The Higher Synthesis

 

Black History Month                                                                                                             

    Well it's February in the United States and what does that mean for teachers across the nation? That's right; you guessed it you intelligent, curious human beings. It's Black History Month. Did anyone ever ask why there has to be a Black History month? Why isn't Black History integrated into all of American History? Why is it segregated from the other months? It seems obvious to me (but evidently not to everyone) that the White Anglo Protestant Leaders of this country do not want the atrocities of slavery and racism;implemented in the formation of this country; the injustices of Jim Crow, the burning of Black Wall Street, or the Tuskegee Experiment to be taught in the national historical curriculum every month of the year. This dark History must be kept in the shadows by the leaders of this country in order to maintain dominance and control of its' minority citizens.  

    It is for the same reason that after the American Civil War,  (April 12, 1861 - May 9, 1865) the historical record of the war was published by Union scholars. They didn't want the southern educators to teach southern citizens about southern victories in the war or any other ideas that resonated a belief in the moral authority of the confederacy. The northern scholars had to control the educational narrative of the war in order to delete the secessionist imaginations of citizens of the southern states. Now don't misunderstand me, I am not a southern sympathizer in any way shape or form nor do I believe that the southern confederacy shouldn't have been destroyed. My point is that education is an extremely valuable instrument to shape the ''psyche" of a nation. Those that have the authority of educating the youth are shaping their belief systems and thought processes to conform to values and ideas that are beneficial to the ruling class' idea of "National well-being." This is one of the answers, in my opinion, to my query as to why Black History has always been segregated from White History. This is yet another example of "systemic racism." It is propagated in all minority communities in our country and continues to be an endemic,subliminal, covert doctrine in our national educational system.

    My first experience with "white nationalistic oppression" was when I travelled out west to Keystone, South Dakota to visit the famous historical memorial Mount Rushmore. It is a memorial with the faces of George Washington,(1st POTUS) Abraham Lincoln, (16th POTUS) Theodore Roosevelt, (26th POTUS) and Thomas Jefferson.(3rd POTUS) carved by hand into the granite hillside. We attended a historical dissertation at the base of the memorial, curated by an Indigenous member of the Lakota Sioux Tribe of South Dakota. I found it strange that a member of a tribe (that was forced onto a Native Reservation by these U.S. governmental leaders) was curating at a memorial about the WASP leaders that had oppressed them so vehemently and methodically. He was educating us about the history of the monument, how and why it was commissioned by the U.S. government, and various other facts. He went on to explain that this area of the Black Hills was considered to be one of the holiest religious sites of the Lakota Sioux Tribe. It was their JERUSALEM. The people of the tribe considered these hills to be sacred and held yearly prayers and spiritual pilgrimages there for thousands of years.  Now ask yourself this question. Why would the United States government commission an artist to carve into this sacred, indigenous, ancient religious site; images of their oppressors? It was a form of psychological warfare asserting their dominance over a defeated enemy. It was about the advancement of Manifest Destiny. The Indigenous people of this region were executed by the armies of the U.S. government, driven off of their land onto reservations, and their food hunted (buffalo) into extinction. Their intention was genocide but the Lakota tribe survived. The Black Hills where Mount Rushmore is located is still being disputed by the Lakota Sioux tribe. The land was taken illegally and the tribe sued the American government in 1923 and again in 1980. You can read about it here. This element of American History was excluded from my education intentionally and proved that the ethnic majority (White-Anglo-Saxon-Protestant) leaders of education deliberately kept this information hidden from the public in order to promote their imperialistic agenda of subjugation over the Indigenous minority. 

This enlightening truth forever changed my life and understanding of the nation I call home. It caused me to question all of American history that I had been taught and to research numerous other events that had been erased from the national memory. Black History and Indigenous History is and always has been part of our collective consciousness and must be taught  every month of the year in every institution of learning if we are to forge onward together toward a just society of which we can all be proud.

"Be The Change You Wish to See in the World."   -Ghandi

Yoel D. Avraham