Black Lives Matter- research and awareness

Lack of Education- My Experience

Black History Month.

We all know the name. A lot of us probably have some sort of project or essay or something related to Black history that we have to do every year in February.

Here's the thing: why do we have to treat Black history as if it's just a small part of the past? Why do we just glance at it and move one. Why? Because last I checked, Black history is history. And history is a whole lot longer than an essay.

Today's post is just about my personal experience with the lack of education on Black history. Tomorrow's will be more research focused, while today's is just simply my own experiences. However, at least for those of you living in America, your experiences may be pretty similar. I'd love to hear about how your educational system treats Black history in the comments, because it can vary from school to school and country to country.

Growing up, we've always talked about Black History Month. We've always discussed Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. However, I've found that the educational system tends to treat the civil rights moment in the the 1960s as the only part of Black History. It forgets all of the Black inventors, artists, filmmakers, authors, musicians, and historical figures in general. How can the educational system treat racism as a part of the past when it still ignores Black history in its true form? How can the educational system treat racism as a part of the past when all we get is a decade or two of it? When we only learn about five people? When we continue to silence the voices of the past? We say that the Black figures in history being silenced was wrong, yet we continue to silence them.

Seriously, what's up with that?

Back when schools and history classes started becoming mandatory, I doubt that Black figures in history were taught  in the curriculum. Throughout the 20th century that continued, especially in the white schools where kids were growing up in a world entirely blinded by white privilege. Then comes along Black History Month.

I've found that Black History Month seems to be just a filler in the school calendar. It's like textbook authors were too lazy to do their research and talk about Black figures in history consistently throughout the book and instead decided that just using Black History Month to talk about Black figures in history was okay. Not to say that the things we learn during Black History Month aren't important- they most certainly are. However, Black History has been being made since white history was. Black History didn't just happen in the 1960s. Schools should stop treating it that way.

When I look things up on the internet and learn a bit about Black History, I find that so many things we have today we have Black creators to thank for. Sanitary belts? Black inventor Mary Beatrice Davidson Kenner invented that. Mailboxes? Phillip Downing. Home security systems? Marie Van Brittan Brown. Dry cleaners? Thomas Jennings. The list goes on and on. So why haven't I heard the names of the inventors of items we use daily?

Something I've found is that it seems like as times go on, the educational system does a bad job of keeping up with the information. They treat things like they did back in the 20th century. They still treat it like "the victor tells history." Even as times evolved and it was evident that racism was far from dead, the educational system didn't change. As times go on, the story stays the same. How can that be? The story of history isn't just the story of the victors- it's the story of artists, warriors, scientists, and many more people. People who had to fight the currents of racism to get to their achievements. Why aren't we celebrating these people who had to work so hard to change the world and yet did it and impacted our society positively? Why do we let their names go forgotten? Why do we let the racism of the past stick with us? Why do we turn a blind eye?

I've considered myself pretty lucky when it comes to being taught Black history. I have to read The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas for school, so finally we're going to talk about modern racism. This was already scheduled before the protests, but why am I just now being taught this in school? Why is my grade the only one talking about it? Also, I've noticed that my history curriculum is also going to continue being the same as it was. My friends and are going to petition for Black history to regularly be incorporated into our curriculum next year. I'd encourage anyone in school to do the same! Let's all demand that history be told as it should be!

"I don't want Black History Month. Black history is American history."
- Morgan Freeman

This quote by Morgan Freeman says it all.

Why do our school systems keep treating Black history like it is just a small part of the past? Why are we not keeping up with new findings and new observations that come into light in our history curriculums? History never stops growing. History never stops changing. Our textbooks shouldn't keep teaching the exact same things as they were forty years ago. We need to understand that a lot of names have been forgotten and a lot of issues have been swept under the rug. Educators cannot keep turning away. If we're going to change our future generations, we need stop teaching them like the past generations.

Teaching future generations like past ones will get us nowhere.