I Don’t Celebrate Black History Month. I Honor It.
I was sold a fake history about Black women
As a little girl from the South, I always remembered Black History Month was a way for some people to feel better about themselves because they had a token Black friend. These same people still believe that, since they watched the movie Black Panther, they have done their part to help the Black community.
Even now during Black History Month, I have seen a steady increase of Black people on TV and in commercials. There are even some corporations trying to commercialize Black culture and history for profit but have no plans for actually changing how they treat Black people in real life.
So as a Black woman, I don’t celebrate Black History Month. The history that I was taught shows that Black history is not celebratory.
I have been spoon-fed a history with smiling, go-lucky slaves as though they enjoyed the captivity. While the history books talked about Rosa Parks and how she refused to sit in the back of the bus, I wasn’t taught that she dropped out of high school at 16 years old to be a caregiver for her grandmother. Nor how she went back and received a high diploma when only 7% of Black people had the opportunity to graduate high school.
