I am a product of the Cincinnati Public Schools and had black history crammed down my throat from kindergarten through my senior year. It went beyond February but February was the worst. I recall being taught that white people boarded boats, sailed to Africa and then captured Africans with big nets like you would capture butterflies.
I’m not saying we shouldn’t recognize achievements of black Americans or not study slavery or the civil rights movement. It should be covered under the course of American history studies like everything else.
A separate month separates us. We are all Americans and this is just part of American history.
Veterans don’t even get a full month and they are the most deserved of such a thing.
A very good read on this subject is “Rediscovering Black Conservatism” by Lee H. Walker, a senior fellow with the Heartland Institute. Walker makes exactly the same point about Booker T. Washington. Washington preached economic freedom from slavery and Jim Crow. He knew that without education, skill, hard work and the other conservative values we cherish, there could be no independent underpinning for black Americans to realize the American Dream.
However, marxists hijacked the black movement, starting with W.E.B. DuBois, in the early 20th Century. They preached (irony intended) that blacks should pursue political “freedom” through government intervention and ignored economic freedom through personal effort and accountability. Washington knew that by relying on government for political “freedom” without an economic base, DuBois was only selling his people into a new and different kind of slavery.
Washington was far more perceptive than people give him credit and in the end, he was right. DuBois’ successors have become the foremen on the new government plantation, lording over the welfare slavery of their institutionally ignorant people.
Can’t wait for July (White History Month)
Time for some non-PC facts:
Every historical culture/civilization has had slaves.
Blacks captured and sold other blacks in Africa.
White Christians spurred and completed the movement to make slavery unacceptable worldwide.
Here’s Morgan Freeman on black history month.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FO214IFRW1M
I’ve always loved him as an actor, his movies are awesome. Now I have another reason to love him.
btt