My History with Black History Month

Black History Month for me just used to be a reminder of how little this country cared to actually learn about black people, our history, and how we got to where we are today. It didn’t feel like a celebration but a mockery of our greatness. It felt like we were being thrown scraps for being reminders of this country’s violent and unthinkable history. Twenty-eight days sometimes twenty-nine designated for our history while the false history of this country’s founding wasn’t constrained at all but given an entire school year. It wasn’t until I learned more about where I came from outside of the abysmal curriculum and about how systems were built to divide that I was able to not only embrace Black History Month on my own terms, but really relish in how far we’ve come and how much we can and will accomplish. 

Before my invigorating revelation, when I was really young, I dreaded Black History Month. Going to a predominantly white school, it meant that all eyes were on me when the teacher would tell us to put our books away and handout a flimsy printout of one of MLK’s speeches. It was always a very small section of “I Have a Dream.”
I could feel my peers staring me as the teacher picked on different students to read portions of it. I braced myself for my inevitable turn. When I was called on to read it was like the air disappeared. An uncomfortable silence settled in the room. Kids stopped shifting, whispering conversations would halt. It was as if they thought something magical would happen when I read those words. I was a show. I would look straight at the page attempting to block everything else out and read aloud, but I still felt as if a spotlight shown brightly on me and my little desk. I wanted to speed through it to get it over with, but I didn’t want to make any mistakes, because even though I was mortified his words meant a great deal to me. This would be the new normal during our Black History lessons for the whole month. I loved learning, but I loathed being their only immediate proximity to blackness.
The subsequent few hours a week of hapless activity to “celebrate” black history was not only an embarrassing display of ignorance, but a truly insulting one-dimensional portrayal of a history of my people who literally built this country. We wouldn’t talk about slavery at all, but focus on celebrities and the Harlem Renaissance so as not to go too near the past that so many wanted to forget. It wasn’t through school that I learned about James Baldwin or Ralph Ellison. I didn’t even know collections of slave narratives existed until I went to college. No, Black History Month when I was in grade school even into high school willingly evaded how black people got here and focused on famous black athletes and entertainers in a way that made it seem they were the only people who truly contributed to society and were of note. A few authors were sprinkled in here and there, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, but scientists and certain activists were always absent. Later on, nearing the end of high school I would learn about Dr. George Washington Carver as the inventor of peanut butter, but his doctorate title and further work in peanuts being used to make different products ultimately stimulating the south’s declining economy would be left out. Par for the course.

This Black History Month I am going to lean hard into still celebrating how we as black people were able to fight through the darkest, deadliest, most diabolical institution of slavery and not only continue to live and continue to fight but continue to feel joy, continue to feel pride, continue to evolve, continue to grow, continue to uncover and discover, continue to create, continue to feel love after all our ancestors have been through. After all we are still going through. 

Some of our ancestors could never even imagine where we are today and though we are still, STILL fighting for full equality, we have made leaps and strides from our painful past and this world wouldn’t be nearly the same without us. We are our ancestors and we are forging a new path for the future.

I love my blackness. And yours.

— deray (@deray) January 31, 2021

But I Can’t Help It.

Though I am immensely happy with the way so many Americans are mobilizing against Trump I can’t help but to feel a little slighted by the fact this national upset is what’s prompting this cataclysmic reaction to upend the country. The kind of racism/misogyny The Donald used to incite crowds to violence is the very same racism/misogyny that has been pulsing through America for years, no matter who was president. These claims of surprise and upset are warranted for those who weren’t living under the burden of dealing with prejudice every day, but it still calls attention to how oblivious or comfortable the country has been with the plight of minority groups for centuries. We’ve become so accustomed to not expect serious change to this white supremacist power system because challenging it without the support of the entire country seemed futile.

It took an incredible upset to really wake this country up and I get that but it’s still irritating to hear, “I can’t believe the country would do this” or “How are this many people so racist/selfish?” This election’s outcome really calls attention to white privilege. I can’t help but to think this much protesting/outrage would definitely not have happened if Clinton got elected. I do believe the country was moving in the direction of, “Wait our entire system is inherently flawed,” but our system has been flawed as long as this country has been a country and it all started with the settlers and their decimation of the Indians. The horror and ugliness continues and manifests itself in new and frightening ways still.

How we as a country so loftily ignored centuries of slavery, over a decade of internment camps, countless deaths of civilians in other countries in the name of freedom (that number rises everyday), and are finally now aghast at the culmination of this history is for lack of better words intensely frustrating. 

I was distraught after the election results. For a second I thought we were moving in a more progressive direction, more inclusive and that it would be a slow moving process but that it was starting. Instead, I was in awe of the amount of red states as the night of the election went on, but in retrospect, it shouldn’t have been surprising. Everyone wants to blame all these various factors for the reality we’re living in but honestly this is the real America. We’re finally facing all of the deep rooted pain and suffering that’s been plaguing minorities (this includes anyone who’s not a straight white Christian American male) and I’m happy but there’s also a pang of sadness mixed in there.

