(ThyBlackMan.com) The more I continue to learn about world history, and the roles that Africa and people of African descent played in it, the less enthusiastic I become about celebrating a “Black History Month.” To relegate the recounting of our story to a single month is analogous to the way de-facto and du-jure segregation limited our forbearers to living in a single – usually bad – neighborhood, and the “ghettoization” of our history should be just as unacceptable. Equally disturbing is who gets to control how our story is told, if it gets to be told at all. Two recent incidents are glaring examples of this.
Black lawmakers in the Wisconsin legislature put forward a resolution commemorating Black History Month and celebrating some famous black figures past and present. Among the people to be feted was Milwaukee native Colin Kaepernick. Republican legislators objected, saying that Kaepernick was “too controversial” and that to honor him would be “too divisive”. The cause of this concern was his stance against police violence and the shooting of unarmed black men. The black Democrats relented and withdrew Kaepernick’s name from the resolution.
Whose story is this? I’m old enough to remember the same arguments being raised about the “pre-sanitized” history of Dr. King and why he was unworthy of a holiday bearing his name. George Orwell, author of the novel “1984” said, “He who controls the past, controls the present.”
Just as absurd was the Grammy Awards choice of Jenifer Lopez – with the approval of Barry Gordy and ‘Smokey’ Robinson – as the headliner for its tribute to Motown. Not that there’s anything wrong with “Jenny from the block”, but she doesn’t represent the genre of music that made the Motown sound famous. I’m sure there are other artists more closely identified with “soul music” but I guess they weren’t considered as “telegenic” or marketable as the leggy Ms. Lopez. What a shame.
A good friend, the late John Skief, used to say, “A people without history is like a person with amnesia.” We should jealously guard who gets to tell our story and how it is being told. When we lose our history we lose that “genetic” material that is so important to be passed from one generation to the next. Imagine the Ancient Order of Hibernians allowing someone else to tell them which Irishman was worthy of remembrance or the Knights of Columbus letting someone else tell the story of Italians for them.
Our history, our story, is one of our most precious possessions. It spans the origin of the species Homo sapiens in East Africa, to the building of the pyramids, to the “discovery” of the New World and the founding of America. Africa, and Africans in the diaspora, can be found in the stories of ancient Greece and Rome and in the plays of William Shakespeare. Judaism, Christianity and Islam all have important links to Africa and African people.
This is not to say that we did everything. But it is to say that our history, our story, is indelibly imprinted upon the human history of the world. To treat it as some separate fraction of humankind is to give it much less credit than its’ due, and to dishonor our ancestors.
We need to celebrate our history as it was made – every day. It is our inheritance and should not be squandered by putting it in the hands of someone else or letting money dictate who gets to represent it. Malcolm taught that just being at the table doesn’t make you a diner, you also have to have something on your plate. If history is a banquet of human events, we deserve a plate full.
Staff Writer; Harry Sewell