I dig what she's saying [YOUTUBE]<object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/PDD-6BB2nko&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/PDD-6BB2nko&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>[/YOUTUBE]
I understand what she's saying Andrae, but I don't necessarily agree with her position. There are people who think that by virtue of having Black history month, you call attention to the fact that black people appear different than white people... they see it as divisive, rather than unifying. I get that, however there are people who may never know the contributions of African Americans were it not taught during black history month in school. That's sad and regrettable I know, but it's true. And regardless of whether we celebrate black history month or not, there are people for whom the color of someone's skin is not the first thing they see. Whether we have black history month or not shouldn't have an impact on that. I think the reason there are now months assigned, like those that she described in the video is partly because history in the US tends to focus on white history, which leaves an awful lot out. Were I a non-white child in school I'd probably wonder if my ancestors ever did anything worth mentioning, so for those children I think it's good to call attention to that.
Makes a good point, but I ain't with it. Like Espy said, we tend to learn about white history and a lot of shit is left out. We get the prettied up version of history to learn in schools. I was taught that Christopher Columbus was this great guy when I was younger, and then found out in high school that he wasn't such a great guy. He was a asshole. On top of that, he didn't even discover America first. Gladly, my school stopped celebrating his bullshit ass holiday. We'll get a chapter or two on black history, a chapter on immigrants during the late 1800s or early 1900s, and have 1 paragraph in the chapter dedicated to each race. And only in a perfect world will somebody walk up to somebody and see just their beautiful smile, or innocent eyes. Black history month shouldn't have more of an effect on racism than the attitudes rooted deep in history when explorers were first documenting other races. And on a side note we're always gonna have people say, "how come there isn't a white history month?" Half the people who have asked me that try to act like they are serious, but they are just trying to be smart asses. Every month is white history month in America(unofficially). There is legit reason behind black history month. Hell, I've heard people say "why isn't black power racist?". The girl in the video did make a good point, though. She fucked me up a little when she said whites were "superior", but she just meant more numerous.
My take was that we should just history period. Incorporate the history of every culture into the curriculum. By giving seperate months to learn about a specific people makes them seperate from the whole. Especially black history month because its as much a part of American history as the revolutionary war and the declaration of independence. Its all interwoven and when you get to high school you can should be required to learn about the immigration of all four major continents. The europeans, the africans, the asians, and the Latin americans.
That would be cool. Quite a stretch of hope, but that would be a good idea. This would be an over time situation, though, like an investment, or some shit. Assuming that schools would change their teaching methods on American history(that's a battle in itself), it would take a few generations to have everyone accept that knowledge and take it in, then pass it on to the next, and since we still have plenty of people who are old school and come from the 50s and 60s that will say otherwise, it will be a challenge. And since immigration is such a sensitive topic, there will be that conflict because people aren't gonna wanna learn about immigrants while they're saying "go back home". That teaching method would be better than what we learn, today. Hell, you learn hella different stuff about American history in college. Kinda "the story you weren't supposed to know" type shit. Like about the Civil War not being primarily about slavery n' shit.
Exactly. I don't think immigration would be that tough since we're a nation of immigrants. The last 300 years has been massive immigration to the US from various parts of the world. It might get touchy with latin american immigration but the curriculum is stale and boring. But you're right it might be tough to sell changing the whole program. People are so lazy when it comes to change but its inevitable
I've heard that quite a bit as well BA, and that's got to be one of the most ignorant things to ask. I remember when my daughter was in 2nd grade we were at a family gathering and her grandmother, on her father's side, asked the question 'why do they have to give them their own month? We don't call attention to white history.' Now she's an ignorant, evil soulless bitch, so I always just ignored her stupid ass, but my daughter piped right up with 'because all we talk about the other 11 months of the year is white history.' She then proceeded to give her a rundown of all the things invented by black people that they'd discussed in school. Poor old bat never asked that again. Kinda sad though when a 7 yo girl has to school a 68 yo woman.
