Secondly, and more to the case that states the dissension that some opponents feel could arise over black history being taught where other cultural histories are not is the certainty that blacks did not elect to come to America to extend their traditions into the archives of American history as other cultures were able to do. Instead, they were stripped of their customs and forced to come here and become a part of an America that was unfriendly, hostile and denigrating to them. In other words, blacks were forced to forge into new identities as Americans as they were separated from their erstwhile ways of life as Africans.
As Karin Bivins, who heads up the education sector for the Philadelphia NAACP so fluently articulated, “None of those people came here as slaves except for African Americans. None of them toiled for 249 years. The Asians came over here because they wanted to. The Hispanics, too. They didn’t come over here in chains in the bottom deck of a ship.”
Still, the criticisms are endless. In response to Bivins, Chester Finn, who is a member of the conservative Thomas B. Fordham Foundation in Washington and a frequent critic of how social studies are taught in American schools, charged back that he did not buy the argument. “That means this is all part of a reparations mentality, that we owe something special [to African Americans] because of slavery, segregation, whatever. I understand that mentality, but I don't accept it.”
But not accepting that argument is part of the problem, a problem that is highlighted by the lackadaisical ‘whatever’ that Finn expresses. America does owe something to African-Americans. America has to show that slavery and segregation will not continue to be treated as ancillary issues that did not have an overwhelming impact on an entire race of people. America has to also show that it is willing to repair those improprieties that she has committed by presenting the history of blacks in this country, a history that is the chief axis on which all of American history pivots.
For this reason, to deny the legitimacy of black history in this country and its importance in the classroom, when more often than not everything that is black in America has been typically responsible for the development of this country and the way in which this country has fostered various social ideas, is to stymie the opportunity for and future possibility of Americans seeing the value in everything that black America has done to create America.
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.