The Demise of Black History Month

Or Denying the Justice of Reparations

By Junious Ricardo Stanton

On February 22 I went to a county facility to attend a seminar and was shocked to see they had St. Patrick's Day Shamrocks up already. As I wandered through the building looking for the conference meeting rooms, I saw nothing denoting Black History Month. I thought about it once I got home and it dawned on me since the historic 2001 Durban Conference on Racism and Xenophobia, there has been a falling off of acknowledging and celebrating Black History Month. I suspect this is the result of deliberate political decisions based upon not wanting Africans in AmeriKKKa to rally around the issue of Reparations and to minimize racial antagonism and hostilities as AmeriKKKa mounts it's imperialist agenda under the guise of a War on Terrorism. 

As most of you know Black History Month is an outgrowth of Negro History Week which was initiated by the venerable ancestor Carter G. Woodson who founded the Association For the Study of Negro Life and History. In 1926 Woodson lobbied and organized a week to stress the study and appreciation of African people's accomplishments in AmeriKKKa during a time when white AmeriKKKa was still teaching black folks had no history, we came from nothing and contributed nothing to the human cultural mosaic. Woodson was a stalwart at debunking Euro-centric lies and documenting the ingeniousness of African people. His efforts to encourage us to honor ourselves and our accomplishments took root and in 1976 Negro History Week was expanded and renamed Black History Month.

In their effort to keep us in a state of culturally induced amnesia and self-hatred much of the material culled for study and promotion by whites ( and their Negro sycophants) in their books and educational systems reinforced the existing status quo of Eurocentric white supremacy. For example they fiercely resist the Afrocentric movement's efforts to reclaim Kemet as an African civilization. To give us heroes they hold up for emulation people like Crispus Attucks and Colin Powell but not Nat Turner or Sonny Carson. They promote Frederick Douglas but not Martin R. Delaney. They lionize Ralph Bunche but not an A. Phillip Randolph, Charles Houston, or Elijah Muhammad. 

In 2001 white supremacy was on the ropes as never before. The Reparations movement blew up and went international. At the United Nations Conference Against Racial Discrimination and Xenophobia in Durban, South Africa. Africans from all over the world converged on Durban with the sole purpose of having the trans-Atlantic Slave Trade declared a Crime Against Humanity and setting the stage for dialogue about restitution and reparations for the Maafa. The U.S. and Israel pulled out of the conference with their tails between their legs lamely refusing even to engage in dialogue, thus aligning themselves against truth, justice, and reconciliation. Africans worldwide felt a sense of empowerment as our issues were pushed to the forefront for the first time on a global stage. Then came September 11 and our issues were kicked to the curb as Bush and Co bum rushed their fascist agenda to expropriate the world's oil and energy supplies under cover of the media induced psychological trauma of 9-11.

Immediately after 9-11 the focus shifted to toeing the Bush Line, "You are either with us or against us." His rhetoric allowed AmeriKKKa to duck and dodge the pressure activists were bringing for AmeriKKKa's role in the slave trade, her subsequent policies of racial caste and oppression. Bush and the media shut our issues down along with any dissent against the administration's launch of their campaign of perpetual war. Remember during the 2001 Christmas season there were almost no references whatsoever to "Peace on Earth Good Will Towards Man" because the media played up the revenge factor so Bush & Co. could bomb Afghanistan to smithereens. Clear Channel, the media giant that owns over 1200 radio stations, even put out a memo forbidding the playing of peace songs following 9-11. And on it went.

In order to galvanize support and minimize any issues that could derail Bush's psychological ploy to unite the nation behind his fascist agenda Black History has been curtailed. Except for last year's HBO's The Middle Passage and this year's HBO's Slave Narratives very few programs were aired nationally seriously examining AmeriKKKan race issues or history.

Ironically as hyped as Africans were in 2001 following the Durban Conference, we allowed 9-11 to take the wind out of our sails and we dropped the ball by failing to keep our issues front and center. Part of this is because of the intimidation factor, being overwhelmed by the pro-war PR and media propaganda; not wanting to be singled out as unpatriotic. However we must remember AmeriKKKa has never embraced us, or had our interests at heart, never not even during the so called Civil Rights era.

Racism and xenophobia are on the rise as the war drums get louder. Many of us are waiting to see just how the war and AmeriKKKa's morph into a police state will play out. We can not sit on the sidelines, we must be active resisters! What we fail to realize is, we of all people (along with the Native Americans) have experienced both overt and subtle terrorism at the hands of AmeriKKKan white men and women! This is an integral part of our experiences and history in AmeriKKKa. Not to acknowledge this is to negate our history. 

We must tell and share this story, not only during the shortest month of the year, no disrespect to Carter G. Woodson and the Association For the Study of Negro Life and History, but every day. As we have seen during the recent Lott debacle, racism and deceit are still the order of the day. We can't afford not to celebrate our history of struggle. If we become too complacent, lulled into being lethargic, given AmeriKKKa's history of genocide against us, we may not survive to create history for our great grandchildren to study.

POSITIVELY BLACK 2/22/03