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Here's Why There is No 'White History Month'

Thread ID: 12642 | Posts: 9 | Started: 2004-03-04

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kminta [OP]

2004-03-04 02:59 | User Profile

[I]Proposals for a white history month are an attempt to counter minority racism parading as “multiculturalism.” For your reading amusement, I have posted the following article by a black columnist who explains why whites do not have the right to a “White History Month.”[/I]

[B]Here's Why There is No 'White History Month'[/B]

[B]By Clarence Page[/B] [B][URL=http://www.chicagotribune.com/]Chicago Tribune[/URL][/B] [B]February 25, 2004[/B]

Black History Month was never intended to make people uncomfortable—unless maybe they ought to be.

Nevertheless, despite the best of intentions, a misunderstanding of what the month is all about can lead sometimes to a whopper of an embarrassment.

That’s sort of what happened recently at Connecticut’s Suffield High School when a group of sociology students decided to hang posters around the school to promote April as “White History Month.”

Shortly after they were nabbed, the five students explained to their upset principal, Thomas Jones, that, alas, it was all a misunderstanding, according to The Hartford Courant. The students had been assigned to “explore the effect of rumors.” They decided the posters would be a real nifty way to do that. Needless to say, their experiment triggered a lot of rumors, especially in the school’s small but understandably alarmed black student population.

The principal scolded the white students for their insensitivity and turned them over to a teacher who reportedly specializes in civil rights and cultural sensitivity issues. In this way, the school at large was able to turn the incident into what one school board official called a “teachable moment,” an opportunity to educate both offenders and the offended about differences in how the world looks through each other’s eyes.

Good for them. No long-term harm done, I hope. This particular high school poster flap is the most embarrassing incident related to Black History Month that I can recall since early 2001. That was when then-Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore revoked a proclamation declaring May to be “European Heritage and History Month.” The governor had learned to his deep dismay that the request for the commemoration had come from a white separatist group headed by former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke. Such an embarrassment.

But you don’t need to be a klansman, past or present, to ask “Why don’t we have a White History Month?” I’ve heard that question quite a few times over the years. So have other black people I know. Some of us have come up with a list of appropriate responses to it, such as:

1.”Because every month is white history month.”

2.”Because white history has not been lost, stolen or suppressed over the years as much as black history has.”

3.”Yo’ mama!”

4.”History is taught so poorly in our schools these days that maybe we should have a white history month.”

5.”That’s right. I said, ‘Yo’ mama’!!!”

Now, now. We should all try to manage our anger at such moments. Such encounters reveal precisely what Black History Month was intended to remedy: an ignorance about history—black and otherwise. That’s why I oppose so-called “political correctness.” We need more dialogue, not less.

For example, when someone asks “Why is there a Black Entertainment Television network? Wouldn’t all hell break loose if somebody started a White Entertainment Television?,” simply respond, “There is. It is called ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox ...”

Such questions can be a departure point for cross-racial, cross-cultural dialogue—a teachable moment, in modern education-speak. After all, when the late black scholar Carter G. Woodson dreamed up what was then called Negro History Week in 1926, he too dreamed of the day when it no longer would be needed.

He imagined a day when every student’s education would include such African-American figures as Crispus Attucks, who died in the Boston Massacre; Matthew A. Henson, who co-discovered the North Pole with Robert Peary, and Benjamin Banneker, the pioneer scientist who helped conduct the first survey of Washington.

It was important, Woodson felt, that African-Americans understand that we had more to our history than our victimization. In fact, there was a much greater all-American story to be told in how mightily many of our ancestors had triumphed despite adversity.

Woodson imagined a day when the contributions of people from various races, ethnicities and, for that matter, genders would be taught fairly and properly. Then Americans might move more swiftly toward a society where such differences would no longer matter.

Unfortunately, history seems to be given such a low priority in today’s schools that I sometimes wonder whether Woodson’s dream day is slipping further away.

As a parent of a 14-year-old, it seems to me that the schools are teaching quite more black history than they did back when I was a kid, but they’re teaching less overall history. The result is a deficit of knowledge about where we all have come from as Americans.

And, as the old saying goes, if you don’t know where you came from, you’re going to have a hard time figuring out where you’re going.

Valley Forge

2004-03-04 04:05 | User Profile

The double standard will never end unless we end it ourselves.

yummybear

2004-03-04 04:14 | User Profile

The reason why there is black history month is because it takes blacks a month to find something they did.

Franco

2004-03-04 04:26 | User Profile

[SIZE=4][COLOR=Red]WHITES GAVE THE WORLD TO THE HUMAN RACE. DEAL WITH IT, PEOPLE OF THE WEST.[/COLOR][/SIZE]

[edited slightly]

Happy Hacker

2004-03-04 04:50 | User Profile

I pray that those students at Connecticut’s Suffield High School are smart enough to realize that their sensitivity training (no doubt all sorts of sob stories about black suffering) is all garbage.

Black History Month is racist and divisive, no matter the excuses that defenders of it come up with. One can argue for increased attention to black history without a black history month (not that blacks contributed much to talk about, most "black history" is just white-bashing).

Black History Month exists because blacks are racist.

There is no White History Month because that would be rubbing white superiority (as measured by both blacks and whites) in the faces of non-whites, even if white history month exists just as a protest to black history month.

Roy Batty

2004-03-11 03:01 | User Profile

Hey, what happened? I commented on this days ago and the post is gone!

Anyway, as I wrote earlier, and posted on other sites as well, there could never be a "White History Month". Even the most cursory examination of White History would take several years.

Roy Batty

2004-03-11 04:47 | User Profile

OOOPS! Time to remove foot from mouth. Missed the "... we're back" post from TD.

jeffersonian

2004-03-12 19:12 | User Profile

[QUOTE]“There is. It is called ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox ...”[/QUOTE]

The above, from the esteemed Mr. Pages opinion is exactly the problem in this country today.

The children being indoctrinated by Suffield High School. no doubt believe that the multicultural, secular, liberal pap, served up by every one of the networks referenced is in fact "the norm" or somehow reflective of the traditional culture and values which made this nation great.

Just as demands for "Homosexual Marriage" will lead not to re-definition of marriage, but to eventual acceptance of perversion in the guise of civil unions, so does the absurd when stated often enough, become the new conformity.

Racist, Nationalist, Xenophobe, Homophobe,....thats all it takes to keep the truth at bay and make the obscene seem acceptable.

Exelsis_Deo

2004-03-13 03:41 | User Profile

Now that's a good Friday night joke. But seriously, at Brown University there is a Whites Only Scholarship now thanks to the efforts of a group that is sick of the multi-cultural pandering. Its in force and the East Side Jews couldn't stop it. Hopefully this can cross over into other Ivy League schools, but it would be wishful thinking to imagine it at Hahh-vaad. Black History Month joke you may have heard - Why is February Black History Month ? answer - Because it's the shortest month of the year. haha. btw, " black history " is a totally " white " creation as you know. To the blacks of a century ago, history consisted of " my tribal elders say that Umma-Gubba once was fierce warrior " lolz.