Love diversity this February

Throughout this month, there are a variety of opportunities for IU students of all races to participate in Black History Month -- from art fairs to lectures to drum beatings and many other events at the Neal-Marshall Black Cultural Center and around campus.\nIU is an amazing resource for learning about other cultures and histories, particularly during February. \nIn 1926, Dr. Carter G. Woodson organized Negro History Week to coincide with the birthdays of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln. The distinguished Harvard scholar wanted "the world to see the Negro as a participant rather than a lay figure in history." In 1976, Negro History Week became Black History Month, and has been evolving ever since.\nNowadays, Black History Month is about more than the struggle for civil rights, although that's still extremely important. The celebration has evolved to encompass the multiple histories and cultures that were once joined as simply "black history." It is about diversity and unity across the nation.\nThat is to say that the experience of recent immigrants from Africa or the Caribbean is vastly different from descendents of slaves still living in the South or grandchildren of the Harlem Renaissance in the North. Members of each community have their own individual stories to tell, just as a European living in New York City would have a different experience from someone born and raised in the Midwest. The more we embrace these differences, the richer our culture will become.\nFriday, Feb. 4, the IDS reported on the "The Sounding of the Drum" family festival, describing how "as people prayed at the drum, a common theme for the event was the universal understanding of Black History Month, not only as a call-out to black students, but to people of all nations."\nThis is important, as black history should not be pigeon-holed into a subsection of history, race-specific and irrelevant to the greater whole. Instead, we, as a society, need to understand that black history is all of our history, and that America was founded as a convergence of multiple cultures, each equally as important as the next.\nBlack History Month is not only about history, but about looking toward the future. In this future, the histories of all factions of society will be important in the K-12 education system year-round. In this future, the wide variety of American subcultures will be equally celebrated and respected. To say that this future would be color-blind would be to deprive us of rich cultural heritage and ignore the diversity that makes America beautiful.\nOnce we incorporate diversity into the educational system, Black History Month may not be so necessary. But hopefully, by that time, the whole of society will be able to appreciate Black History Month enough to render the whole question moot.\nDuring this Black History Month, utilize IU's resources to educate yourself about cultures other than your own. We all have something to learn, regardless of major, age or background, and campus is here to teach us. In the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., "Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity"