Colors of Influence presents the following opinion piece
from Leonce Gaiter, who suggests that the statement, “Black history is American
history” paints an inaccurate picture of the largely painful history of blacks
in America. As an African American author,
Leonce’s perspective is unique and he ultimately seeks to spark a conversation
about how black history should be approached—whether you agree with him or
not—without reducing the pain, triumphs and defeats that African Americans
experienced in America.
Leonce Gaiter is a prolific African American writer and
proud Harvard Alum. His writing has appeared in the NYTimes, NYT Magazine, LA
Times, Washington Times, and Washington Post, and he has written two
novels. His newly released novel, In the
Company of Educated Men, (http://bit.ly/ZyqSuN) is a literary thriller with
socio-economic, class, and racial themes.
 |
| Leonce Gaiter |
As taught in mainstream culture, American history propagates
this nation as the womb of freedom, justice, and liberty. There are American creation myths as
exemplified by the “Founding Fathers.”
There are founding documents as revered as biblical texts for their
promise of “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”
That is why the argument that ‘black history is American
history’ is naïve to the point of insipidity.
For most of this nation’s history, blacks were not ‘Americans.’ First, we were owned, and then we were barred
from exercising the rights of citizenship.
That’s why our history puts the lie to American history’s mainstream
myths. Almost half of the delegates to
the Constitutional Convention, some of whom wrote so eloquently of freedom,
owned other men as slaves. For most of
its history, this country profited immensely from forcibly denying us freedom
and liberty, by keeping us in chains, and from our labor as sub-citizens. Our history puts the lie to America’s history
as popularly told.
Do we want to continue to teach our children black history
through a white racial frame? That is
the practical effect of stating, “black history is American history.” It states that the majority veil should be
placed on the history that we teach our children. It states that we should forego the right
that every other culture assumes—the right to teach our history from our own
point-of-view, and to be the heroes of our own stories—and instead, subsume our
history within the majority’s. It states that we do not have the right to
express our rage at the barbarities we endured, for those are histories that
the majority has little willingness to accept and examine, and for good reason:
they put the lie to treasured American myths.
To pronounce that “black history is American history” says
that every black child should learn that after Vernon Dahmer’s home was
firebombed in Mississippi and Dahmer died from his wounds, the outraged white
community worked to rebuild the Dahmer home.
It says that black children needn’t learn that in Brookhaven,
Mississippi in 1955, Lamar Smith was shot dead on the courthouse lawn in broad
daylight by a white man for the crime of organizing blacks to vote, and that
the known killer was never indicted because, per the Southern Poverty Law
Center, “no one would admit they saw a white man shoot a black man.”
To say “black history is American history” approves the
endless repetition of a Martin Luther King quote like:
“I
refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless
midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood
can never become a reality... I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional
love will have the final word.”
It says black children needn’t bother with another strand of
King’s thinking:
“It
is an unhappy truth that racism is a way of life for the vast majority of white
Americans, spoken and unspoken, acknowledged and denied, subtle and sometimes
not so subtle—the disease of racism permeates and poisons a whole body politic”.
To insist that black history is American history says that
the majority should be allowed to use our history to paint themselves in the
warmest light, but that we should not be allowed to do the same. The two are often mutually exclusive. To understand the challenges and triumphs of
the American descendants of African slaves, it is imperative to understand that
almost every aspect of the might of this nation was used to cripple us. To understand how far we’ve come, the battles
we fought, the blood we shed and the triumphs and defeats we suffered, you must
understand the weight of the spiked boot that was placed on our necks. To do that, you must indict America for crimes
she would rather forget.
American history is not black history, and our history is
not America’s to dictate. Until we
understand that, and begin teaching our history to ourselves in ways that serve
our own cultural needs instead of the majority’s, we will continue to
internalize this nation’s prejudices against us, instead of arming ourselves to
appropriately demonize and deflect them.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author
and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to,
Colors of Influence, its operators or its staff members.
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