End Black History Month? I Beg to Differ

Almost everywhere you go, you hear people saying now that there's a black president, there couldn't possibly be any intolerance, bigotry or racism in this country because we've proved it by electing a black president, hence black people should shut up complaining about anything that has to do with race.

As much as I enjoy her writing, Detroit Free Press columnist Rochelle Riley in her most recent entry, entitled Now's the Time to End Black History Month somehow gives foundation to the extremists (read: nutjobs) who insist the above is true.

But her call to drop the yearly observances and instead embrace a Kum Ba Yah-flavored, sensibility toward our society is something I can't agree with -- not in the real world. ...

Our History Remembered

February 1, 1865
According to the African-American Registry:"John Rock became the first African-American attorney to practice before the Supreme Court. Rock was formerly a dentist and justice of the peace in Boston."

Manuel Balce Ceneta, AP

February 1, 1948
Recording artist Rick James was born James Ambrose Johnson, Jr. in Buffalo, New York. Considered one of the top pop songwriters and balladeers of the '80s, James also starred in an episode of 'The A Team' playing himself.

February 5, 1934
Henry Louis "Hank" Aaron was born in Mobile, Alabama. Aaron is a legend for transitioning from playing in the Negro Leagues into baseball's mainstream, while at the same time maintaining a consistently high level of play during his lengthy career.

February 1, 1902
Writer James Langston Hughes was born in Joplin, Missouri. One of the most influential artists of the Harlem Renaissance, Hughes is famous for celebrating black life in his works and incorporating jazz into the aesthetics of his art.

Hulton Archive, Getty Images

February 2, 1995
Dr. Bernard Harris, Jr. became the first African-American to walk in space, fulfilling his childhood dream.

NASA / AP

February 7, 1966
Comedian, actor and director Chris Rock was born in Andrews, South Carolina, but raised in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. After some false starts, Rock's career took off after his stand-up special 'Bring the Pain' (1996), for which he won two Emmys.

Julie Jacobson, AP

February 7, 1883
Music great Eubie Blake was born in Baltimore, Maryland. The Library of Congress states: "Eubie Blake was one of the most important figures in early-20th-century African-American music, and one whose longevity made him a storehouse of the history of ragtime and early jazz music and culture."

Tom Copi, Michael Ochs Archives / Getty Images

February 4, 1913
Civil rights icon Rosa Parks was born in Tuskegee, Alabama. Among the hundreds of honors she received for her service to humanity, Parks was given the Medal of Freedom Award by President Clinton in 1996.

Gene Herrick, AP

February 4, 1999
African immigrant Amadou Diallo was killed by four New York City police officers in the vestibule of his apartment, while unarmed. The officers never faced any charges for the incident.

February 6, 1945
Reggae legend Bob Marley was born Nesta Robert Marley in the village of Nine Mile in Saint Ann Parish, Jamaica. An artist whose works have had a deep, international influence, Marley's 'Exodus' (1977) was named the best album of the 20th century by Time magazine.

Paul Natkin, WireImage

Actually I met Rochelle once very briefly some time ago, and felt she's a smart woman, so this isn't a personal shot at her at all. But as much as I get dissed for the things I write here, I'm sure she knows everybody takes their shots.

I propose that, for the first time in American history, this country has reached a point where we are can stop celebrating separately, stop learning separately, stop being American separately. We have reached a point where most Americans want to gain a larger understanding of the people they have not known, customs they have not known, traditions they have not known.

Who's celebrating separately? Last time I checked, there's about as much stopping other people from observing Black History Month as there is stopping me from celebrating Cinco De Mayo or anyone else from wearing green on St. Patrick's Day. In fact, every time there's a cultural or ethnic observance in this country people go out of their way to be a part of it no matter where their grandparents came from. Why is it that there are calls for us to forget about ours?

Carter G. Woodson, who founded the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History is one of the first scholars to attach importance to the role of black people in America's history. Had it not been for him, there may well be people still walking around denying our contributions not only to this nation, but to world civilization in general.

In fact, before him, most archaeologists were still teaching that Egypt was not part of Africa.

Anyway in 1926 he came up with the idea of observing a "Negro History Week" to coincide with the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass -- the two historical figures most respected by black people in those days. A public school and college educator, Woodson recognized the need for both recognition of black contributions as well as for children to learn more about their own backgrounds. He later expounded on both in his 1933 book The Mis-Education of the Negro.

In 1976, educators began to utilize teaching tools about African Americans so much, that a call began to expand the week to a month, and we've made observances of black contributions great and small ever since.

Fast forward 33 years, and Riley asks us to forget about it, and start a cultural love-in. That's fine and dandy, and I'm the first to call for complete strangers to walk up to each other in the street and start French kissing. I've been a student of multiculturalism for a long time, and it certainly goes a long way to encourage tolerance in an intolerant society.

But at the same time, I really, really dig being black. I hate it when people tell me "I don't see your color." Screw that! The first thing I expect you to see when you look at me is that I'm a black man. That doesn't mean we can't be friends, that doesn't mean we can't date. That doesn't mean you're not welcome to trade ideas and ideals with me.

But I am who I am and I don't apologize for that.

To me, the whole "melting pot" theory of America is a crock (no pun intended). If you want to use analogies like that, then look at it this way: if you melt together a variety of metals like aluminum, iron, copper, brass, etc. you get a strange alloy that no metalsmith would have any use for. The consistency is poor because each metal has different properties; none of them bad, just different.

But if you take aluminum and use it for say, building power lines; iron for construction; copper for electrical conductivity; and brass for machinery, then you find that each is important, has a specific and equal value, can be used interactively, and when integrated, use for two or more can be beneficial.

But you wouldn't know the usefulness for any of them if you did not study them and know what their physical composition was.

That's the point Riley's missing: black folk are one of America's important, strong metals. If we do not keep an understanding of our strength and our qualities, then that sets a precedent where we start forgetting about the strengths of the other metals or why metals are so important in manufacturing in the first place.

Before long, America becomes an old, rusty scrap heap, bewildered as to why it is slowly, painfully corroding from within.

So let's keep celebrating Black History Month, and accept invitations to celebrate the cultures and heritages of others as well. If you want to build a strong bridge across a wide river, then you need to understand the uses of all the components you're building with.