Tomorrow is the start of Black History Month, and I intend to research something relevant and post about it once a day for the next four weeks. (This first piece, from Letters of Note, comes with thanks to Adam Kilner.)
I’m doing this to educate myself, and to provide a forum for inclusive discussion in a space that doesn’t involve demanding marginalized communities to do the work of educating people who aren’t marginalized in the same ways.
Why bother with something like this? The simplest answer is because a couple days ago I encountered a woman who stated that she had experienced some small amount of racism as a white person, but since most of the time the racism was working in her favour, she “wasn’t going to cry about it.” This upset me deeply; if you can acknowledge you’re by and large benefitting from the colour of your skin, how could that not be as upsetting to you as if you were suffering because of the colour of your skin?
That said, I’m aware that some take issue with this month because they feel it singles out one group above others (why not an Aboriginal History Month, for instance?).
Others, meanwhile, feel the month wrongly conflates the distinct experiences of settler Africadians, kidnapped Africans in the US slave trade, African-Americans during ensuing civil rights movements, and the more recent West Indies and Nigerian immigration surges in Canada and the US.
Still others feel it is simply wrong to focus on race issues over class issues, since the latter deeply disenfranchise people of all backgrounds all over North America today. Arguments have even been made that focusing on race issues plays right into the agenda of certain people of means, who want to keep the lower classes fighting amongst themselves instead of rallying against top-down exploitation.
Alternately, some feel Black History Month is merely an exercise in tokenism–a useless gesture that does nothing to subvert systemic issues of ongoing racial discrimination, and thus serves only as a mockery of all the suffering upon which it’s predicated.
And of course (most problematically), some simply see anyone whose skin is of a different colour than theirs as a threat, and so find this month intrusive upon their sense of self, nation, and community.
For myself, I think all of these issues miss the point (if for markedly different reasons). Black History Month may not be perfect, but it does have the capacity to serve an important function: to pay homage to the fact that history is always written by the victors, and that our own cultural history often erases or subordinates questions of false entitlement.
Canada is a country of immigrants, some of whom are inclined to forget that fact, and while fetishizing other cultures is often no better than fixedly decrying the failures of our own, I do think it’s important to reflect upon the foundational presumptions of our communities — to question whether we adhere to certain principles or perspectives because they are truly the most just, or simply because that’s just the way things have always been.
Black History Month is thus, for me, an opportunity to test my assumptions and rout out unconscious biases. For others, Black History Month will necessarily mean something quite different–something perhaps far more traumatic–and so I invite anyone and everyone to challenge my thoughts and historical notes in the days to come.
For now, though, I simply encourage you to read this letter to the end. Best wishes and much love to you all.
