Haitian photographer, Ocean Morisset put a bug in my ear-- Recycled. He wasn't talking plastic and newspapers, but instead calling us out on our formula-driven annual itineraries for Black History Month. You know, MLK, Langston Hughes, slave burial grounds. Telling it like it was, as opposed to telling it like it is. He's no traitor to The Cause, so I knew better to pre-judge a word and the intention behind it. But it did make me relfect a bit on what's being pushed as standard, acceptable Black History Month mentions and reminders. Because just as quickly as I was to defend the memory and legacy of Dr. King, praise one of our best literateurs and give honor to our ancestors, I realized he was making a valid point. We do tend to promote what some of our more forward-thinking relatives might call safe historical figures and events; 'safe' meaning that it doesn't upset the status quo. Or as my brassy daughter would say, Those who run sht!
Young school heads, especially, will tell you that Black History Month, to them, is that 28-day period when it's not grassroots folk who are deciding what to put on the menu, but administrators and media titles who like to keep it clever and not too emotional. Because the business appoach is not to encourage people to feel or take action, but to showcase an illusion of something that can bring change in mindset and behavior.
So the challenge for me was to stretch my mind and think out the box of what Black History Month is and can be. I started paying more attention to what kinds of assignments teachers and professors were pushing, what we were seeing on tv, what our newspapers were regurgitating, which same legends were getting props, and the loud absence of figures--often times right in our community--who've been ignored every year because of our tendency to be stuck on formula, along with our reluctance to address the many contradictions at the family table. I knew I was already in a position to complain. Like Morisset, I don't wait 'til February to celebrate myself and those before me. When you wear Black History every day, your words and camera eyes are fluid and open. Your carriage is strong and unapologetic. You become a true instrument of God because of your willingness to reject doubt and allow the past, present and future to travel in and out of you with the only one expectation, and that is to learn more about who you are and why you're here.
So this challenge was my gift. Like the itch on my head that made me scratch out this here piece. I decided, while formula still deserves its due respect for establishing a wellspring for us to drink from, that history can be made not only by how we turn pain into victory but also by peering through and between files of stories either untold or still unfolding...
Like the plight of African Iraqis...
Haitian children still being forced into slavery in D.R....
Our sons inhaling paper bag and dye, and calling it cigar smoking...
Gentrification not just happening in Harlem...
Admitting and exploring how Christianity and Islam were forced on us...
Venezuela gives actor/activist, Danny Glover 18 million pesos to make the Toussaint L'Ouverture film, since he couldn't get the support at home....
First Lady, Michelle Obama invites Black D.C. youth to The White House and tells each of them that they're history in the making...
Eric Holder, the first African American U.S. Attorney General proves you can have a high ranking title and still keep it gangsta, after calling America "a nation of cowards" for avoiding to talk honestly about racism. This after The New York Post portrays President Obama as a monkey causing even Whites to protest...
Rapper, NAS says Hip Hop is dead, now that we've allowed bling and ice to replace Community and African pride...
R&B singer, Usher creates Project Restart for Katrina survivors...
Bloods and Crips sign The Peace Treaty in 2007 and Dr. Joy DeGruy publishes Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome in 2005...
High School student/researcher, Kiri Davis discovers that after Dr. Clark's 1954 test little Black girls still prefer white dolls over black dolls...
Or Adam Clayton Powell told Dr. King he'd start a rumor that him and the Civil Rights Movement spearheader, Baynard Rustin were lovers, just so an openly gay Black man wouldn't be recognized as a heroe. The kind of Black History that not only informs and instills pride in the most modern sense, but also challenges our prejudices and fears. The same kind of Black History that helps a Black kid see our legacy of stuggle as an on-going poem, and that his and her job is to simply add on to it whatever words deemed worthy of eternal life.
For those of us who choose to honor the past yet still think forward, making way for more interesting shapes and shades of our truth is the way to healing old wounds.
And so this challenge, this friendly yet decisive nudge to get me to re-think Black History encouraged me to by-pass the usual menu items and read the fine print, which is how I accidentally--or not so accidentally--stumbled onto a documentary called Mr. Dial Has Something to Say. An unlikely video-essay of the late and little-known artist, Thornton Dial (They never show Black people on Ovation TV, but then it's February). I hadn't heard of him. I know Picasso, Michaelangelo, Renoir and Van Gogh. Four artists who most likely could've cared less about my plight.
To be honest, Dial's art didn't move me that much. Nothing but respect, but I'm not big on what they call outsider folk art. It was the interviews about his life that kept my attention, especially when another Civil Rights Movement icon, Andrew Jackson was dropping serious knowledge!!! Saying how MLK got a C+ in public speaking during his doctoral studies because his White professor didn't like the message, and how Black academicians typically have the burden of shedding their african when attempting to get the Letters, since the regiment is essentially based on the preponderence of European intelectualism.
I think I was rooting more for Jackson than Dial, out of being so thrilled to hear a respected Black icon be candid about stuff we should be saying but for whatever reason avoid calling it altogether. It validated my choosing to keep my voice and identity over fancy stipend money!!!
How we choose to celebrate Black History Month is both a cooperative and personal show of pride; and the personal doesn't have to be so individualistic. Not when your individual boasting elevates the rest of us. And it doesn't have to be recycled either. Elevating barbershop convo, for example, from bling and booty talk to what are we doing about our health problems?
Is the reason why our boys keep their standards low because we've allowed our own standards to drop?
Are we ignoring the temptation to gossip about what went down between Rhianna and Chris Brown, and focusing instead on having serious talks with our young men about violence against women?
Does community service have to be attached to punishment?
If our schools are failing our children, what are we teaching them at home?
Are we expecting Obama to play messiah or do we understand that now that we've voted for change we have the responsibility to create change within ourselves, beginning with how we treat and interact with one another?
And are we willing to discuss what typically makes us uncomfortable but that our youth find necessary to handle, for the sake of forward movement?
Are we mentoring and volunteering in our own hood?
Are we teaching our boys that it's okay to have emotions so they don't become detached men?
If we're fortunate enough to own or manage space, are we using it to promote our artists or collect more space?
If we inherited some loot, are we thinking internet cafe or liquor store?
Are we making less boring music videos and demanding that the record industry stop exploiting our daughters?
What if Black Friday meant Support Black Businesses?
Do we have a full comprehension of this economic crisis; that this obssession with bling and fluff is really over, and how we're goona have to re-learn to count on each other?
Are we staying in unhappy relationships for fear of being alone, and are we alone because we're forgetting how to connect without gadgets?
I don't know about you, but 28 days and a mule just won't cut it for me! Not when we're still dying from homicide, depression, internalized racism, incarceration, religious indoctrination, and denial. Plus, we never did get that mule...
I say, bump da mule and take a good look at where you are right now. If you're still feeling stuck and depressed or angry and powerless, then you're not making history!!!
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