For many African Americans, Black History Month means celebration and an entire month displaying African American history, but to others it’s both a gift and a curse, said Bryant Maxwell, an English and Economics Alumnus from the University of Illinois.
Black History Month was first recognized by President Gerald Ford in 1976, as a time to celebrate the accomplishments and contributions of African-Americans in U.S. history. It falls on every February since that time.
However, a glimpse through the looking glass by several African-American students shows a mixture of pride and dissatisfaction, including biting commentary about the current state of affairs, as well as hopes for the future.
“At least this history is being covered,” said Aaisha Haykal. “But it relegates black history and black people to a certain month, and assumes there is not any other time of year to celebrate my people.”
Haykal is pursuing a Master’s Degree in Library Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and sees similar problems with other theme months, such as Breast Cancer or AIDS Awareness Months.
“I also have an issue with the shallowness of the information that is provided,” she said. “It’s mostly just facts as opposed to a real discourse about [historical and current] issues facing the black community.”
The constrained time period may be one challenge, but general public knowledge also lacks depth and perspective, according to Cy Hendrickson, a Caucasian high school math teacher on Chicago’s West Side.
“I see the vast majority of the history of minorities in this country as sort of the dark side of history’s moon,” according to Hendrickson.
Hendrickson links public ignorance about the civil rights movement and African-American endurance to an endemic lack of knowledge about less glorious threads of American society, history and politics. This influences the way people celebrate Black History Month and think about the people who made that history, zeroing in on certain popular figures like Martin Luther King or Rosa Parks while ignoring everything else.
“I think most of the unsung heroes are those who carried the movement,” said Kaisha Esty, a London native and student at the University of Nottingham, studying American Studies. “Leaders are nothing without the actual foot soldiers.”
Wayne Bennett, author of the award-winning blog, “A Field Negro,” cites examples such as the Nanny of the Jamaican Maroons, who fought the British to free the slaves in 18-century Jamaica, and Ralph Bunche, who was among the founders of the United Nations and the first African-American to win the Nobel Peace Prize.
“They are people who will never be in a history book and whose names we don’t know,” said Lola Adesioye, a New York-based weekly columnist for The Guardian.
Such historical struggles to assure civil rights later helped lead to affirmative action enrollment practices, encouraging minority enrollment in higher education. It is yet another controversial, but important, piece of the puzzle shaping the future of African-Americans in academia and society.
“Sure we can get in to some great schools, but are some of the people going to be ready for them?” Maxwell said.
Haykal supports affirmative action but thinks challenges to higher minority enrollment rates should be addressed before college.
“I think that there needs to be more incentives for state-certified teachers to go into these schools to prepare students for college,” she said.
Teachers and parents should also encourage African-American students to have high goals, and instill an early passion and drive to succeed.
Networking, as well as promotion of cultural community groups during college, should also be a part of ensuring a navigable and comfortable atmosphere for minorities. According to Bennett, affirmative action programs also help bring down barriers by encouraging awareness and engagement with a multicultural world. It is not enough for leaders at the top to herald, as happened when Barack Obama was elected, the advent of a “post-racial” America.
“The idea that America is a ‘post-racial’ society, whatever that actually means, is a fallacy,” Adesioye said. “New leaders, new policies, new research, new boards make little difference, because the issue is not being dealt with where it needs to be,” she added.
“A diversified student body does more to prepare the student for the real world,” Bennett said. “The real world is not all white.”
Though she has not personally experienced any racist attacks, Haykal has observed news developments since Obama’s election.
“Not only has racial intolerance taken a negative turn, but [so too has] religious and sexual intolerance as seen by the rash of statements by public figures against Muslims and homosexuals,” Haykal said.
Esty feels race will continue to be an issue for generations to come, though that may not necessarily be a bad thing.
“America can not be a post-racial society as long as it is aware that they have a mixed-race (or black) President,” she said. “The fundamental shift, I believe, is whether the racial climate celebrates this as a source of progress or a threat.”
According to Adesioye, people need to look at what it is about human beings that still has us subscribe to this idea of ‘the other’ when it is clear that we are all interdependent and much more alike than we are different.
“When it comes down to it, we all breathe, eat, sleep, and go to the bathroom,” she said.
-Arnetta Randall
02/07/11
