BHM… a pointless gesture

 
To the reader: This is the only warning for what you are about to read. The following commentary contains content that may be offensive to some of those militant black history buffs. May cause a sense of color confusion, denial, anger and sporadic outbursts into tears …
 
Now that that is out the way on to the real.
Black History Month is a pointless gesture to have.
Why on earth would we want to be confined to just one month in the year, let alone the shortest one?
If one remembers correctly, black history is a crucial part of American history. Are we we not guaranteed the right to be a part of history like all other American citizens? Even if we didn’t get that right from being freed from slavery you can’t deny the achievements made by black Americans that have moved this country … better yet this world.
Now that I think about it, a large percentage of historical black events didn’t even occur in February. The only argument people have is that Carter G. Woodson created Negro History Week to mark the birthdays of both Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass, but that’s about it.
I am all for preserving our history, but I don’t like the idea of creating a month for us to focus on it. Black history is something that should be celebrated year-round, not just in February when you designate a certain amount of time to anything devalues its significance in one’s mind.
A prime example is a book report that has a deadline set three months after it was given. We know it’s important to get it done, but we put that assignment on the backburner because of its time restraint. However, a week before it is due we all scatter about like roaches with the light flicked on because now it is important (we have all done this).
When the time restraint is small, we put all our focus on it. But when it was larger, we forgot about it but all we had to was a little here and a little there we would have done much better on that report and probably learned much more.
We should be constantly celebrating black history so that we might actually learn more than the fact that Martin Luther King Jr. had a dream. We might learn about Hattie McDaniel or Henry Blair, who were both very vital pieces to our history.
We also need to teach our kids that there is no difference in black history and American history; we all had a hand in making this world the way it is now.
To me, Morgan Freeman said it right in his 60-minute interview: “I don’t want a Black History Month. Black history is American history.”