This week marks the second week of February and the 2nd week of black history month and as people with African roots celebrate their heritage and the history of their people, you may have heard or seen remarks about why Black History month still matters if black people are free and treated like an equal to white people.
Although it may seem like a genuine question, it comes off as a dog whistle for racists who don’t think black people deserve a month to themselves. You can see the same energy around LGBT month in June and people asking why to celebrate that and not male mental health. It’s safe to remember that most of historic moments for black people didn’t even happen 100 years ago and many black people who were involved in civil right movements either recently died or are still alive. It wasn’t that long ago which is why this month is so important to black people.
Colored pictures became a common thing in the 1930s and Martin Luther King JR’s “I had a dream speech” happened on August 28th, 1968, and yet most pictures from the moment are all in black and white and there’s very few pictures of it in color. This tactic is used to fool the youth into believing that the dehumanization and torture of black lives was way long ago than what it was. That’s way the Black Lives Matter movement came as such a shock to people because to them, racism was already gone and black people got their rights already. The countermovement of All Live Matters to people protesting about the death of black people to the hands of cops is a more clear example of trying to downplay and sugarcoat reality of black people.
The most talked about story when it comes to lynching is a young black boy named Emmett Till, he was abducted and lynched after a white woman lied about him flirting with her at a grocery store. His face was so mauled that people couldn’t even recognize him and his mother made the brave decision to have an open-casket funeral to show the public what happened to him. This story still matters and is important because lynchings and hate crimes on black people still happen and his death sparked attention to racial violence happening in Mississippi across the U.S. Black history month help people get educated and spread awareness of past and current oppression of black people.
Asking why Black History Month exist is like asking why women month exist, sexual assault awareness month exist. Although it’s common sense that women deserve rights and people who experienced sexual violence deserve to be heard and seen, it’s best to get educated on how it was able to happen and how the patriarchy that centers white men affects marginalized communities.
Black history month is so important and still currently matters because every year, we’re shown another hate crime case that has happened before in history currently being repeated. Even now, a lot of people don’t know why and how black face is harmful. Or why black artists are always being robbed of awards. With the recent trend of people trying to make others look crazy for having political conversations under the guise of “not everything have to be political” especially in nerdy online spaces where excluding black people seems to be a primary rule, it’s good to have a month to understand history and how far we’ve come with human rights for black people and any other minority.
