In 2013 I wrote the post below and shared it with friends and posted it here at Mind on Fire. It seems like this is a good time to post it once again.
Black History Month
By: Bob Withers
January 21, 2013
In some ways whites need Black
History Month more than African-Americans. At the least whites need Black
History Month as much as blacks. (We need Indian History Month too, but that’s
another article.)
It’s difficult to talk about
history these days for history has become a tool for political, and sometimes
religious, agendas. Perhaps it has always been this way for those in power
require myths to sustain their power; they require legitimization, a historical
fiction to justify their position. Usually the fiction is a mix of fact and
lie, and sometimes the lie is a lie that people actually think is true,
especially second and subsequent generations of power holders. People often
think these lies are true because they don’t question them, they don’t ask, “Is
this true? Does this really make sense? Is this the whole picture?” It is
easier to go along to get along, especially if the power structure either
benefits you or is no threat to you.
It is also difficult to talk
about history because in the West we live in a post-modern culture. Because
post-modernity views events and ideas in isolation from each other, because it
does not insist that there be correspondence and coherence and a systemic
matrix when viewing art or music or philosophy or education or politics or history,
we don’t have a cognitive or emotional problem when we are confronted with
facts or narratives that are contradictory, for we live in a society of
contradictions, e.g. what a politician says at 10:00 A.M. will have a new spin
at 1:00 P.M. and yet another spin at 4:00 P.M. and still another spin at 8:00
P.M. and as long as we support the politician we gloss over the spins. All of
this to say that history need not make sense to us and that we don’t see the
value in seeking coherence and correspondence in history.
The night before the 2012 St.
Patrick’s Day a collegiate basketball player with an Irish name made a winning
shot for his team; the headlines read “Kyle O’Quinn makes winning shot on eve
of St. Patrick’s Day”. These headlines were accompanied by a photo of the
player making the shot; the photo was of an African – American; no one
apparently saw a need to stop and consider the facts before them, an Irish
name, a black player – behold post-modernity. Were we to go back to this
basketball player’s family 300 years ago it is not likely that its surname
would have been O’Quinn.
During the week of St. Patrick’s
Day last year a conversation in our office went like this:
Sam, “Well, St. Patrick’s Day is
coming up, Susan, are you Irish?”
“No, I don’t think so. I think
I’ve got German and English in me but I’m not really sure.”
Sam, “How about you, Frank, you
must have some Irish?”
“I might have some, but I don’t
really know.”
Sam, “Well Kelly, with a name
like Kelly O’Shea you’ve got to be Irish.”
“You’ve got that right, in fact
I’m the only girl in the family without red hair.”
Sam, “And Veronica, what about
you, do you have any Irish in you?”
Veronica smiled, looked at her
arm, pinched it and said, “Well, I guess I’m Black.” Veronica is an
African-American.
Veronica could not say, “My roots
are West African, or East African, or South African, nor could she refer to a
particular clan within a region or modern nation in Africa, she could not refer
to her lineage in ethnic terms such as Irish, or Scot, or English, or German,
or French, or Italian, or Spanish, or Cherokee, or Mattaponi; she could only
pinch her skin and say, “I guess I’m Black.”
I’ve heard white folk say, “Why
should there be a Black History month? There isn’t an Italian History month, or
an Irish History month.” But there is a difference, to be Italian or French or
Scot is, historically speaking, to be white European – and while European
subcultures may have much in common, they also have distinctions, and to have a
White History month makes no sense because of the identifiable diversity of
European subcultures. On the other hand, while rich cultures are indeed on the
African Continent, African - Americans generally cannot trace their individual
lineages across the Atlantic to African subcultures.
It would be as if
Europeans were brought here as slaves, intermarried as slaves, lived as slaves
for hundreds of years, and then achieved freedom. After generations of
intermarriage would whites be able to say, “I’m Italian, I’m Irish, I’m
Polish”? Look at historical examples of intermarriage among certain ethnic
groups in Europe, can the average white citizen of England tell whether he is
Anglo, or Saxon, or Norman? I imagine most are amalgamations of these and other
ethnic groups. Suppose inhabitants of the United Kingdom had been transported
elsewhere as slaves and intermarried and lived as slaves for generations –
would they be able to identify whether they originally came from Scotland or
Wales or England, or of any of the subdivisions of these lands?
To white people who ask, “Why
should there be a Black History month?” I also add the fact that if a white
American wants to trace his ancestry that he has a fair chance of doing so;
even though few white Americans really care about their lineage at least they
have a choice and a chance of tracing genealogical lines back to Europe – that
is an option open to few of our black fellow citizens.
Europeans, whether they are
Europeans in what is now the United States, or Europeans in the Caribbean and South
America, robbed the ethnic identities of Africans when they brought them to the
Americas as slaves – what they have remaining is the racial identity of being
black.
Beyond the issue of ethnic identity
is the issue of heritage and history, and here is where political agendas can
wreak havoc on objectivity, here is where discussions occur in minefields.
