Time to end Black History Month?

[Shy]

[size=1][url=http://www.theblackmarket.com/dates.htm]On this day in 1879 B.K. Bruce of Mississippi became the first African American to preside over the United States Senate. [link][/url]

That's kinda neat. :)

-Shy[/size]

[SunfallE]

[COLOR="RoyalBlue"][FONT="Lucida Sans Unicode"][quote name='Retribution][font=Arial]Unless the religion taught about black history, I'm not really sure where it would factor into this equation. I mean, maybe this happened for her, but she said she learned about it in high school so I assume she meant non-religion education.[/font][/QUOTE]Are you saying teachers in schools don't believe in religion or belong to one? o_O That's kind of the point I was getting at. Obviously she had teachers who didn't agree with the current system.[QUOTE=Retribution][font=Arial']Interestingly enough, your mention of religion serves to underscore my original point - academic and historical discrimination is a systemic problem. Even a cursory reading of the aforementioned link will show you LDS was an extraordinarily racist group for years. And yes, like you mentioned, it only stopped in 1978. So why would I believe her for telling me she learned about African history in an extraordinarily racist state, under a discriminatory religion, in a time of division, schism, and turmoil? Forgive my impolite disbelief.[/font][/quote] So now all members of a given religion blindly follow the majority? The point I made which you didn't quote was that there were members, [I]within the church[/I], who did not agree with Church policy. Why is it so hard for you to believe that there were groups who not only taught it, but worked from within to end it?

Forgive my impolite disbelief in your apparent [I]inability[/I] to grasp that not all members of any religion or state think or teach the same.[quote name='Retribution][font=Arial']I'm not denying there were historical pushes for equality. Indeed, without these heroic movements the world would be a fundamentally different place. However these pushes, while great, have been insufficient. Academia is still a heavily eurocentric realm, African history is still overlooked as irrelevant or nonexistent, and kids never learn anything about Africa aside from "we took slaves from there." I think most of us witnessed this firsthand in elementary school, and hell, even in college.[/font][/quote] The pushes were not enough? Uh, blacks [I]were[/I] granted the right to hold positions of authority in the Church in 1978. That is the point really.

Obviously we still have a ways to go, but I find it kind of tiresome that you're dismissing the involvement of whites who actually fought for black rights. [/FONT][/COLOR]

[Retribution]

[quote name='SunfallE'][COLOR="RoyalBlue"][FONT="Lucida Sans Unicode"]Forgive my impolite disbelief in your apparent [I]inability[/I] to grasp that not all members of any religion or state think or teach the same. The pushes were not enough? Uh, blacks [I]were[/I] granted the right to hold positions of authority in the Church in 1978. That is the point really.

Obviously we still have a ways to go, but I find it kind of tiresome that you're dismissing the involvement of whites who actually fought for black rights. [/FONT][/COLOR][/QUOTE]
[font=Arial]My point was that if the religion formally did not give blacks equal rights until 1978, it stands to reason there was still academic discrimination long after they were granted formal equality.

So yes, the religion did leap forward, but there still exists a massive chasm in terms of equality of histories. Yes, we are all formally, legally equal, but academic discrimination is still alive and well. It is still in our schools, despite however 'equal' we all are.

Along this line, I find it difficult to believe the climate she lived it was progressive enough to teach African history when religion was still discriminatory, the nation was still discriminatory, and academia was still discriminatory. She asserts the trend of history was progressiveness TO historical degradation. This is the opposite of how things work - as time passes, society becomes more progressive not the other way around.

When I say "these pushes were not enough," I'm talking more broadly than just LDS. I'm talking about equality across the board. I do not personally believe there is total equality today, and I brought up academia is an example of how there still exists discrimination and bias, and how we've got a ways to go.[/font]

[SunfallE]

[COLOR="RoyalBlue"][FONT="Lucida Sans Unicode"][quote name='Retribution][font=Arial]My point was that if the religion formally did not give blacks equal rights until 1978, it stands to reason there was still academic discrimination long after they were granted formal equality.[/font][/QUOTE]You know, this is tiresome, she never said the discrimination didn't exist, the only one dragging racism into this is you. Everyone already gets that there are issues with the education system.[QUOTE=Retribution][font=Arial]So yes, the religion did leap forward, but there still exists a massive chasm in terms of equality of histories. Yes, we are all formally, legally equal, but academic discrimination is still alive and well. It is still in our schools, despite however 'equal' we all are.[/font][/QUOTE]Did her posts ever say that all schools were free of that? No.[QUOTE=Retribution][font=Arial']So long this line, I find it difficult to believe the climate she lived it was progressive enough to teach African history when religion was still discriminatory, the nation was still discriminatory, and academia was still discriminatory. She asserts the trend of history was progressiveness TO historical degradation. This is the opposite of how things work - as time passes, society becomes more progressive not the other way around.[/font][/quote]You're still making the same mistake. For all we know it was just one town or only those that had a higher number of people willing to go against the grain and teach more.

