It just occurred to me that this is Black History month. No, really, it did.
I asked my 15-year old if his school was doing anything special this month and he looked at me without a lick of concern and says, "Nope. Do you have an extra dollar so I can buy some cookies at lunch?" (sigh) I will ask my other youngin' later this evening, but after searching the school district's website I didn't find anything.
If you think about it, do we really need to focus on black history once a year? In the age of Google, iPads, Smart phones and downloadable apps, black history facts are available 24/7. Just search "first black (or African-American) person to do this or that" and you got it.
Back in the day, Black History month saved us a few hours of searching through the library for information (because someone else took the time to do it) and gave us a month's worth of black films on tv. Now, you can just hit up Netflix or Amazon and there you have it. You can watch X, every Dr. Martin Luther the King movie ever made or School Daze wherever and whenever.
I'm not saying we should lay black history to the wayside, but as a parent take it upon ourselves to make sure the kids are aware of the contributions and sacrifices that were made. Not wait for a program at the school or church to do it for us. Visit a museum every now and again. What would it hurt. HuffPost/Black Voices put a decent little piece together about Black History. Check it out here.
1 comment:
You make an excellent point about how the world in which we live (the Internet, NetFlix, etc.) has lessened Black History month. Although on the one hand it's cool to have a month set aside to focus on the contributions of black people, what I'd like to see happen is for black history to be combined with history in general.
I really enjoyed the clip of a 10 yr old Sammy Davis Jr. performing! If I didn't know who he was, I'd think he was a midget because he had such maturity and stage presence even at a young age.
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