For Black History Month

[Tiberius]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GeixtYS-P3s

[bozo]

I'm struggling with this post. What is the point of it?
A black man doesn't want a black history month and a jewish man doesn't want a jewish history month. That's their choice. Whether they truly represent black and jewish sentiment on the matter, who knows?

[Tiberius]

The point Morgan Freeman was making is that there shouldn't be a black history month in the first place, (1) because you're relegating it to a month, and (2) because black history is American history, and if you teach it as something different, it breeds the idea that black people are different. His point at the end is the more important one; if you stop pointing out the differences in people, you stop the ideas of racism in their tracks; there can be no racism if nobody sees or talks about "race" in the way they do today. Why distinguish between a "white" man and a "black" man? They're both men aren't they?

[Napoléon]

Damn, I was gonna actually go find this vid and post it when I read the title, until I realised that this was the thread. I've always thought he got this spot on.

[bozo]

The point Morgan Freeman was making is that there shouldn't be a black history month in the first place, (1) because you're relegating it to a month, and (2) because black history is American history, and if you teach it as something different, it breeds the idea that black people are different. His point at the end is the more important one; if you stop pointing out the differences in people, you stop the ideas of racism in their tracks; there can be no racism if nobody sees or talks about "race" in the way they do today. Why distinguish between a "white" man and a "black" man? They're both men aren't they?

Freeman is entitled to think whatever he likes about teaching history.
Black and jewish history is particularly painful I suggest, hence the opinions that many black and jewish people hold that it is vitally important to teach it, in the hope that slavery/holocausts do not happen again.
I think his point that you find attractive is fallacious. He is saying if you stop talking about racism then it doesn't exist. Utter simplistic nonsense!

[thesummerqueen]

Except it wasn't just JEWS that died in the holocaust, but also many other groups including homosexuals, gypsies and other undesireables. What then?

I saw a picture with a transcript of a bit of this on Facebook. I'd like to have something more intelligent to say at 7:40 AM but the fact is all I could think about was that I clearly could "hear" Freeman's voice reading his bits. So I remembered this picture:

[Tiberius]

He is saying if you stop talking about racism then it doesn't exist. Utter simplistic nonsense!

No, he didn't say that. He was asked "How do we get rid of racism?", and his answer was "Stop talking about it". His underlying point being that if you stop treating people as though they were different (i.e. constantly referring to people by their skin colour) then our children will grow up in a world where there will be no such thing as a "white man" or a "black man", there will just be "man".

[thesummerqueen]

Okay, shower's done - here's my 2 cents.

It's not enough to say we need to have these "months" in order to learn about Black History...or Jewish history. Or whatever. I promise you: I didn't learn SQUAT outside of a normal historical context during black history month. There were some posters on the wall, but it's a placating mechanism. Give someone a day or a month in which to "raise awareness" and you probably won't have to do anything for a long time. Last year "the blacks" down here were up in arms because we used Martin Luther King Jr Day as a make-up day after all the shitty ice and snow we had - PLUS extending the school year (as in, there were no more days they COULD add to the school year, so a federal holiday had to be used - one in which kids were likely going to be home playing their X-boxes, not visiting the local museum, as only govt employees have off that day which constitutes a minimum of the NC parental population who might take their kids around to such places. Just being honest here - this includes all races. I didn't have off that day regardless).

Anyway, my point is: if you're going to argue that we need to have these awareness months in order to be sure these things never happen again, why don't you take a look at what would ACTUALLY help? Teaching our children to NOT be apathetic about government and social injustice. History is NOT taught in VA schools (at least) in such a way that would encourage children to take an active part in their government to avoid ills that would take away rights. You want the Holocaust not to happen again? You teach your children not to be apathetic about the real causes behind the demise of their former government and not to allow people to slowly gobble up their freedoms (of the press and the like) in order to spread propaganda and consolidate power. You don't allow people like Hitler with an obvious agenda to do what he did. You teach science in your schools so people realize that there isn't a difference between races and religions. You EDUCATE them - truly educate. That is the way to get rid of racism and barbarity.

When I was 10-16, what I learned about the Holocaust at Sunday school was vastly more bloody, horrific and in depth than I ever learned about in regular school. Probably because it happened "to us" and not to most of the children's families living around me, but the fact remains - the school never discussed the violence humans enact against humans except in a watered down format. They don't want to offend anyway just as much as they want to placate everyone. There was little access to "first sources" - like letters from former slaves to their masters, or actually studying Fredrick Douglas's writings. My father went ape-shit during one year of school because they were teaching us from books written by people in Spanish countries that had fallen to fascism and communism and god forbid the liberal school board teach us what it was like to live in such conditions and expose us to the rest of the world. We didn't even have real access or introduction to the writings of our founding fathers - WHICH MIGHT END THIS CHRISTIAN NATION BULLSHIT!!

This is why I can't have kids - I would be a nightmare for the PTA and school board. I can't fucking stand their pandering.

[Rev. Rye]

I remember taking a college class where I had to write an essay on what should be done about Black History Month.

Here are some points I made:
1) Carter Woodson, the originator of Black History Month, back when it was called Negro History Month, actually intended that, someday, it would become redundant when historians recognised that Black History is American History and integrate it into the curriculum as such.
2) Black history won't become obscure; it has reached the point where it's studied in the other 11 months of the year, so there's little chance it will be.
3) It celebrates race, which is an illusory social construct that has done much harm. Citing the Morgan Freeman video above, calling attention to race simply perpetuates the idea that there are two inherently distinct "races" of man.

[Tiberius]

Citing the Morgan Freeman video above, calling attention to race simply perpetuates the idea that there are two inherently distinct "races" of man.

The last point is particularly important, since there is no "latino" history month, or "asian" history month, despite the fact that racism can be applied to those races as well. If anything, we need to teach that there are different races of people, but they are no more distinct that people of different hair colour, or eye colour, etc.