Being black in this country can be taxing and exhausting- sometimes deadly. We are confronted with how much society refuses to accept its past mistakes and even embrace inequality to avoid facing reality or responsibility. Seeing video after video, witnessing the severe lack of change over decades, watching books being burned that celebrate our history and explain our traumas, being subjected to the entire spectrum of racism from microagressions to shootings. We are oftentimes inundated with negativity, but we seem to find a way to carry a on. We find a way to cope, to sit with the onslaught of transgressions and move through the world with the weight of this pain, in spite of it, oftentimes with grace. Sometimes not, but that is not without warrant. And it’s not about being strong, because that is not always the case. Strength isn’t something innate in us all, we are human. There are times when this world certainly does consume us. I can’t speak for every black experience and I shouldn’t have to. We all have different ways we deal with the past and understand who we are and our identities. However, we are still here and that does mean there is a perseverance and persistence that cannot be ignored.
There was a distinct rise in the number of men of color who voted for Trump last election, and it is an upsetting reality that they felt Trump was representative of their wants and needs. I’ve talked about this with friends and family, read articles, and still cannot fully grasp how any person of color can vote so wholly against their interest and for a white supremacist or someone who’s admirable of white supremacist ideals. Maybe the term “not fully grasp” isn’t entirely accurate. I’m more astonished by the reasoning behind voting for him and, plainly, curious.
Conservatives that are outside of the typical straight white Christian male trope have been on the rise in the last several years. From personalities like Milo Yiannopolis to Diamond & Silk, it has been nothing short of a hellish mystery how these people were drawn to such a dark side of politics. It’s a mysetery that isn’t so mysterious if the main goal is money and/or attention, but it is an abysmal characterization that one could so completely discard morals for money. Then I think about corporations and how humanity is disregarded everyday in exchange for billions of dollars and a bit of my anger with them gets redirected to a society that often rewards profit over safety and scoffs at altruism. I start spiraling thinking of the many facets of greed that have gotten us to where we are today, but I digress.
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.
There have been so many think pieces flooding the internet these past few days about Bey’s new video and its complex symbolism that for some reason is making people uncomfortable, which has me like:
There’s also been this weird prospect emerging that’s gaining an alarming amount of traction, which is, there’s a “new kind of black” person or idea. In my opinion, whenever I hear notions like this it just seems plain insulting. It’s like hearing, “But you’re not really black” or “I don’t consider you black.” It’s an insinuation that there is some kind of definition of what it means to be black, as if it’s “different” to challenge the status quo. It’s time to turn this tedious, parochial idea that has plagued what it means to be black for centuries on its head. There is no such thing as a “new kind of blackness or black person.” There is finally an acceptance of the fact that blackness means an infinite amount of things, because people can’t be one dimensional even if they tried. Yes, even you Stacey Dash are not just a scary testament of self-hatred.
I think Bey’s new video is so refreshing because it’s devoid of the fake, overly produced, annoyingly flashy music video, but is a celebration, embracing culture- black culture-and critiquing society in a way the mainstream hasn’t seen before. It’s not often, these days, a star of her caliber throws caution to the wind to examine the shortcomings of our current social climate and takes an obvious stand on racial, controversial issues.
There have been scores of historical and contemporary figures who have used their talents or their clout to discuss what it means to be black in a way that is beyond the monochromatic language associated with conversations about race. Whenever I think about race I always think of this person. One of my favorite human beings who has written countless essays on the subject and continues to inspire me beyond the grave. Of course, it is the incomparable James Baldwin.
Baldwin also celebrated black culture in his writing and made me want to be a writer because of the way he used the very language that created such strong rhetoric for oppression and hate, but transformed it into a beautifully complex narrative that is non-apologetic and has an uncanny demand for respect. He writes in a way I have yet to find anywhere else. His command of language, the grace of his candor- he’s a timeless mind that doesn’t get nearly enough attention, but this is not surprising, just disappointing.
Anyway, I digress. The entire point of this post is to point out this celebration of blackness by a black woman and how seeing a video in this context is a game changer. Baldwin speaks almost (ALMOST) ad nauseam about the way black people are perceived and the serious issues that lie in needing approval by the very people who refuse to see you as anything but what they perceive you to be. In a society that is constantly chipping away at the self-esteem of black men and women so painstakingly built on a history where our ancestors were subjected to atrocities and horrors that are unspeakable, unthinkable, this music video cut through all of that bullshit and celebrated black culture.
