February
1 began Black History Month, a national annual observance since
1926, honoring and celebrating the achievements of African-Americans.
This February 1 the International Civil Rights Center and Museum
(ICRCM) opened in Greensboro,
North Carolina, honoring the courageous action of four African-
American students. Their actions led to the Civil Rights Act of
1964, which mandated desegregation of all public accommodations.
Fifty
years ago on February 1, 1960 the now ICRCM was a Woolworth's store
and the site of the original sit-in where Ezell
A. Blair Jr. (also known as Jibreel Khazan), David
Leinhail Richmond, Joseph
Alfred McNeil, and Franklin
Eugene McCain from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical
College (NC A&T), a historically black college, sat at its lunch
counter as a form of non-violent direct action protesting the store's
segregated seating policy. And as a result of their civil disobedience,
sit-ins sprung up not only in Greensboro but throughout the South,
challenging other forms of this nation's segregated public accommodations,
including bathrooms, water fountains, parks, theaters, and swimming
pools, to name a few.
If
Dr. Carter
Woodson, the Father of Black History, were alive today, he would
be proud that the ICRCM opened this month.
However,
for a younger generation of African- Americans as well as whites,
whose ballots help elect this country's first African-American president,
celebrating Black History Month seems outdated.
"Obama
is post-racial. And Black History Month is old school," Josh
Dawson (26) of New Hampshire tells me.
For
many whites as well as people of color of Dawson's generation, Obama
race was a "non-issue." And Obama's election encapsulated for
them both the physical and symbolic representation of Martin Luther
Kings' vision uttered in his historic "I Have a Dream"
during the 1963 March on Washington.
"King
said don't judge by the color of our skin, but instead the content
of our character," Dawson continues.
In
proving how "post-racial" Obama was as a presidential
candidate, Michael Crowley of "The New Republic� wrote in his
article "Post-racial"
that it wasn't only liberals who had no problem with Obama's race
but conservatives had no problem too, even the infamous ex-Klansman
David Duke.
"Even
white Supremacists don't hate Obama," Crowley writes about
Duke. "[Duke] seems almost nonchalant about Obama, don't see
much difference in Barack Obama than Hillary Clinton--or, for that
matter, John McCain."
For
years, the celebration of Black History Month has always brought
up the ire around "identity politics" and "special
rights."
'If
we're gonna� have Black History Month, why not White History Month?
Italian History Month? Chinese History Month?," Dawson questions.
During
the George W. Bush years we saw the waning interest in
"identity politics," creating both political and systematic
disempowerment of marginalized groups, like people of color, women,
lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ)
people. We also saw the gradual dismantling of affirmative
action policies, like in 2003 when the Supreme Court split the difference
on affirmative action, allowing the Bakke case
on reverse discrimination to stand.
In
celebrating Black History Month this year in what is now perceived
by some to be one year in the "post-racial" era since
Obama took office, I worry how we as a nation will honestly talk
about race.
For
example, During Black History Month in 2009 Holder received scathing
criticism for his speech
on race. His critics said the tone and tenor of the speech was confrontational
and accusatory.
�Though
this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot,�
Holder said, �in things racial we have always been and continue
to be, in too many ways, essentially a nation of cowards.�
Within
the African- American LGBTQ community, Black History Month has always
come under criticism. And rightly so! The absence of LGBTQ people
of African descent in the month-long celebration is evidence of
how race, gender and sexual politics of the dominant culture are
reinscribed in black culture as well. It leads you to believe that
the only shakers and movers in the history of people of African
descent in the U.S. were and still are heterosexuals. And because
of this heterosexist bias, the sheroes and heroes of LGBTQ people
of African decent -- like Pat Parker,
Audre
Lorde, Essex
Hemphill, Joseph
Beam, and Bayard
Rustin -- are mostly known and lauded within a subculture of
black life.
However,
the argument that celebrating Black History Month in 2010 is no
more than a celebration of a relic tethered to an old defunct paradigm
of the civil rights era and is a hindrance to black people moving
forward is bogus.
In
order to move forward you must look back.
And
in so doing, were it not for the successful sit-ins, marches, and
boycotts of the 1960's, could we have this conversation in 2010?
BlackCommentator.com
Editorial Board member, the Rev. Irene Monroe, is a religion columnist,
theologian, and public speaker. She is the Coordinator of the African
American Roundtable of the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies in
Religion and Ministry (CLGS) at the Pacific School of Religion.
A native of Brooklyn, Rev. Monroe
is a graduate from Wellesley College and Union Theological Seminary
at Columbia University, and served as a pastor at an African-American
church before coming to Harvard Divinity School for her doctorate
as a Ford Fellow. She was recently named to MSNBC�s list of 10 Black Women You Should Know. Reverend Monroe is the author of Let Your Light Shine Like a Rainbow Always: Meditations on Bible
Prayers for Not-So-Everyday Moments. As an African American feminist theologian, she speaks for
a sector of society that is frequently invisible. Her website is
irenemonroe.com.
Click here
to contact the Rev. Monroe. |