Kerran Monroe. Jamaica Entertainment Correspondent
Caribbean news. So it’s February so that means its Black History Month. It’s also the month that the reggae King Robert Nesta Marley was born. February is also being celebrated as Reggae Month.
Now I have not been one to subscribe to the relevance of Black History Month especially here in Jamaica, where 90 percent of the population is of African descent and what we learn in school in terms of history is already black history.
Albeit not enough, black history is what we are taught in History class. Unless during Black History month; we will be exposed to pre slavery black history, I don’t see the relevance of it as it would just be 28 or 29 days of repetition.
Another reason and the main reason why I don’t take part in this “celebration “ is because I see it as just another way of keeping the black race inferior. So they “give” us this month to keep us “happy”. There aren’t enough black people to be proud of so 28 days should suffice to celebrate the few that the blacks have to be proud of.
So only the race at the bottom of the social ladder of the Plantation gets a month to celebrate. Why don’t we celebrate Chinese History Month, or Indian History Month or Caucasian History Month? Why do we only celebrate Black History Month and on the shortest month of the year?
Photo courtesy birthdaymagazine.co.uk
So ok then fine, we are celebrating Black History Month because we need to know where we are coming from to appreciate where we are today. Why are we only celebrating the slavery era Black History?
Didn’t we have history pre slavery? Did we just fall from the sky and fell into slavery and oppression? Why don’t we use this time that our oppressors have so graciously granted us, to teach our people about where they really came from? Instead we use the time to further cement in the minds of our people that before 1834, all they were, were slaves; no history predates that, except for the part where they were forcefully uprooted and replanted where we now call home.
And that folks is why I don’t do Black History Month. what’s your view…?
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