Pull your head out of the stupid notion that there were no places that weren't progressive. Are you forgetting that the black history month was created for that very reason? Are you forgetting that it started with something called 'Negro week'? I think that was started back around the first part of the 20th century. I'd have to look to be sure.

So it stands to reason that there were and still are pockets among the states where schools do have teachers who do a better job. Just cause say 90% doesn't... it doesn't change that there is say 10% that does. I don't know exact numbers by the way, I'm just saying that claiming 100% of schools never tried to see this or teach differently is extremely ignorant on your part.[quote name='Retribution][font=Arial']When I say "these pushes were not enough," I'm talking more broadly than just LDS. I'm talking about equality across the board. I do not personally believe there is total equality today, and I brought up academia is an example of how there still exists discrimination and bias, and how we've got a ways to go.[/font][/quote]Well duh, I think that's a given really. But my point was about that incident, not things as a whole. You keep bashing people over the head with a point that everyone agrees on and you keep using it to dismiss the fact that everything isn't as black and white (yes terrible pun, sorry about that) as you're portraying it. [/FONT][/COLOR]

[eleanor]

[quote name='Aaryanna_Mom']Actually that's not entirely correct, someone else brought it up before her and this was her response:All she said was why not and then suggested other stuff besides 'white history'. Then you came along and pretty much implied such a thing wasn't worth consideration since they didn't contribute as much.History shouldn't be about who did the most though it's unavoidable that you will focus more on one because of that. [/QUOTE]

[font=trebuchet ms] I said Raiha said having black history month is like saying it's more important than the rest of history, which allowed me to make another argument against the idea of"white history month". You're not really proving anything here.

And don't belittle and mock what I said about other minority groups, or try and twist them into something negative. I do not doubt for a second that all cultures have contributed something important to history, but to say Asians or Native Americans have had as much an impact on US history and culture as blacks is ridiculous. Should we have months to celebrate Native Americans? Sure, why not? All I'm saying is the reason we DON'T is and the reason why we DO for black history month is because blacks have made a very significant impact on US history. We could dedicate a month to every minority group in the US for all I care. The fact remains that blacks are the minority group that have made the largest impacts on US history/culture.

This is almost funny. Stop preaching about how we shouldn't be relying on insults when your entire response to me was a biased argument that twists my words and tries to throw me in a negative spotlight. At least I don't try and pretend about these things.[/font]

[Aaryanna_Mom]

[QUOTE=Lunox][font=trebuchet ms] I said Raiha said having black history month is like saying it's more important than the rest of history, which allowed me to make another argument against the idea of"white history month". You're not really proving anything here.

And don't belittle and mock what I said about other minority groups, or try and twist them into something negative. I do not doubt for a second that all cultures have contributed something important to history, but to say Asians or Native Americans have had as much an impact on US history and culture as blacks is ridiculous. Should we have months to celebrate Native Americans? Sure, why not? All I'm saying is the reason we DON'T is and the reason why we DO for black history month is because blacks have made a very significant impact on US history. We could dedicate a month to every minority group in the US for all I care. The fact remains that blacks are the minority group that have made the largest impacts on US history/culture.

This is almost funny. Stop preaching about how we shouldn't be relying on insults when your entire response to me was a biased argument that twists my words and tries to throw me in a negative spotlight. At least I don't try and pretend about these things.[/font][/QUOTE]I honestly feel like you guys don't listen to a word I say. So I'll remind you of my opinion on this:[quote name='Aaryanna_Mom']In my opinion, if a teacher is doing their job of teaching all of it, there shouldn't be a need to make a month to focus on just one aspect of it.[/quote]This applies universally to all aspects since it is American history, not black history, not Indian history, not Asian history, not White history but... [U]AMERICAN[/U] history.

Most of the fuss comes from people's inability to get past that and work for a comprehensive history. They're still busy pointing fingers over discrimination, or pointing out why one should get more... when we should be beyond this really.

At this point I find it amusing that we are arguing over semantics instead of over how to revamp the system so that everything, no matter how big or small the contribution, is included.

[Aaryanna]

[COLOR="DarkGreen"][FONT="Tahoma"]I don't really care one way or the other. o_O It's not like my teachers really pay attention to the month. My current one is just taking us through the book section by section to cover history.

There are different parts in the book for covering different aspects of it, just as we have stuff we have to read on history related to Utah as a state. So far, there hasn't been anything that gave me the impression that she was leaving stuff out.

I do have a world history class, and I looked at the book. I can't say if it's fair in trying to cover more than major countries since I haven't compared it to what someone would consider more complete.

We have Pioneer day here in Utah to bring to mind the state being settled. Seems like other holidays are the same. Whether or not they do any good depends on the school, the books being used, the teachers, etc.[/FONT][/COLOR]