This is exactly how I feel. Jews don’t have a month. Native Americans don’t have a month. Are we so inept at appreciating ourselves, loving ourselves and educating ourselves about ourselves and our history, our self-worth, our own suffering and Holocaust in America that we need to be pacified with a month?
Wake-up people.
Some things don’t make you better. They make you dependent. And they diminish you while appearing to celebrate and empower you.
I don’t know about you. But I am living BLACK HISTORY everyday. I experience BLACK HISTORY everyday. My parents and their parents and their foreparents, as far Black as our generation may have existed here in America, are BLACK HISTORY.
A month doesn’t honor the immeasurable human sacrifices, injustices, inhumanities and sufferings that is uniquely BLACK HISTORY.
I am BLACK HISTORY everyday.
Tell your story. represent your own family’s experiences, achievements, progress, fame, sufferings and…
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I left the following comment on Bishop Prince’s blog:
“Where did our sense of community oneness and shared responsibility, family, gender role distinctions, mutual respect, authority in the home, right and wrong go?
…
I am not sure. But what I am sure of is that we have not overcome but have been overcome by the image of a White Jesus, Glamour, Glitter, Gold, Praises, Accolades, Celebrity and Fame.”
My dear brother in Christ, I agree with you wholeheartedly. An undeniable case in point that supports all that you convey in this blog posting is the ever-evident fact about how, for example, MOST Blacks who use social media do not honor and celebrate their ongoing Black History by respecting and supporting each other on social media. I dare say most Blacks on social media neither will follow nor friend, or retweet, or share Facebook postings. Nor will they share or reblog WordPress postings, and so forth. Those Blacks who do follow and friend OTHER Blacks on social media also often will not reply to or comment on OTHER Blacks’ tweets, Facebook postings, or WordPress postings. I maintain that this kind of lack of community oneness and lack of support—which, sadly, imply that we are unconsciously or consciously choosing to disregard one another’s shared works—is because MOST Blacks do not want other Blacks to outshine them or become more popular than they are. For me, this is an example of an unhealthy kind of competition better known as envy or jealousy.
For these above and other reasons, I believe that since the majority of African-Americans today have indeed lost their “…sense of community oneness and shared responsibility, family, gender role distinctions, mutual respect, authority in the home, right and wrong …,” and so forth, that these are the very reasons why a month celebrating and honoring our Black History—those “…immeasurable human sacrifices, injustices, inhumanities and sufferings that [are] uniquely BLACK HISTORY…”—as well as other noteworthy contributions—is apropos. I believe Black History Month is appropriate, if for no other reason than Black History Month occasionally succeeds in snapping some us African-Americans back into reality. Put differently, Black History Month indeed is most effective when it accomplishes what your timely imperative urges the majority of Blacks to do: “wake up.”
Every blessing . . . . .
Well I’ll be honest. My initial response is that Black History month is needed to shine a light on the contributions of Black America in creating America. I also believe it is and can be the avenue through which others learn and may come to look beyond the stereotypes to see Black Americans for who we are and for what we so richly bring to the table. In typing this I am thinking about two of my students whose only true, intimate exposure to a Black American is me. Black History month helps them come out of the bubble they live in, to look beyond the stereotypes, false images of Black America.
jarjarbinkx,
Thank you for your comment. Please read my comment that I posted on February 3, 2016. We seem to be on the same page!
Every blessing,
Nadine