separation

Recently some associates of mine suggested that African American history month was passé. They felt that the concept of African American history month was patronizing in the 21st century; after all there is no Greek American history month or Quaker American history month. I was stunned by their revelation. I had never thought of African American history month in this vain. I cautiously shared some agreement with their observation, but felt unwilling to make such a pompous proclamation.

The political state we call America has existed in some form for about 400 years. Slavery or some form of legal segregation based on skin color has existed here for approximately 350 of those years. It seems impossible for us not to have strong emotional feelings about skin color. No matter how civilized and educated and prosperous we may feel we are, no matter how liberal our thinking, no matter how color blind our parents may have been, no matter how progressive the academic institutions we attended purported to be, no matter how devout we may believe ourselves to be, skin color is a big issue in this land today. Now whether we allow this pain to surface or whether we choose to bury this pain deep into our subconscious is of course another matter.

So I asked myself why I was unwilling to call the idea of celebrating separation obsolete, because that is what we do for black history month, we celebrate separation. We honor the achievements of African Americas as opposed to the achievements of other Americans. I wondered why I couldn’t declare this ritual obsolete and discontinue it.

I searched my soul and found I felt that because the issues of skin color are still buried beneath our civilized exterior, the message of this month was still needed in some way. I thought about how I have suppressed feelings like hate and fear and envy and contempt and lust that live in me because my ancestry is rooted in institutions like slavery and segregation. I thought about what this knowledge and heritage has created in my mind and what it has created in this land in the minds of its peoples.

It would be foolish to think that these emotions have disappeared when I know that just 50 years ago an integrated forum such as this would have been impossible. Our parents lived in a segregated society, so how can we imagine that the impact of that institution does not still rest heavy on us just because we don’t talk about it. Do we believe that we are so civilized that these primitive emotions no longer operate within our subconscious?

I don’t agree with my associates. I don’t believe African American history month is passé or patronizing. But to their credit, they did stir me to reevaluate the meaning of this month. Anyone can read the historical facts and events attributed to African Americans. I will not waste time reciting them to you here now. But instead I will use this time to remember those negative subliminal issues of skin color or religion or culture that we inherited from our parents, and from our text books, and from those never ending specials on public television.

In this way, then perhaps we can avoid the fate of destroying ourselves silently, unbeknownst to ourselves that it is each of us doing the killing without knowing it. If we search our hearts and acknowledge that we harbor those subliminal negative emotions against each other as Americans, just imagine the feelings we hold against them, in those other places over there, beyond our borders. You know them, the people we want to fence out. Perhaps a better use of February would be to celebrate and embrace differences between peoples everywhere, so as to help us see that they are really just like us.

On my lips February will always be African American history month, but in my heart February will be a month dedicated to eliminate the separation that keeps us apart.