Why I don't celebrate Black History Month -- Even Though I'm Black

We're getting in the middle of Black History Month, and once again we are treated to different visages of cultural ass-kissing -- yes, ass-kissing -- from various sources of the mainstream media. Of course, there's going to be some white conservatives out there that's going to circulate the infamous quotations of Morgan Freeman in his 60 Minutes interview from a few years back when he dispelled his support for Black History Month.

There's two reasons why I don't really like Black History Month: for one, I resent that it fosters the belief that we should only give a damn about black history only one month or a few weeks out of the entire year. In fact, I resent that same idea for all various demographic divisions that humanity has concocted for I am a strong believer that historical awareness should have no boundaries in length of time. History is a beautiful thing and it necessary to be consistently and constantly aware of it so that we have a greater understanding of the present and enhanced perspective as to what we think or hope for in the future.

The second part is the ass-kissing and I'm going to limit this part to this diatribe to only Black History Month even though it could be universally applied to any "Insert Demographic Here" History/Awareness/Only-Give-A-Damn-About-It-Right-Now Month. We're going to see numerous specials, numerous commercials, and schools are going to make numerous announcements in commemoration of black history, and then it's mostly quiet for an entire year afterward. What makes me more of upset that it is largely regurgitation only exploring household names with a little bit of a curtly nod to the less celebrated. We often talk of tirelessly of the work that Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X during Civil Rights Movement, but even during this month, we don't hear much of the work and sacrifice that W.E.B. du Bois, Marcus Garvey, Ralph Abernathy, James Baldwin, Clyde Kennard, James Meredith, Medgar Evers, Claudette Colvin, and others did during those turbulent years. You'll hear of Langston Hughes, a fine author in his own right, but why wait until college to hear about Ralph Ellison and August Wilson?

I understand the awareness which is mainly the purpose that Black History Month serves, and while that is a fair assessment, I still believe that the history of our people, both here in the United States and abroad, is worth way more than just 28 days (or 29 days in a leap year) of conscious groveling that will all but cease on the first of March.