Continuing the Conversation: Black History Month

A few weeks ago I wrote a short post asking what my readers thought about Black History Month. What is the purpose of the month, and has it been effective?

I received mixed responses, which were a good representation of the different conversations I’ve been a part of, as well as the articles and interviews I’ve read about Black History Month. There seems to be no consensus about whether Black History Month is a good thing, or whether it has been effective.

Black History Month was first Negro History Week, started by Carter G. Woodson, a historian and author. He felt that the history of Black folks in the U.S. wasn’t being represented, and he hoped Negro History Week would be a tool for education. This began in 1926 and in 1976, Negro History Week was expanded to Black History Month. February was selected because it’s the month when Frederick Douglass & Abraham Lincoln were born (insert joke here about February also being the shortest month of the year).

NY Times article: 4 Years After Black History Panel’s Birth, Its Work Is Still Deferred

I was born in the late 1970’s, was a child of the 1980’s and a teen in the 1990’s. I don’t know what Black History Week/Month was like before then, or what impact it had on education and society. I can say that as a White, middle class girl in a mid-sized city in the Southern Midwest, I got a lot out of Black History Month. I can’t say I remember all the facts I was taught – just as I can’t remember all the facts I was taught in my “regular” history lessons. However, what did stick was the idea that there are people in my community, country and world, who haven’t been given credit for the positive work they’ve accomplished, and whose oppression has been downplayed and overlooked. I probably can’t give all the credit to Black History Month; I seem to be drawn to these issues no matter who is involved. Still, Black History Month made an impression on me and I know it helped introduce the idea to a lot of my peers that the average American isn’t hearing the full story of what went on in our nation’s history.

Is that all Black History Month was supposed to do? Maybe so. Did Woodson know it could only be a place to start? Did he believe his week would be able to turn our society upside down and fix all the ills we have in regard to racism? I don’t know the answer to these questions. I do know that Black History Month hasn’t fixed everything.

So – where did Black History Month go wrong? Or, where did WE go wrong with Black History Month? If Black History Month was never supposed to be capable of fixing all our racism issues, what else needs to happen? Is Black History Month actually holding us back from certain progress, because people think it’s proof we’ve learned all we need to learn?

I look forward to exploring these questions in the future, here on my blog. I hope you’ll join the conversation!

Black History Month: What's the Point?

My computer ate my original post, so with this re-write I'm going to be really brief:

What, in your opinion, is the purpose of Black History Month? Why is it around? Do you think it has been effective in its mission?

I plan to re-visit this topic a few times and it will probably lead to other related topics.

**note - I do have opinions on this topic . . . just hoping to get a little feedback first before I share my point of view. If you're looking for an idea of my perspective, click on the "race" and "racism" tags at the bottom of this entry**

Disclaimer - I know race can be a scary topic to discuss, so let me be clear - this is a safe zone to talk! I honestly don't think anything inflammatory is going to go on in the comments to this blog, but if you're hesitant to say anything because you think I or someone else will flame you - know that I don't get down with that stuff. I like to talk about these difficult topics but I don't think being mean is productive. Even when disagreeing, I try to do so respectfully.

Unnatural Causes

There is a series on PBS that I’ve caught portions of from time to time. It’s called “Unnatural Causes: is inequality making us sick?” That link will take you to the show site which has more information including videos, transcripts, other sites, articles.

The series as a whole looks at different groups & from different perspectives: Louisville, KY and people in low, middle & upper class – who gets sicker and who stays healthier . . . Why are infant mortality rates of African Americans twice that of Whites . . . Populations who have the highest rate of Type II Diabetes . . . communities that have lost industries seeing health issues skyrocket . . . Marshall Islanders whose lives were affected when the U.S. began using their outer islands for extensive nuclear testing after WWII (seriously, does this not make you say a huge WTF?!?!) . . .

A while back I saw the episode on Type II Diabetes and one of the industry episodes (there are 2, the 2nd one focuses on a Michigan manufacturing town).

The population with the highest rate of Type II Diabetes in the world are Native American tribes in Arizona, the Pima and Tohono O’odham. Researchers tie the rise in the disease to the water from the Gila River being cut off from them, as it was navigated to new settlements upriver by newcomers (who had new U.S. laws on their side). Basically they were no longer able to grow food (something they were previously able to do even in their dessert, through complex irrigation techniques) and eventually had to depend solely on “commodity food” from the government. Picture warehouses of Sam’s & Costco sized food packages of things like canned meat, chips, white bread, lard . . . little to no veggies or fruits & certainly not fresh – all canned. This went on for 100 years or so, it wasn’t until the last decade that fresh food was sent. On their entire reservation there is only one small grocery store with a tiny produce section.

It also mentioned that populations who have the highest rates of Type II Diabetes (African Americans and Aboriginal people in Australia were also mentioned) tend to be people who have been displaced from their original habitat. Makes sense – suddenly they no longer are able to find/grow/eat their usual foods and have to “make do” with what they can find or that is provided for them. Consider how today’s “soul foods” are tied to the leftover foods that were tossed to slaves, and how these foods have now become a part of African American heritage & culture. When looking at the Native groups, it was mentioned that “fry bread” is actually not a food that native peoples ever ate – it comes from the commodity food staples that were provided by the government after water supply was cut off – flour, lard, refined sugar . . .

The next episode moved to Richmond, California and looked at the Southeast Asian community there and the high rate of heart disease and other health problems that are exacerbated by the level of stress the residents feel from living in poverty. Their story was used to explain how low-income communities not only have to deal with the regular problems that everyone has to deal with, but that they have less RESOURCES to solve the problems, or to manage their health in relation to the problems. It went into a description of the way stress affects the body and what health problems often come from people who are feeling stress all day long.

Richmond was a war boom town (WWII) but when the war was over, industries left Richmond so many people moved from the city and out to the suburbs. The problem is that the only people approved for home loans were middle-income whites, so low-income whites and ALL people of color had to either relocate entirely, or stay within Richmond which was almost deserted and didn’t have an economy to support good schools, health services, public services, etc. If you’ve read The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, the community in that book is very similar to Richmond. The family focused on in this episode attempted to move out of Richmond but couldn't afford it. Their daughter was later murdered by a gang member who thought she was someone else. The father had a major heart attack due to his heart disease and even working will put too much strain on him to heal - they don't know how their family will survive without his income.

Lastly the special focused on High Point which was a neighborhood in Seattle that was also a war-boom area, set up with “temporary housing” back in the 40s, to house industrial workers. The war ended, industries shut down, but the workforce had nowhere to go so they stayed in the sub-par housing which was still standing 60 years later (hardly temporary). High Point was able to turn things around, though – community activists got together and fought for grant money (possibly also state or federal funding but I can’t remember for sure) and were able to tear down the bad housing and build new housing as well as community services like parks, community centers, clinics, gardens . . .

Unfortunately most low-income people are not used to having a voice or power and they are trained to not expect much or that if they try only the exceptional will be successful, so there are more Richmonds than High Points.

This stuff . . . not just specifically health, but all aspects of life which are affected by being poor, disenfranchised, uneducated, dis-counted, ignored, oppressed, etc. . . . this is what I have a passion for. I’m not sure how it will all work out, but this is the stuff I want to spend the rest of my life fighting and helping to change.