In other (more boring) news, it’s Black History month and every year I swear the same five figures are plastered all over everything. I’m not saying these five people are not important, it’s just frustrating that there is very little done to showcase more than the “first black (insert insane profession here that confirms that racism is rampant)” or uncover black individuals who have had a tremendous hand in building modern society. It’s one of the most insulting times of year, because it’s the shortest month and, in schools, it’s a lazy testament of how little this country cares to actually face racism. I GUESS this list is a start.
Black history is intrinsically tied with American history, but this pointed distinction each year that because of the discrepancy in curriculum… and America culture(?) there is still a need for this month because this history would otherwise be ignored. That to me is the biggest issue - this annual reassurance that things have not changed. And if you’re one of those lunatics who thinks we should “be grateful you get an entire month, because if there was a white history month everyone would be mad,” I’m not sure who you are or on what planet you’re existing but the ignorance of statements like that are what make my blood boil and put me into an all-encompassing rage. Black history should be taught throughout the year, because it’s not like it happened in a vacuum, divorced from the reality in which it was occurring, on some third dimensional plane. It takes effort to separate out Black History from the history of this country and I like to call that effort, racism.
So, it was nice to feel those same feelings of pride while watching that Beyoncé video and seeing a part of me, various aspects of blackness, be given this insurmountable glory, this infectious glamor, this fistful of motivation, this long needed affirmation using imagery that is so inherently within the context of black culture that’s been glaringly missing from mainstream media.
I hate it. It’s one month out of the year of the utter most condescension and is, seemingly, this passive aggressive government mandate that does little, if nothing, to better race relations, and help people understand the history of a people who have been treated less than human, to put it lightly, and have been are subjected to ongoing, systemic racism.
To give one month out of the year to a group of people whose ancestors (my great-great-great grandmother worked on a plantation) basically built this country with literal blood, sweat and tears is not only infuriating but blatantly insulting. Maybe the initial Black History Month back in the 1920s- where it started out as a week- was necessary and possibly helped people cope with the past better (this is a stretch… is there a word for “greater than a stretch?”). That and Jim Crow laws. It’s hard not to be sarcastic when dealing with this subject. I mean, c'monnnn. When will there be a conference about how important it is to integrate Black History month into the school year?
Also, February is the shortest month of the year which has been argued countless times as an overtly offensive act. Obviously Black History Month is not for black people, because we know our history, or at least I hope most of us do, so this month is to educate people outside of that realm, but very gingerly, omitting unpleasant (real) details about slavery and ongoing discrimination and atrocious physical and mental mistreatment. Nowadays Black History Month focuses on the Civil Rights movement, like black people didn’t exist before then. I mean, there have been some lesson plans on Harriet Tubman, Fredrick Doulass, and that peanut butter dude, but as far as I can remember there was just a brief mention of the fact they were slaves.
On a different note, I’ve been long-meaning to write an essay about how slavery is taught in high school. I distinctly remember sitting in one of my history classes, completely baffled and thoroughly irritated as the teacher espoused this embarrassingly inappropriate rhetoric about how some slaves LIKED being slaves and how some were treated “better” than what we might be led to believe. If only I wasn’t a quiet, mousy teenager who feared the judgmental eyes of my peers, I would have retorted with the obvious response: “They were all still owned by other humans. This is a wildly irresponsible discussion to have at this point, considering we haven’t gone over the actual conduct of slave traders and masters. Families were torn apart. Spirits were broken through physical and mental torture. There were books on how to ‘break your slave.’ Teacher, you’re an asshole.” However, I kept my mouth shut and was silently seething in my seat, sure people could see steam shooting out of my ears.
Anyway, during this month I can remember three people who were kept in rotation every year, which was not necessarily a bad thing, but it held the class back from learning other predominant or maybe not so predominate black figures. Hearing about MLK for ten years and hearing nothing about Phillis Wheatley or Linda Brent Harriet Anne Jacobs, two former slaves that transcended societal restrictions to publish works about their experiences in captivity. Reading their narratives inspired me not only as a black woman, but as a writer and no one will ever hear of them unless they research or take specific classes illuminating their integral presence in history.
What do you think about Black History month?
I shall end this with a quote from a brilliant, noteworthy black man with the gosh-darn best narrating voice the world has ever heard.
“I don’t want a black history month. Black history is American history.”
