What Does Black History Month Mean to Me?

A personal reflection by Onllwyn Dixon, Business Communications Instructor at Year Up Bay Area

I celebrate Black history every day of the year. Black History Month itself is a time for me to reflect on what it means to be a man of African descent in the US and my connection to countless people who in the face of terror, violence, and subjugation sacrificed their lives and liberty for the promise of a brighter future for generations yet to come. It is a time for me to reflect on the known and unknown activists, organizers, and human rights advocates of the past who tirelessly fought for racial equality. Black History Month also allows me to ask: Has this country made significant progress in becoming a more perfect Union? Unfortunately, the answer is often, like our history, complicated. While we celebrate the accomplishments of prominent figures like Oprah Winfrey, President Barack Obama, and Shonda Rhimes, the lived experiences of millions of Black/African Americans are sobering. According to a 2018 study from the Economic Policy Institute:

Black/African Americans are better educated than they were in 1968 but still lag White Americans in overall educational attainment. More than 90 percent of younger Black/African Americans (ages 25 to 29) have graduated from high school, compared with just over half in 1968.

The substantial progress in educational attainment of Black/African Americans has been accompanied by significant absolute improvements in wages, incomes, wealth, and health since 1968. However, Black workers still make only 82.5 cents on every dollar earned by White workers. The wage disparity for Black/African American women is even more pronounced. Black/African Americans are 2.5 times as likely to live in poverty as White Americans, and the median White American family has almost ten times as much wealth as the median Black American family.

Concerning homeownership, unemployment, and incarceration, Black/African Americans over the last five decades have not experienced significant improvement relative to White Americans or have experienced worsening conditions. In 2017, the Black unemployment rate was 7.5 percent, up from 6.7 percent in 1968 and is still approximately twice the White unemployment rate. In 2015, the Black homeownership rate was just over 40 percent, virtually unchanged since 1968 and trailing a full 30 points behind the White homeownership rate, which saw modest gains over the same period. The number of Black/African Americans in prison or jail almost tripled from 1968 to 2016 and is currently more than six times the white incarceration rate.

Black History Month is also a time for me to recommit to embracing hope and mentoring young adults. It isn’t always possible to stay optimistic, but I believe it’s still possible to remain hopeful. I believe optimism is maintained when there are visible indications a particular outcome is likely. On the other hand, hope requires me, like my ancestors, to remain steadfast and proactive in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds. In 2019, I’m considering the role determination, integrity, and leadership play in my life and vocation and how I can more fully model these characteristics in my work, especially for young adults at Year Up. I hope I consistently model for them that how a person deals with the circumstances of their lives reveals their character. In crisis or adversity, one has only two options, to compromise or maintain character. When one chooses to have character, they become a better version of who they think they can be.

In closing, I’m reminded of the words of James Baldwin in The Fire Next Time, a blistering critique of race in the US,

“Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. I use the word “love” here not merely in the personal sense but as a state of being, or a state of grace — not in the infantile American sense of being made happy but in the tough and universal sense of quest and daring and growth.”

Black History Month is a time for me to celebrate the contributions of people of the African diaspora, and it is also a time for me to acknowledge and confront the ways race shapes my lived experiences and those of the young adults whom I’m privileged to serve. Most importantly, it provides an opportunity for me to step outside of what I assume I know and more fully practice the same courage and love my ancestors displayed, in the hopes that who I’ll become will be worthy of their sacrifice.