disturbingly Racist Children’s Books Designed to Devalue Black People — Atlanta Black Star. Sadly, I discovered that I had read 3 of the 8 books in elementary school and they were given to me by my teacher. In fact, one of these books was included on the reading list of a middle school in which I was teaching as late as 2007.

It is quite obvious that there is a great deal being done in public schools that is damaging to the self esteem and self efficacy beliefs of children of all colors, cultures, and backgrounds every day. Raising little White kids with a spirit of ignorant entitlement is just as damaging as raising their Black counterparts to not believe in their worth. Both contribute to the vicious cycle that proves that all lives do not matter, the same cycle that makes it easy for some White Americans to turn their backs without conscience or action as the blood of Black boys, girls, men, and women continues to run in the streets of this country’s cities. It is for this reason, we should all be taking steps to counteract an already tainted, educational system that was founded on inherently racist principles and ideals.

As a urban public school teacher, I am always wondering what I can do to make a difference. I have also often wondered whether it would be wrong to use my classroom to give my students something that I was refused. Because it was always obvious to my Black high school classmates and I that we were only being taught White history and literature from a predominantly White Euro cannon, I wonder how a classroom full of White children would feel if their teacher only taught them from a Black perspective. I wonder how many parents of White children would object to that type of an education for their children. While I am constantly attempting to present lessons in literature from a diverse body of authors, if I taught like my own teachers in both middle school and high school, I would only be teaching literature written by Black authors.

For the last few weeks, Twitter and other social media were all abuzz concerning the racist children’s book by journalist and chef Ramin Ganeshram, A Birthday Cake for George Washington, that was placed on sale January 5 only to be pulled from shelves on January 19 amid protests. The publisher, Scholastic, is one that has supplied literacy resources, texts, and books for schools and students since 1920.

Scholastic didn’t know it would be harmful to place such harmful images into the hands of White and Black children? What if no one had protested the sale of the book? It is clear this book would have been sold and used by American children, potentially damaging their outlook on themselves, or perhaps their classmates or neighbors one day. It certainly is not written with sensitivity from an authentic perspective of a slave forced to be responsible for the preparation of a white slave owner’s food. Perhaps it is the lack of accurate accounting of the quality of life and the events in Black history that surround slavery that led this author to create a children’s book in such poor taste, bearing such a massive lack of sensitivity.

As a teacher who also happens to be Black, it is very clear to me there is still a very strong need for Black History Month, but not singularly for Black children. Ideally, February could be a time for all people, young and old, to learn of the contributions of Black Americans to our country’s history. Ultimately, it could and should be a joint effort to dispel the vicious cycle of a racist American culture for every person in this country.