Hey y'all! Well, it’s almost that time! As we all know, February is the shortest month of the year and as such, is almost done. I like to close out the month by doing a sort of retrospect so I want to give a small warning that we’re bout to be talking about George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Trayvon Martin, and Sandra Bland as it relates to the large and certainly historic Black Lives Matter and Say Her Name movements. That being the case, today is the final day of me writing about the olden times for a while.
When I started this project it was in response to the education on Black history I received during my time as a public school student K-12. Which is to say I didn’t get a lot, and the education I did get were the same people. Like, it was always, MLK, Rosa Parks, “Colored” drinking fountains, and that peanut guy! So today I’m switching my format up just a little bit I wanna just get my take on record about some of these commonly reported on Black Figures. So here go my #RealBlackHistory shorts:
Harriet Tubman - So we know her as the fearless liberator who escaped from slavery and went on to make 13 personal trips throughout the south to help liberate COUNTLESS other enslaved folk. Did y’all know she also helped recruit Black folk for John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry AND he called her General Tubman? Y'all know she was an actual civil war spy, right? But did you ALSO know that she was the first woman to lead an armed assault during her time in the Civil War? Do you think she got any type of compensation for her time working with the Union Army or the United States Government? Cuz, she didn’t! All that is wild, and we should probably all know this stuff, right?
Rosa Parks - Alright, so we all know Rosa, and for good reason too! We should also recognize that 9 months before Rosa refused to give up her seat to that white dude, an act that sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott, Claudette Colvin did the exact same thing, and had way less protection as a high school student who was protesting in solidarity with a Black pregnant woman who was asked to move for a white person. Claudette needs all the shine and recognition in the world, but Rosa was dope too! I feel like I’m always taught the Rosa Parks story like it just accidentally happened, like poor Rosa was just tired from a long day of work, otherwise she would have gladly given up her seat… NO!!!! NO!!! ABSOLUTELY NO!!! Rosa Louise McCauley-Parks was active in the Civil Rights Movement since the 1940s! In 1943 she joined the Montgomery chapter of the NAACP and was the ONLY woman in the room. Even after the Bus Boycotts, Rosa Parks was out there fighting hard for all of our civil liberties, and while she was always known as an Icon, how was she treated? Umm well, she found it pretty hard to find work for most of her life, spent a lot of time in poverty, and even got served an eviction notice in 2002. Like, how y’all gonna try to evict Rosa Parks?! Anyway, did y’all know she lived to be 92, and to this day her foundation has helped over 900 children get the money they need to go to college? I feel like if we’re gonna teach Rosa, we should teach the whole thing right?
MLK - I feel like the education we get on Dr. King is like, “He said: ‘I have a dream’” and then racism was finished. Y'all how do we only teach this one speech, and even then, only kinda. Like, y'all get that the dream metaphor means we’re not there yet, right? Anyway, it's impossible to teach Dr. King’s philosophy, without also talking about the conflicted nature of his feelings on non-violent resistance, the many times he was arrested, and “The White Moderate”. My man also survived multiple assignation attempts, including one where he straight up DID get stabbed up in 1958. Like, I think MLK has become palatable because my man was a preacher and spoke of peace and love and those are important, but also super marketable ideas. But Dr. King’s story is violent as hell, and he wasn’t just like your soft-boi Black buddy. Martin Luther King Jr. was a polarizing figure, who a lot of present-day folks WOULD NOT HAVE LIKED, and yet quote him every year. Anyway, I love MLK, but we should probably look deeper than that one speech, yeah?
Malcolm X - Look, he wasn’t just “violent MLK". Y’all need to stop that right now, it's dangerous and reductive. That's pretty much all I’mma say on that. Also, on the other side, to be like, “Malcolm X was a Black separatist.” Y'all missed the last part of Malcolm’s life. He is just as vital of a leader as MLK was if not more so, and he should be taught more…that’s Malcolm to me.
George Washington Carver - Ah yes, GWC, my rival, my arch-nemesis, the reason I started this project three years ago. “Oh, Black People invented peanut butter…cool!” *eyeroll* “That's who we talk about every year?” Well…okay I have to admit, I was super duper wrong. The peanut man was DOPE! It wasn’t just peanut butter, like why do we even highlight that?! My dude wasn’t just the peanut man, he was an environmental and agricultural scientist! My dude was educated in the time RIGHT after the civil war, so there was no integrated school system. He had to walk his behind 10 miles back and forth to the Black school every day. He was an artist, who discovered a love for botany by painting first and his art teacher was like, “Seems like you like to paint plants a lot…maybe you should study plants?” Fun fact: Thomas Edison offered him a six-figure job and Carver was just like, “Nah bro, I’mma stay over here inventing stuff that’s gonna change agriculture so people in the future can remember me when they make PB&Js.” Anyway, he gained a gang of patents throughout his life, as well as a lot of fame, but it would be cool if we remembered him for his overall body of work, like folks didn’t just call him “peanut prince” or nothing like that in his time, they were calling him “The Black Leonardo” y’all! He was dope, we should know his full body of work!
So that’s my take on just a couple of famous Black History stories I was taught in public schools, as hopefully this project has shown there’re WAY more stories about Black Excellence out there, and how wonderful is it that we have an entire month to bathe in these histories with the entire nation? I kinda like it! But also, it's Black History Month every month for me!
留言