Regardless of these sad feelings, I am crazy excited about the way millions of Americans are protesting and shouting from the rooftops to let the establishment know, NO MORE. There are a lot of people who knew this country couldn’t keep going in the direction it’s been going, and this the glaring kick in the ass we needed to really make America great. Period. NOT AGAIN. AMERICA HAS NEVER BEEN GREAT FOR EVERYONE. I seriously hope some things come out of this colossal change in perspective, including more diverse views on the news, a reexamination of our Justice system, holding officials accountable for decisions they make that harm countless innocent people in other countries, a national acknowledgement that racial socio-economic inequality is a direct result of slavery, more programs to remedy this issue, and finally begin making steps to close the unbelievable wealth gap and recognize the undeniable classism that is rampant in our society.

Again, I am happy about this amazing movement, but let’s not forget our history this time, and really take into consideration the hundreds of years that have led us here.

And let’s keep having these uncomfortable conversations. They’re terrifying and so completely necessary to continue evolving.

Stop Shooting My Little Brother

This country has gone through a lot in regards to race relations in the past oh fifty years. It’s always jarring realizing the Civil Rights Movement was not that long ago and that progress albeit progress has not been anywhere near what MLK envisioned. Sure, little black boys can hold hands with little white girls, if the black boy is seemingly nonthreatening and wearing a suit.

All of our notions about race are just so systematically ingrained in legislation, in media, in bigoted ideas passed down from ignorant generation to the next it’s hard to see a future where none of that exists. 

The mistreatment of people of color is forever torched into American history with a flame that has extinguished hope, burned an unrelenting inferiority complex into millions and laid waste to humanity in a way that is almost irreparable. 

American Slavery is a big deal. It was more than humans being stripped of basic rights, it was more than families living in constant fear of being ripped apart, it was more than slaves being whipped and beaten by slave masters on a whim, it was more than the human spirit being tortured to the point of suicide, it was more than every violent action done to a person you can think of, it was more than dismantling the laws of human nature. Slavery ruined- no, poisoned the hearts and minds of this county and its ramifications continued to haunt our present in ways nobody wants to admit.

During the Civil Rights movement there seemed to be a special place of hatred and violence singularly preserved for black men. They were the main enemy in the minds of millions of Americans because of the mere color of their skin.Their presence was a threat and their lives an afterthought. 

Skin color was (in some minds still is whether it’s admitted or not) equated to intellect, reasoning, responsibility, the capacity for love and understanding. In slavery black people were not allowed to be perceived as human, holding all of these qualities, along with an astounding magnitude of hope, because then the reality that humans were being treated as cattle would settle in and demolish the whole notion of free, renewable resources (HUMANS). 

Again, I talk about slavery because for me that, later to be repackaged as institutional racism, can be the only source of all the unapologetic violence constantly berating the black community for so many years. We have come from an incomprehensible amount of pain and broken spirits to get to where we are today. I am apart of a community that is bigger than me, that holds a diverse array of minds. I am apart of a community that has been and continues to be subjected to atrocious mistreatment and injustice over and over again.

It scares me that black boys are continuously getting shot or beaten with no hope for justice. It scares me that the system that is suppose to protect the lives of all Americans has been so lax with defending the rights of some. It’s even more frustrating that the justice system ignores the harrowing implications of these injustices.

More importantly, it scares me that I have a little brother in Florida who just wants to hang out and be a teenager, but can’t be because being a black teenage boy in Florida can get you killed.

My little brother is tall for his age. He’s lanky and goofy and is one of the funniest people I know. I love talking to him because he has this airy demeanor of wisdom sometimes or this refreshing, wide-eyed infectious curiosity. He asks me questions about life and listens to my clumsy answers with a furrowed brow and at those moments I feel humbled that he actually sits there and listens. We talk about his dreams of becoming the next Dwayne Wade, but I always tell him he could be the next Neil Degrasse Tyson. I love my little brother. I love him so much it makes me want to cry when I hear about these shootings. And I do. I have. I’m crying as I write this. I honestly don’t know what I would do or how I would react if anything happened to him. It makes me crazy even thinking about it.

It makes me physically ill knowing families have lost pieces of themselves because of unfathomable hatred. It makes me angry that there is nothing I can do to quell the rage or sadness the families must feel.

This has got to stop.

Plain and simple.

There is no excuse for this blatant disregard for human life. I don’t feel safe in this country knowing guns are in the hands of maniacs and guilty people get away with murder. 

This is definitely a gun issue, but even more seriously it’s a human rights issue.

It’s time to start protesting. It’s time to start taking action. We cannot keep living like this.