May I draw your attention to this?
New developments on the FB front. Mrs. Moose friended Wolfgaar today, and immediately dove into a debate about Black History month. Wolfgaar had posted a segment of Morgan Freeman stating that there shouldn't be a black history month.
While I get the idea behind that, that as Americans (or humans), we are all part of the same history, no matter what race, creed or color we are. But what should be isn't what is. So after a back and forth I was thinking about what I know about black history, and where I learned it.
My sixth grade teacher was a black man. He was the second male teacher I had, and the first and I think only black teacher I ever had. He should never have been teaching snotty nose 6th graders, he was way too smart. He'd spout Shakespeare at times, and at times his temper would flare and he quite literally should have been arrested at times. In one instance he took a kid by the collar and slammed him against some desks. Not something ANYONE else would have gotten away with. But if you could overlook that temper, he was an incredibly smart and well read man. He should have been teaching College. I later learned that A: he was a lot older than I though he was, and B: he was very active in the civil rights movement. I think he marched with Martin Luther King, although I'm' not sure about that.
Anyway, in his class we did a month long segment on black poetry. We learned a number of poems, some I've mentioned in the past. We had to learn and recite the poems out loud. Three of them still stick in my mind, one complete, the other tow in parts. That's all I remember about Black History that I learned in school, aside from bits about the Civil War, the slave trade, and Reconstruction.
Most of the Black History I've learned has been from TV (and movies). And I don't mean the news. I mean TV shows.
I learned about the Watts Riots (I think it was Watts) from The Jeffersons. I learned a lot about a lot of things, including that a black man invented the way we preserve blood (Charles Drew).
I learned about the black regiments in the Civil War, not from a history class, although there is a huge and beautiful statue in Boston dedicated to the black soldiers from Massachusetts, the Shaw Memorial. No I learned that bit of local history from an award winning movie Mr. Freeman was in. Funny that.
So do we need more Black history in our schools? We sure as hell do. We need more history period. We need to make history relevant and important so we can.... wait for it... Learn from it.
One of the other things Mrs Moose said was that the Irish (her pet race because I guess she is descended from some, unless that was a lie she was told like the lie about the Native American blood) don't have a month devoted to them. So it was purely by accident that when looking up Black History month, which goes way back before the Civil Rights movement by the way, back to 1926, that I found that there IS an Irish history month, and many other commemorative months. At least according to Wiki. Months:
* Filipino American History Month
* National Hispanic Heritage Month
* Jewish American Heritage Month
* LGBT History Month
* National Tibetan American Heritage Month
* Puerto Rican Heritage Month
* Women's History Month
* Gay and Lesbian Pride Month
* National Disability Employment Awareness Month
* Irish-American Heritage Month
* Polish-American Heritage Month
Now, I don't know any school around here that teaches based on those commemorative months, I suspect that some schools where there is a higher population of those particular groups might have curriculum associated with them. But that's a kind of guess. And as I've said, I don't recall but one year of my 12 school years where any emphasis was placed on Black history.
So why would anyone be offended or scared about a black history month? I mean, I've taken American history, World history, I've had an elective about China and Russian history. Is it a bad thing to get more history, especially about an overlooked group of people in our own country? If they had a Native American history month, I think that would be great. I'd love for kids to learn more about the people who were here before we were. And again, I've learned more from TV (PBS to be precise) than I ever learned in school about Indians.
And what is the difference between a commemorative month, and a commemorative day? You have a commemorative month to give a chance to highlight something. Mother's day and Father's day are two commemorative days. Its not like we don't love our parents the other 364 days a year, it's just a day to draw attention to someone we think doesn't get enough credit, or isn't shown enough respect, or we just want to pay particular attention to for a bit. That's what black history month is. It's just a way of drawing attention to a history that is often overlooked or not given much thought. And why is that wrong?
I went through 12 years of school and I never once learned about India. My knowledge of that world comes again from TV and Movies and books. Ghandi... for one. Now you can't swing a dead cat in a hospital without hitting an Indian doctor, and India and China are two of the fastest growing economies in the world. Maybe an India history week would be nice?
