February is Black History Month. Meeke Addison of the American Family Association explains that from her perspective as a black woman in America, Black History month could be missing the mark.
“I understand why we have Black History Month, but I am actually not a proponent of having one month where you say now we’ll look at the achievements and contributions of blacks in America.”
Meeke believes that if we look at the history timeline, it takes more effort to disregard the contributions made by blacks and save them for February then it does to acknowledge what black Americans have done throughout history.
“It’s important to acknowledge the contributions of blacks in history, but not to exalt those contributions as if they were something special or different from other contributions.”
Renowned historian Carter G. Woodson commented on how all Americans should view history as a unified whole.
“We should emphasize, not negro history, but the negro in history. What we need is not a history of selected races or nations, but the history of the world void of national bias, race hate, and religious prejudice.” – Carter G. Woodson
It is counter-productive to portray history as anything but unified.
“I’m not saying that we should do away with celebrating black contributions in America because I understand why it’s important. However, for our children, it’s important to teach them history that doesn’t exclude someone’s contribution because they are of a different ethnicity.”
According to Meeke, Black History Month serves to only maintain the perception of disunity in our country.
“We don’t want to perpetuate this sort of separate but equal mentality. I think to have a separate month where now this is black history is sort of taking us back to what we worked so hard to move away from and that’s a form of separate but equal.”
