Carolyn Cooper | No Black History Month

Carter Woodson, a distinguished African-American historian, author, journalist and cultural activist, launched Negro History Week in February 1926. He chose the second week of February because it coincided with the birthday of both Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln. Woodson was born in 1875 when African-Americans were still known as ‘Negro’ and were suffering all of the horrific consequences of institutionalised racism. In his brilliant book, The Mis-Education of the Negro, he argued that, “When you control a man’s thinking you do not have to worry about his actions. You do not have to tell him not to stand here or go yonder. He will find his ‘proper place’ and will stay in it.”

A fundamental aspect of institutionalised racism is the suppression of the accomplishments of black people. Woodson recognised that every week in America is about white history. So the special focus on black history was conceived as a corrective: putting black people in the national picture. In its time, it was a brilliant idea. Regretfully, it is still relevant. Woodson would be appalled to know that black history is under relentless attack in the US today. Critical race theory has become a contentious term.

The Bloomberg Equality website defines the concept in this way: “Critical race theory, or CRT, proposes that any analysis of American society must take into account its history of racism and how race has shaped attitudes and institutions. It often overlaps with discussions of systemic racism – the ways policies, procedures and institutions work to perpetuate racial inequity even in the absence of personal racial animus.” Sounds like common sense! It is racism plain and simple that makes some Americans completely unwilling to acknowledge their nation’s brutal history of racism and its far-reaching consequences.

The Online Etymology Dictionary defines ‘animus’ as, “‘temper’ (usually in a hostile sense), from Latin animus ‘rational soul, mind, life, mental powers, consciousness, sensibility; courage, desire.” The Bloomberg Equality definition of CRT highlights a crucial distinction between what I call ‘white people as a special interest group’ versus individual white people, with no “personal racial animus,” who are trying their best to come to terms with institutionalised racism. Irrational white people as a group often assume that they are entitled to certain privileges that others should not enjoy. Their animus causes them to attack their presumed inferiors.

“DON’T TAKE THAT FROM US”

In 1986, the US Congress passed Public Law 99-244, which designated February 1986 as ‘National Black (Afro-American) History Month’. Some African-Americans object to the widening of Black History Month to include other black people even in the US. Take for instance the daughter of two of my friends. Her mother is Jamaican and her father is African-American. She posted an impassioned statement on Facebook: : “I’m going to say this.. and I really don’t care that it will upset some people. Black History Month is a celebration of Black American History..Other countries have their own celebrations of BLack History. Black History MOnth is not a time to celebrate blacks of the DIASPORA... It’s to celebrate the actions and accomplishments of BLACK AMERICANS.... We can celebrate the diaspora any other month... NOT during BLACK AMERICAN HISTORY MONTH..... Don’t take that from us... Be MAD if you want to .. I’m here for it..”

That’s a rather narrow view of Black History which I’m sure Carter Woodson would challenge. His vision was broader than the borders of the US. He was one of the first scholars to study the history of the African Diaspora. Including “blacks of the DIASPORA” in the celebration of Black History Month does not subtract from the accomplishments of blacks born in the US. It adds incalculable value. But, even in the US, limiting the focus on black history to one month is problematic. And the shortest month of the year at that!

Black History Month is a completely inadequate substitute for what is really needed: the integration of black people’s history into the official histories of the societies in which we find ourselves. Indeed, black history is not just for black people. Black history is world history. Racism makes some people want to erase other people’s history. The history of black people must be put on the curriculum.

DEAD WOOD

Which brings me to Jamaica. Black history should be fundamental to our collective identity as a nation. It was Marcus Garvey who warned us that, “A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots.” Dead wood – both literally and in the popular Jamaican sense of male impotence. You can create beautiful art out of dead wood. But the tree will no longer produce life.

Believe it or not, history is not a compulsory subject on the curriculum in Jamaica. How could this be? Why do we not want all Jamaican children to know their history? Why are we afraid of the past? On a Schools’ Challenge Quiz some years ago, contestants were asked to name a prophet from August Town. Their answer was Sizzla, their generation’s prophet. It’s not their fault that they didn’t know the ‘right’ answer: Alexander Bedward. The school system had failed them.

Last Friday, Dr Dave Gosse’s brilliant book, Alexander Bedward, the Prophet of August Town: Race, Religion and Colonialism, was launched. The recording is on YouTube at ‘ICS UWI Mona’. Gosse argues that, far from being a madman, Bedward was a powerful black nationalist with a huge following. Like Garvey, he had to be imprisoned. That’s our black history. It’s not about a single month. It’s generations of fierce struggle for full freedom.

- Carolyn Cooper, PhD, is a teacher of English language and literature and a specialist on culture and development. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and karokupa@gmail.com