Happy Black History Month! Thanks to my mother I know a plethera of things that I wouldn't have, had she not taught us. We were given books to read about different black people when we were younger. It was always a treat for me cause I loved reading about people and their lives when I was younger.
I say this to say TEACH your children. TEACH our babies about their history. Stop telling them just about Dr. Martin Luther King, Harriet Tubman, Soujourner Truth, they are all wonderful/inspirational people. Learning about our history is not limited to slavery. That is not the only thing we went through, again not downplaying ANYTHING, by any means. Tell our kids that we came from Kings and Queens in Africa. That Africans were amoung the first to have a governement and have laws recorded.We are SMART, INTELLIGENT, BEAUTIFUL, AND CAN BE ANYBODY WE WANT TO BE.
This is my reasoning for saying this. I was in my mother's classroom when she asked on Feburary 1st, What is today? The kids looked around at each other or stared back at her with blank faces. After they shouted out the obvious things,( February, Valentines Day etc) they looked around in complete confusion when the answer was NO. My mom had to give them some hints, they finally go it. Then she asked another question. What President ended Slavery? Why did a student begin to say Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Really? Dr. Marting Luther King Jr. ended slavery in the 60's. C'mon man.
Tell your children to put down the video games, give them books let them read about the Tuskegee Airmen, Mary McCleod Bethune, Medgar Evers, W.E.B. DeBuois, Benjimen Banikar, Josephine Baker,Bessie Smith, Angela Davis, and Marcus Gravey. Give them a book about Macolm X, the black panthers. Fill your children with this knowledge. Expose them to other music like Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Sam Cooke, Nat King Cole, Duke Ellington, Bill Withers, Instead of them just thinking Lil Wayne, Jay-Z, Kanye West Wiz Khalifa (sp) is the only kind of music out there. Let them know that we have invented things, we have written things, created things (paintings), written songs and sang them.
We have to do better as a people to educate our young black children. Let them know that while having the dream to be a rapper, basketball player,football player, model, singer, actor/actress, while it is great, not everyone is meant to be one of those. There are other things to do outside of that. Just take the time to eduacate your kids on our History.Most kids don't have the desire to go out and try to find books on their own.
What do you think?
