We Need To Amend Black History Month

5 min readNov 22, 2020

Since 1976, we as a nation have paused each February to observe and
remember the notable achievements and contributions African-Americans have made in this country. We call this Black History Month. During this time, we celebrate and remember those who seem to be the only blacks who have made history: Jackie Robinson, Rosa Parks, Dr. Martin Luther King, George Washington Carver, Harriet Tubman, and Frederick Douglas. Television networks will re-run notable documentaries on the civil rights movement. Large corporations such as Nike find February to be the perfect moment to capitalize on black consumers by selling $200+ for a pair of sneakers from their Black History Month Collection. For some, it’s insulting to have the shortest month of the year dedicated to African American achievement. For others, the holiday is pointless because one could argue that nothing changes by the end of February — problems of systemic racism continue to stain the fabric of American life.

During my primary schooling, somewhere in the middle of making students re-watch “I Have A Dream” for the 100th time and reenacting Harriet Tubman’s great escape to the North. I found myself dreading the next year when a teacher would force us to partake in the same activities. To be frank, I hated it. It was boring. It was dry, and I was pretty sure the white students thought that all blacks were good at was escaping to freedom and playing sports. Ironically, “celebrating” this holiday in my education system
only perpetuated preexisting stereotypes about black folk. February was this way up until I entered high school, where no one even bothered to hang a picture of Sojourner Truth in the hallways. Was not acknowledging Black History Month at all better than teaching children that there are only a few blacks important enough to make into their history textbooks?

While Black History Month is a chance for some African-Americans to gain visibility long overdue, national recognition by white America since it’s inception seemed more of a convenient cover-up for the country’s longstanding history of racism, a kind of quick fix for problems that continue to infect the black community across the U.S. Some older black individuals from my grandparent’s generation may argue that many African-Americans have fought for recognition and that we should be proud to have a holiday in our honor.

While they are not entirely wrong, adding a month of Memoriam for African- Americans to the calendar year is not an adequate antidote. It does not bandage toxic racism that has poisoned the country for generations. Racism against blacks today looks, feels, and navigates different than it did eighty years ago. Therefore, we need to revisit the way history is taught in schools. Instead of celebrating only a few accomplished blacks in U.S history once a month, students should be taught the complexities of racial tensions between blacks and whites that haunt this country’s past, undermine it’s present, and threaten it’s future. Black History Month is America’s tool for compartmentalizing its’ timeline of violence, prejudice, and discrimination while it simultaneously sweeps its selfishness and greed for authoritative power under the rug.

Yes, we may rightfully applaud the selfless African- Americans who sacrificed their lives for the fundamental rights, dignity, safety, and security of the next generation. But that is not a band-aid for the oppression of black bodies from slavery to today. Nor does it suffice as a solution to the superiority complex that enables whites to negate their black counterparts. Revisiting the value, history, and culture of African -Americans is vital to a problem as grand as systemic racism. There is a strong desire to embrace multiculturalism in today’s generation, a need to forget America’s painful past to birth a binary-free society of whites and non-whites. However, the notion of “not seeing color,” is a dangerous one. It erases the responsibility of one to be historically aware of the trauma that either legitimizes a white or inferiorizes a black. In doing so, it will become easy to repeat history through power dynamics.

We should not completely abandon Black History month. But, it is both the responsibility of whites and people of color to reteach, relearn, and revisit the moment, and investigate new ways of valuing black lives in America. It should be up to us to view issues of racial profiling, police misconduct, and prejudice through a critical lens and actively take measures to harness brutality against the black community.

We need to recognize and politically tackle racial discrimination and bias in mortgage lending, loans, and the workplace. Educating oneself on the history of racial tensions between the black and white bodies is essential
to create a future that does not mirror the past or look like the present.

We Need To Amend Black History Month

Written by Sarasara