It is a strategic and psychological mistake to continue to allow our history to be compartmentalized and commodified in general; and suicidal to allow it to be done within a system that is oppressing and exploiting us. After a century of forced illiteracy and isolation from your historical home, it may have been necessary to present our history within focused pockets of time and dates. I can appreciate the need for a Negro History Week or Black History Month within the era it emerged. We were emerging from Reconstruction falling into Jim Crow; information and techniques of research were limited. We didn’t have the power or resources to advance our history by broader means. It was about building pride and connection back then. I give thanks to Carter G. Woodson for his insight and contribution to our advancement as a people. He initiated the appropriate action at the appropriate time in history.
Today, after over a half-century of “full freedom” and literacy we should be integrating our history into every aspect of our lives. We should be funding research and institutions dedicated to reveling and studying our history. We should be recreating the great achievements of our history and surpassing them! We should be independently funding memorials for our slaughtered and enslaved ancestors. We should be building dedicated museums and libraries with our own goddamn resources and know-how at this point. We should be giving Black students grants to travel the world to study and then publishing their findings within our own academic journals, printed from our own presses. The paper should be coming from our own mills, cut from the sustainable forest we planted and cultivated! There is no excuse! Black History Month should be an obsolete concept at this point. How many Black historians, architects, engineers, political scientists, soldiers, etc; have been trained in the last fifty years? How many Black millionaires and billionaires are jet-setting all over the globe? We have the resources and training to move beyond an annual (superficial) recondition event, and on to integrating our History, our perspectives, and our global legacy into our communities and making it part of the universal understanding and scholarship of humanity! We don’t need Budweiser, McDonald’s, or BET to tell our children to be proud of their history, we need to reproduce the greatness and power of our ancestors in contemporary society.
We need to be revolutionary in all aspects of our lives and relationships. From history, to economics, to politics, to collective defense, to child rearing. We should be having a revolutionary attitude and approach. We have to be revolutionary, We either get it together and secure our total and permanent liberation or accept subjugation and eventual extermination. If we can’t (collectivity) deal with our past as a free and conscious people; what chance is it we can make a better future? It is not just about history, it is about human dignity and liberation. Tokenism and superficiality is no longer tolerable. Don’t accept Black History Month, let White folks have it; we shouldn’t need it anymore. If they want to take one month out of the year to acknowledge our greatness and achievements more power to them; we will do it everyday. We will even create greater history for our descendants to study and emulate (if we put our minds, energy, and talents to it).
This is what I am organizing and fighting towards. I appreciate my allies (new and old) in this struggle. Those of you who agree but haven’t had the opportunity to take direct action, please link with me and let’s build. For those whom are organizing and advancing along these line, but I’ve not had a chance to work directly with you; I really appreciate and value yall too. Forward.
