One big, month-long distraction

Bené Viera
is a graduate student studying journalism.

We have just begun our celebration of black history. All types of programs will be held in the community, the media will take a once-a-year interest in telling our stories and hopefully, teachers across the nation will construct lesson plans that educate schoolchildren on the history of black people in America.

Let’s not be excited about one month – the shortest month of the year – in which the country pretends to care about all aspects of the black race.

Not that I am opposed to celebrating Black History Month in honoring the contributions people of African descent have made to this country. What I am opposed to is only learning and celebrating black history once a year. I am opposed to educators, leaders and politicians ignoring the injustices black people face everyday. I am opposed to the notion that one month of events and “education awareness” about black culture will suffice for a century of our history being disregarded.

Black History Month is a pacifier for us to believe we really have come a long way. If you think we have, you might want to stop reading now. By throwing us a measly month to celebrate black history, they expected us – and many of us did – to forget about all the other issues that still plague our people. How soon we forget that in the other 337 days of the year there is much work to do, protests to make, disparities to address, criminal justice systems to rectify, education systems to reconstruct, poverty to defeat, equal pay to gain, discrimination to overcome. Damn it y’all, we got work to do.

It amazes me that on a graduate level my classmates don’t understand there are disparities between the black and white males who are incarcerated. They look at me strangely when I suggest this. For people who love statistics so much, clearly they should know there are statistics to back this up. Never once does it cross their minds that maybe most black men aren’t criminals, but maybe there is a flawed system designed for black men not to succeed.

As we approach Black History Month I implore my people, including myself, to reflect on who we really are as a people, how we’ve lost our way and how much work there is still to do. Although I am harsh on our role leading toward our demise, I’m very aware of the systems in place that make it near impossible for black people to progress. However, those same systems were in place in 1865 when slavery ended. It did not keep our people from implementing change, which led to the very rights we have today.

Don’t let this Black History Month be a distraction.