Posted on 02/29/2012 8:39:22 AM PST by combat_boots
Why Black History Month? If a people has a past worth learning about, they also must have a future worth caring about.
Irvine, CA - When I was a child, Black History Month, which since 1976 has been celebrated in February each year in the United States, used to mean something.
Perhaps it was because I lived in the New York Metropolitan area in the still race-conscious 1970s and 1980s, but during February it was hard not to get at least a hint of an education about African American history and its contribution to the larger American mosaic, whether it was school activities or public service spots on television, or surrounding the growing chorus of voices to make Martin Luther King, Jr's birthday a national holiday.
True, February is the shortest month of the year; but contrary to urban legend that's not why it was chosen as Black History Month. Instead, it was because the birthdays of President Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass, perhaps the two most important figures before Martin Luther King in the quest for black freedom in the United States, both occurred in mid-February.
There were plenty of reasons to criticise the "ghettoising" of black American history into one short month. But the idea at least had the virtue of getting kids to think about the fact that there was such a thing as a specifically African American narrative within the larger, and largely white, version of American history we were being taught in school. And if you grew up in an urban, significantly black cultural milieu, the focus on history - that is, on black people having a past worth learning about - added a bit of extra gravitas to the increasing dominance of African American artistic production within American culture as a whole.
(Excerpt) Read more at aljazeera.com ...
Conversely, what has Africa or Islam contributed to modern man?
Show me one invention. Just one!
ITs only been a one way flow. And they want a 7 th century caliphate?
Bass ackwards fools, idiots supreme!
Tabula rasa.
Posted comment at the WINS Black History month webpage:
White history is coming to a grinding halt because we have given credence to this absurdity.ML/NJ
But, but 0bama said Islam helped America from herearliest times, and California tetbooks said muslims discovered America.
Really?
So we're going to get month-long features from many MSM (or even ANY) sources about the great "Orientals" in American History? Please keep me informed.
ML/NJ
what about Indians who really had it bad in US history? - November
What about Asian Americans? - May
Mormons get stiffed, but you guys have an entire state.
What about Mexicansthey faced a lot of problems? September
And us Irishmen - March
Everybody gets something, just gotta go look. Really everybody that whines about this should first go to this page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_observances_in_the_United_States_by_presidential_proclamation
You’ll probably find the group you think should be recognized on there somewhere. Except the Mormons apparently, but if Romney wins that’ll probably get “fixed”. Commemorative days, weeks and months are all over the place. You just don’t hear about them because there’s so many. Pretty much every day is a dozen “celebrations”.
Have there been month long features for Black History Month? I haven’t seen any. Like I said to somebody else, the only coverage I’ve seen of BHM this year is FReepers whining about it.
It’s brought up at schools, tv, and workplaces.
Mouthpieces want to hang slavery on the whiteman, and whiteman America.
Aint so.... more need to be aware and a great tool is the following vid.... which implies Islams long standing guilt in slaving...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cT_RSDeAYjI
Why any self respecting blackman can participate in Islam is beyond me!
Not anyplace I’ve seen. I mean I’m sure it is somewhere. Doubtless BET (does that channel even still exist) is all over it, probably schools in black neighborhoods. But really if the FReepers would just stop pissing and moaning about it I would have gone the entire BHM without being reminded it was BHM. People gotta get over it, commemorative months happen, every month has a bunch, some get more recognized than others, maybe your aren’t as celebrated as other, life’s not fair that way, suck it up.
All part of the big lie from the greatest liar and conman of ALL TIMES to EVER hit America’s shores!
Are you black?
Call me racist or whatever, but I am damn sick and disgusted with this African American and Hispanic American hyphenated ethnic crapola. Either they are Americans or they are not. If African or Hispanic first, then they can go to hell.
Thank you.
I am getting a headache. Must be blood pressure.
You're not paying attention. You could follow the link I gave at post #23 on this thread; or you could check GoogleNews which reports "about 11,500 results" during the past month.
ML/NJ
Then I must assume you would be really, really upset if I called myself an... a Robot-American?
What really burns me is that there is slavery in this world NOW. Right NOW. Revenge for something from 150-500 or more years ago is so 1863.
Sudan, Somolia, wherever Islam lives.... even Obama’s Arab Spring franchises....that we paid for.
About as white as a person can get, German heritage, in the software business, listen to heavy metal and prog rock.
I’ve got 6500 hits on American Heart Month which is also February. Who should we blame for that?
The only reason BHM is as big as it is (which isn’t actually very big at all) is because there are members of the black community that work their butts off to make it big. And your link is meaningless, one local channel whoooo. It’s supposed to be a NATIONAL month where the NATIONAL big deal about it? There isn’t one, except probably on BET.
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