This article is part four of a series in celebration of a new, dynamic voice in Black America: the NUBIANO Exchange. Brace yourself for the NUBIANO experience. 
by Tyran Kai Steward
It appears Morgan Freeman has been drinking the same Kool-Aid, err, Veuve Clicquot that Bill Cosby has been consuming, picking up where the famed comedian left off with remarks that are not only shortsighted but perfunctory as well.
In a 60 Minutes interview conducted by Mike Wallace, Freeman ruffled some feathers in the African-American community when he proffered that “the concept of a month dedicated to black history was ridiculous.”
“You’re going to relegate my history to a month?” Freeman asked Wallace in their discussion of black history month. After noting there is “no white history month,” Freeman declared, “I don’t want a black history month. Black history is American history.”
Freeman went on to suggest that not only was the notion of a special month for black history hurting rather than helping efforts for racial equality, but also that the way to get rid of racism was to “stop talking about it.” Freeman stated to Wallace, “I am going to stop calling you a white man and ask you to stop calling me a black man. I know you as Mike Wallace. You know me as Morgan Freeman.”
On the surface, Freeman’s observations actually have some merit, although not necessarily based upon the conclusions that he has drawn. On the one hand, Freeman is right when he contends that black history is American history. It is impossible to survey American history by neither tracing the hairlines of the black experience in this country nor wrestling with the influence that black culture has had on America.
Consider that during a period of almost 350 years, the peculiar institution of slavery, Jim Crow and segregation were woven into the fabric of this country and, in many ways, has become the predicate for today’s America. It is then difficult to discuss any American enterprise or ideal without chronicling how blacks have indexed those actualities.
The very manner in which America insidiously and invidiously dealt with blacks during slavery and Jim Crow thereafter—both enchaining and denying them basic liberties and rights established under the Constitution of America; utilizing black slave labor to both establish a stable American economy that have sprung other industries, which continue to flourish today, and to build this country’s basic infrastructure; preventing blacks from learning how to read and write then using those inabilities against them when it came to voting privileges or the pursuance of an education; using tactics such as gerrymandering to avert black support of certain political factions; discriminating when it came to housing by using such practices as redlining and restrictive covenants; denying blacks entrance into certain venues and institutions as well as not allowing them to use facilities that were reserved for ‘whites only’; prohibiting blacks from the use of the equal protection clause while permitting laws that legally justified the ‘separate but equal’ doctrine; and lynching, hosing down and threatening black freedom fighters, amongst many other nefarious treatments—accounts for most of the history surveyed in this country.
Even more, the influence of black culture on America, and, logically, the identities of Americans, has been profound. A conversation on literature and poetry, while sure to include Edgar Allen Poe, Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman and T.S. Eliot, would be incomplete without a perusal of the work done by such notable artists as Langston Hughes, Phyllis Wheatley, Paul Lawrence Dunbar and Nikki Giovanni. It is impossible to talk about Ralph Waldo Emerson, a brilliant American essayist, without talking about James Baldwin. It is impractical to mention Henry David Thoreau, the prophet of passive resistance, without mentioning Martin Luther King, Jr.
Furthermore, a discussion of American music would not be thorough without discussing all the black established musical traditions from rag to jazz to blues to gospel to rock-and-roll to hip-hop. Likewise, in a cosmographical examination of fine art, it would be incredulous to not make mention of the contributions made by such great, African-American artists as Jacob Lawrence, Edmonia Lewis, Romare Bearden, Elizabeth Catlett and Charles H. Alston, amongst many notable others.
As well, blacks have impacted every field and focus, every subject and sphere, every theme and tradition found within the precincts of American life. Where would America be in the field of cardiology without either Dr. Daniel Hale Williams, who performed the first-ever, open-heart surgery, or Dr. Charles Drew, who made the preservation of blood plasma and blood banking possible? How advanced would America be without the 150 patented-inventions of Granville T. Woods, amongst them the Synchronous Multiplex Railway Telegraph, which enabled messages to be sent from moving trains and railroad stations.
Could America talk about dominance in sporting competition without referring to Muhammad Ali or Michael Jordan or have been able to display superiority in Hitler’s Germany without Jesse Owens during the 1936 Olympics? Would America have overcome the British without the assistance of black soldiers willing to die for their country such as Crispus Attucks or have been successful in many other military campaigns without the courageous and valiant efforts of groups like the Buffalo Soldiers and Tuskegee Airmen, respectively?
"A sinister cabal of superior writers."
Article comments
1 - JustOneMan
What about Italian, Polish, German, Irish, Indian, Chinese, etc, etc, etc....
JOM
2 - zingzing
did you read the article, jom, or just the title?
3 - Doug Hunter
"it would let white America off the hook"
Tell you what. You let me off the hook for slavery and I'll let you off the hook for gang violence, then as Freeman suggested we'll be back to treating each other as individuals. (which is the only workable long term solution)
4 - Baronius
This article fails to provide evidence that black history is underrepresented outside February. Even if it did, it never addresses the point of Freeman's comments: that Black History Month is intellectual segregation.
5 - ETS
Baronius -
How about you provide evidence that black history IS adequately represented outside of February? Or even DURING February, for that matter?
"Intellectual segregation" is an overly academic term that means absolutely nothing. All fields of study are segregated to some extent. They have to be to be sufficiently studied/recognized.
The bottom line is that histories of underrepresented groups wouldn't have to be individually celebrated if our country embraced a more wholistic concept of history. It's an old and simple solution for an even older and more simple issue.
6 - ETS
Doug Hunter -
You have us on the hook for gang violence? LOL. Are you keeping whites on that hook too, considering their gang and mob-like mentalities are evident throughout world history.