Why Black History Month?

We all know, I hope, that February is Black History Month.

This is the month our nation sets aside to focus on the special history of black Americans, a history which encompasses both American and global history.

This is a time both to celebrate the triumphs and heroes of black history and to recall and mourn the suffering and subjugation of black people.

Unfortunately, Black History Month is often misunderstood and resented by some white Americans. It isn’t unusual to hear demands for a “White History Month.”

Undoubtedly, some of these complaints stem from racism, but many are the
result of simple ignorance.

This ignorance is an effect of white privilege.

Privilege is the collection of advantages that accrue for a dominant social group.

Naturally, part of privilege is not having to recognize it exists. When whites fail to consider themselves as a dominant group, they can’t see why oppressed groups need special recognition of their own histories.

Some whites will admit that blacks were once oppressed but claim that they are now equal and no longer need a month of their own.

This is an outrageous lie.

Black people in the United States remain oppressed.

In January 2012, total black unemployment was 14.2 percent, while total white unemployment was only 8 percent.

The median household income of white families in 2009 was 20 times greater than that of black families.

Despite the fact that we routinely celebrate the end of school segregation, for many communities, racial segregation in schools is now worse than it was four decades ago.

The failure of the educational system is partially responsible for the fact that 11.7 percent of black men in their late 20s are currently incarcerated, and that there are now more black men incarcerated, on probation or on parole than there were slaves in the antebellum South.

These statistics are staggering and can be difficult to comprehend, but they boil down to one simple point: Black people and white people are still not equal in America.

The current economic suffering and social marginalization of black people is a continuation of the same racist white culture that produced slavery, colonization, lynching, segregation and ghettoization.

It is all too easy to ignore the damage done to black Americans and the resulting advantages given to white Americans when we’re at a public University where only 7.3 percent of students identify as African-American.

We live in a racial bubble, and Black History Month should serve as a wake-up call to the injustice in our society.

To ignore the need for Black History Month is to ignore the historical and contemporary oppression of black Americans.

The next time you see a pithy Facebook status demanding to know when we’re going to have “White History Month,” remember that whites weren’t enslaved, raped, lynched and oppressed.

Instead, we were enslaving, raping, lynching and oppressing.

­— atcrane@indiana.edu