Monday, February 02, 2009

Black History Month Daily Thread

cartergwoodson
Dr. Carter Godwin Woodson, Father of Black History Month. A chronicler of Black History, Dr. Woodson's best known work is The Mis-Education of the Negro.



Quotes:

As another has well said, to handicap a student by teaching him that his black face is a curse and that his struggle to change his condition is hopeless is the worst sort of lynching....

If a race has no history, if it has no worthwhile tradition, it becomes a negligible factor in the thought of the world, and it stands in danger of being exterminated. ...

If the Negro in the ghetto must eternally be fed by the hand that pushes him into the ghetto, he will never become strong enough to get out of the ghetto.....

If the white man wants to hold on to it, let him do so; but the Negro, so far as he is able, should develop and carry out a program of his own....

In the long run, there is not much discrimination against superior talent....

The thought of' the inferiority of the Negro is drilled into him in almost every class he enters and in almost every book he studies. ...

Those who have no record of what their forebears have accomplished lose the inspiration which comes from the teaching of biography and history.....

When you control a man's thinking you do not have to worry about his actions. .....

Let us banish fear.......

3 comments:

Brian said...

I often ask myself if we really need a "Black History Month" anymore.

Do we?

I tend to lean towards "no".

I feel the same about Kwanzaa... never been crazy about the idea. Can we please ban Kwanzaa? I had a white co-worker tell me "Happy Kwanzaa" once...and I was so offended that it took all my strength not to go postal on her... but I did manage to tell her why I was offended.

As long as we create these segregated events...segregated Holidays... will Blacks ever be able to integrate into American society? I know that it's already hard to integrate because often...Blacks are shut out... but still... should Blacks be contributing to the problem of maintaining walls of separation? These are the kinds of things that may be slowing (and even preventing) a more integrated Country. It's why Blacks often aren't seen as "Americans" at least not in the same light as every other citizen.

I believe that some Holidays are o.k.... Latin Americans celebrate Cinco De Mayo...etc. (although Cinco is less segregated...much more inclusive). But Blacks seem to have a lot of Holidays.

Is there still a need for "Black History Month"?

I know the answer i'm going to get.... but I will still ask myself this question every year and lean towards "no".

Instead of all the wasteful celebrations by the Negroes in the Black elite and Civil Rights Incorporated... I would much rather see February used as a month of community service by Blacks (and all ethnic groups who want to pitch in) cleaning up, restoring and revitalizing blighted Black communities. Fighting crime, protesting to get liquor stores and poisonous billboards out of the neighborhood, building homes, fixing churches, painting, clearing debris, increasing property values and encouraging investment, building grocery stores, creating job training centers and free...low cost community colleges in the inner city, assisting the elderly, assisting the homeless to stand up on their own.... protecting children... there is plenty of real work to do.

This has become 28 days of foolishness for the most part.

I can still recall how BET would honor this month... by putting a Black history month logo on the screen... While degenerate images play in the background. (this was stopped only recently).

The month has become a joke.... just like Kwanzaa...just like the NAACP...just like the image awards... just like BET... all of it.

Brian said...

Oh...and I'm also tired of White people asking me stupid questions during February.

Anonymous said...

AI,
On one hand I somewhat agree, we create history all year round. On other, all of America needs to be educated of our contributions to this country.