More history, more information. Not less. Don't be afraid, it won't bite.
While I get the idea behind that, that as Americans (or humans), we are all part of the same history, no matter what race, creed or color we are. But what should be isn't what is. So after a back and forth I was thinking about what I know about black history, and where I learned it.
My sixth grade teacher was a black man. He was the second male teacher I had, and the first and I think only black teacher I ever had. He should never have been teaching snotty nose 6th graders, he was way too smart. He'd spout Shakespeare at times, and at times his temper would flare and he quite literally should have been arrested at times. In one instance he took a kid by the collar and slammed him against some desks. Not something ANYONE else would have gotten away with. But if you could overlook that temper, he was an incredibly smart and well read man. He should have been teaching College. I later learned that A: he was a lot older than I though he was, and B: he was very active in the civil rights movement. I think he marched with Martin Luther King, although I'm' not sure about that.
Anyway, in his class we did a month long segment on black poetry. We learned a number of poems, some I've mentioned in the past. We had to learn and recite the poems out loud. Three of them still stick in my mind, one complete, the other tow in parts. That's all I remember about Black History that I learned in school, aside from bits about the Civil War, the slave trade, and Reconstruction.
Most of the Black History I've learned has been from TV (and movies). And I don't mean the news. I mean TV shows.
I learned about the Watts Riots (I think it was Watts) from The Jeffersons. I learned a lot about a lot of things, including that a black man invented the way we preserve blood (Charles Drew).
I learned about the black regiments in the Civil War, not from a history class, although there is a huge and beautiful statue in Boston dedicated to the black soldiers from Massachusetts, the Shaw Memorial. No I learned that bit of local history from an award winning movie Mr. Freeman was in. Funny that.
So do we need more Black history in our schools? We sure as hell do. We need more history period. We need to make history relevant and important so we can.... wait for it... Learn from it.
One of the other things Mrs Moose said was that the Irish (her pet race because I guess she is descended from some, unless that was a lie she was told like the lie about the Native American blood) don't have a month devoted to them. So it was purely by accident that when looking up Black History month, which goes way back before the Civil Rights movement by the way, back to 1926, that I found that there IS an Irish history month, and many other commemorative months. At least according to Wiki. Months:
* Filipino American History Month
* National Hispanic Heritage Month
* Jewish American Heritage Month
* LGBT History Month
* National Tibetan American Heritage Month
* Puerto Rican Heritage Month
* Women's History Month
* Gay and Lesbian Pride Month
* National Disability Employment Awareness Month
* Irish-American Heritage Month
* Polish-American Heritage Month
Now, I don't know any school around here that teaches based on those commemorative months, I suspect that some schools where there is a higher population of those particular groups might have curriculum associated with them. But that's a kind of guess. And as I've said, I don't recall but one year of my 12 school years where any emphasis was placed on Black history.
So why would anyone be offended or scared about a black history month? I mean, I've taken American history, World history, I've had an elective about China and Russian history. Is it a bad thing to get more history, especially about an overlooked group of people in our own country? If they had a Native American history month, I think that would be great. I'd love for kids to learn more about the people who were here before we were. And again, I've learned more from TV (PBS to be precise) than I ever learned in school about Indians.
And what is the difference between a commemorative month, and a commemorative day? You have a commemorative month to give a chance to highlight something. Mother's day and Father's day are two commemorative days. Its not like we don't love our parents the other 364 days a year, it's just a day to draw attention to someone we think doesn't get enough credit, or isn't shown enough respect, or we just want to pay particular attention to for a bit. That's what black history month is. It's just a way of drawing attention to a history that is often overlooked or not given much thought. And why is that wrong?
I went through 12 years of school and I never once learned about India. My knowledge of that world comes again from TV and Movies and books. Ghandi... for one. Now you can't swing a dead cat in a hospital without hitting an Indian doctor, and India and China are two of the fastest growing economies in the world. Maybe an India history week would be nice?
More history, more information. Not less. Don't be afraid, it won't bite.