We are approaching the 400th
anniversary of the first Africans being brought to the English colonies as
slaves. While acknowledging that a section of North America was first colonized
by Dutch and French, and then later by Germans, it is fair to say that what we
know as the Original Thirteen Colonies were English colonies. Now consider that
in North America the Irish have lived alongside the English for less than 400
years, as have the Italians, as have the Poles, as have the Jews, as have the
Swedes – and yet more history is taught about these Europeans and their
contributions to the United States of America than is taught about Africans who
have lived alongside the English for almost 400 years. Is this objective
history?
I sometimes hear whites say, “Well,
Europeans have always oppressed each other. That’s history. Look at all the
European wars down the centuries. Look at the English starving the Irish in the
1800s. Look at the conditions of the English working-class into the 20th
Century.” It is as if the speaker is saying, “We’ve had to deal with these
things down through the ages, blacks need to learn to deal with these things
too.” And to all of this I say that here is yet another example of why all
history should be read through the lens of Romans 3:23, “All have sinned and
fallen short of the glory of God.” We need to look at ourselves, at our own
nation, and not at others. The fact that injustice has been perpetrated
elsewhere does not excuse our nation nor should it permit us to gloss over our
own history.
A difference between looking at
oppression in Europe and oppression in America is that we are Americans, it is
our history we are talking about; not England’s or France’s or Germany’s. And
while we may get goose bumps at hearing the words, “We hold these truths to be
self-evident, that all men are created equal…” the fact is that not all men
have been treated equally, the fact is that there is a bloody and oppressive
stain on our history that did not end with the Civil War.
Whether lynchings in the South, or
race riots in both North and South; or economic, political, social, and
educational disenfranchisement throughout the country, most white Americans,
including me, have no sense of the deep injustice and pain inflicted on our
fellow black Americans. But our need as European - Americans for learning Black
History is much more than awakening an awareness of the evil side of history,
it is also about realizing the contributions of black Americans – whether
educators or scientists or poets and authors; or soldiers, sailors and airmen;
or spiritual leaders. For me, perhaps more than anything, learning Black
History is a lesson in courage and inspiration.
I cannot read about the Freedom
Riders or watch video about them without weeping at the hate they endured and
being awed by their courage. The story of the Civil Rights Movement is a story
of courage as worthy of telling as any story in American history. How unarmed
men and women and children could expose themselves to physical harm and
possible death in a nonviolent manner is courage second to none; it is moral
and spiritual courage impelling physical courage. How children and teenagers
and college students could walk into schools filled with hate demands my
admiration; and how parents could support their children integrating schools of
hate – knowing what their children would face – is a lesson to all parents that
giving our children a moral vision in a cesspool society can be done if we have
the will to do it.
To the white person who says, “Look
at this or that in Dr. King’s life or in Thurgood Marshall’s life – how can you
admire a man who did this or that?” My reply is not only that they were sinners
like the rest of us, but give me any white person who we place on a historical
– leadership pedestal and I can likely demonstrate that they too were sinners,
they too were imperfect, they too did things that we would not instruct our children
to do. Of course the best answer is to look in the mirror and consider our own
sins and imperfections. After looking in the mirror then we can ask ourselves,
“How does my moral courage compare with Dr. King or Justice Marshall?”
In a society that takes the easy
way out we need the example of the steady moral courage of Dr. Martin Luther
King, Jr. In a society characterized by violent deeds and rhetoric we need the
nonviolent irenic example of Dr. King and the Civil Rights Movement. In a
country where race is often still an issue we need to be reminded that Dr. King
was concerned about people of all colors and nationalities – many people don’t
know this. (I use Dr. King as a representative of the thousands of courageous
men and women in cities and towns and rural areas who demonstrated courage and
moral vision during the Civil Rights Movement and its precursors).
As I bring this piece to a close I
want to also say that blacks need Black History Month too; it saddens me that
many of my African – American coworkers don’t know about the Civil Rights
Movement; King and Marshall and Vernon Johns and Ralph Abernathy and Rosa Parks
and the Howard Law School are just names when they could be icons and saints,
sources of inspiration, examples of courage.
And lastly, the American church
could particularly learn from Dr. King, for our political polarization has
resulted in angry rhetoric and thinking, a poison that colors life and kills
compassion for our neighbor; politically – polarized white people in the
professing church need Black History Month for we need a better way to live and
witness, a way that shows us that we can peacefully disagree with others…even
if it means suffering…even if it means death. If we want to talk about
entitlements perhaps we should examine whether we think we are entitled not to
suffer – that is not something that Dr. King subscribed to.
[There are many video documentaries
on the Civil Rights Movement, among them I highly recommend Freedom Riders,
part of the American Experience series on PBS; and Dr. King’s appearance on the
Mike Douglas Show. Thurgood Marshall: American Revolutionary, by Juan Williams,
is both a compelling biography and a portrayal of the Civil Rights Movement –
this is not hagiography, Williams portrays Marshall with warts and blemishes;
but picture yourself with Marshall if you read this book, would you have the
courage to stand with him?]
