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By: Todd Grier
Issue date: 2/27/09 Section: Opinion
In response to Pro/Con Black History Month article on Thursday:
Jason Staggs argues that we as Americans live in a post-racial society and that celebrating the accomplishments of black Americans only serves to perpetuate divisions between whites and blacks, and I would guess other minority populations. Such an argument, as pointed out by Kenny Ryan, is a method whites have utilized to try to bury the horrific role our white ancestors, grandparents, parents and often selves have had in suppressing other human beings. Arguing we are in a post-racial society is ignorant and uninformed. The level of police brutality is disproportionately higher for minority populations, not to mention the crimes committed against many of our own international students in the Northgate area. Staggs reveals the overarching goal of a celebration like Black History Month in his own recollection of elementary school. Without a time like this month many Americans-black, white, Latino, Native American, etc.- would hardly know more of Martin Luther King than his speech. In fact, most still know of little more than that. The idea of Black History Month is not to attempt to make us all seem the same; it is to learn how to celebrate the different backgrounds we have all come from.
Jason Staggs argues that we as Americans live in a post-racial society and that celebrating the accomplishments of black Americans only serves to perpetuate divisions between whites and blacks, and I would guess other minority populations. Such an argument, as pointed out by Kenny Ryan, is a method whites have utilized to try to bury the horrific role our white ancestors, grandparents, parents and often selves have had in suppressing other human beings. Arguing we are in a post-racial society is ignorant and uninformed. The level of police brutality is disproportionately higher for minority populations, not to mention the crimes committed against many of our own international students in the Northgate area. Staggs reveals the overarching goal of a celebration like Black History Month in his own recollection of elementary school. Without a time like this month many Americans-black, white, Latino, Native American, etc.- would hardly know more of Martin Luther King than his speech. In fact, most still know of little more than that. The idea of Black History Month is not to attempt to make us all seem the same; it is to learn how to celebrate the different backgrounds we have all come from.
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