It’s the last Monday of Black History Month and I had to think about what I wanted to write about. Offer some interesting and unknown Black History facts for the world? How about a prompt? “What Black History Month means to me…” sounds like a really awful fifth grade contest prompt to win a free pizza party. You’ve probably heard the argument that Black History Month is played out, irrelevant, maybe even racist! (gasp) Well, #fact: Black History Month isn’t racist. But commenting that Black History Month is played out is suggesting that it isn’t fulfilling its purpose. That begs the question, “What is the purpose of Black History Month?” To me, that question and “What Black History Month means to me…” are one in the same. In my opinion, BHM is an opportunity to share the rich, powerful, and world-changing history of Black people. The nomenclature alone is educational. What is Black?
During BHM we tend to learn about Civil Rights Leaders such as Martin Luther King, Jr. and Rosa Parks. Like the good brothers Theo and Modi mentioned in the Dialogues on Black History Month, this is awesome but they are African Americans, which is only one aspect of the entire Black Diaspora. What about Haitians, Jamaicans, Nigerians, Cubans, or Trinidadians? I know as humans we tend to have a sense of privatism and only want to concern ourselves with matters that affect us directly so we learn about those who made a difference in America, but we need to open ourselves to those whose foreign achievements made a difference for us as well.
The other day I was reading “The Future of our Race” by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Cornel West. Gates was remarking about his undergraduate experience at Yale and made several profound statements.
“If Yale went coed in 1969, never before had it seen more color in its classes: of the Class of 1973, ninety-six students, or 7.9 percent, were black, compared with eighteen students, or 1.8 percent, of the Class of 1968. Often “first-generation Ivy,” and sometimes first-generation college, these students congregated in the pre-med and pre-law curricula, in search of security in the soon-to-be integrated professional circles, especially the law, medicine, journalism, and business. “
This is the essence of what the title of this post is about. Previously Yale was an all white institution. This was an obvious problem. When Yale opened its doors to people of color, we went. Not only did we go, we took the pre-law, pre-med, journalism, and business route. This wasn’t a symbolic gesture of hope; it was a clear and tangible progression for Black people. We once weren’t allowed in, and now we are.
“Ours was the first generation to… Have watched, as children, the dismantling of Jim Crow and to wonder where the process might end; to be given the chance, through affirmative action, to compete against white boys and girls; to compete against situations just as the most expansive notions of radical democracy made an entrance.”
Again, there was an obvious injustice – Jim Crow – and through Civil Rights Activists and other mediums, we broke down another barrier. Progression. If you were to ask someone in the Civil Rights Era what were a few things that we need to accomplish before America can actually claim to believe that “all men are created equal” they would probably say things along the lines of desegregation. The ability to use whatever bathroom we want and maybe pick up food in the front instead of the back. Progression. We all know the Tupac song Changes in which he exclaims, “Although it seems heaven-sent, we ain’t ready to see a Black President.” Oh hey Barack Obama. More progression. What is our generation’s Jim Crow? What is our form of segregation? We have a Black President. We can eat wherever we want. We can sit wherever we want. We can do whatever we want. Who needs a deep, ardent passion when everything has already been done? One of my favorite scenes from the great movie, The Truman Show illustrates this beautifully.
We used to have this obvious “Man” to fight. Now that we have broken down so many barriers, we seem to have nothing to fight for. Going back to Tupac’s Changes, Black people used to say this all the time – we’re never going to have a Black President. I mean movies were made (comedies of course) about a black man being President. Now that we’ve accomplished that we have no clear, obvious, collective effort. It seems as though progression gives us nothing to aim for hence the title, progression prevents passion. It sounds pessimistic but it’s not. I’m no Soledad O’Brien[1] but this was just a statement of my personal opinion on the current state of affairs of Black America. The next step is what to do about this. We need passion and drive in order to accomplish goals. Where does our passion come from?
Do you agree that progression often times prevents passion? What are some things that we need to be working on right now to improve the state of Black America? Does anybody else hate the term Black America? As if we’re not completely ingrained in America in the first place?
[1] How awesome is it that a) her full name is María de la Soledad Teresa O’Brien and b) she and her five siblings all graduated from Harvard?
[2] “Progression prevents passion” is a copyrighted phrase by myself. Steal it and die.
that's an awesome picture
Why thank you.
Excellent post. Where can I get that graphic and I'm stealing ur intellectual property: "Progression prevents passion" I think we need to continually tell our story to our children and our children's children. We need to document our successes and tell our story.Did you see the "Book of Eli?" Remember the scene at the end where they start documenting the history of mankind again? Will there be a survivor present who has our story in the recesses of their mind so that they can verbalize it for historical documentation to be told to future mankind? We've got to get passionate about telling our story: our struggle, our triumphs, our innovative contributions to society! What an awesome race we are!
I completely agree. Telling our past and how people overcame can only encourage new generations to do the same, to stop at nothing to achieve whatever they want.
I think progression has made us somewhat lazy…Yes, we are able to do whatever we want to do today, but have we truly overcome? Seems to me we have to reach back a bit and realize all the cycles that were created during slavery and break those – men being more prevalent in the lives of their children, black men & women loving each other again, and less self-hate. We can even get into socio-economic things we need to change as well – living off the government, creating our own businesses, etc. Once we break those, we become a better people for our next generations
I couldnt have agreed more, I was trying to explain someone this but I did not know how to put in words properly until you wrote “Progression prevents passion” and you could not have been more right. Def a dope article really enjoyed it
Thanks! It's definitely a hard sentiment to express but I think I got the message across.
Many thanks for sharing this great piece. Very inspiring! (as always, btw)