Don't just celebrate Black History Month - Learn

The month of February is now being marketed as Black History Month in most multicultural states. I think calling African-Americans “black” is racist, but aside from that it is a wonderful idea to designate a month in honor of that culture's history and it should have been done a long time ago. Better late than never though and I applaud our congressmen for taking this action.

Now it's up to us to work to make sure Black History Month is a success, unlike Breast Cancer Month in October, which failed to bring about a cure. No matter what continent you come from, you should be spending at least one or two hours every day this month reading biographies of great African-American figures such as Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, Luther Vandross and Barack Obama. So you say you aren't very good at reading? No excuse. You can still learn something. There is a movie about Malcolm X that was made by Spike Lee, who also happens to be an African-American. Rent it at Blockbuster. I'm sure you can also listen to some speeches by Martin Luther King online somewhere, if that kind of thing isn't a violation of copyrights. Copyrights might not apply on this because, sadly, Dr. King was assassinated on April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tennessee. I'm not real sure how copyrights work, but check the laws in your state before you download anything. The last thing you want on your hands is another lawsuit. I'm not going to try it because I've got my own litigation troubles to deal with right now, but if it's all OK with the government, just google “Martin Luther King speeches” and you can probably find something. If not, maybe somebody at the library can help you.

Have you noticed the younger generation of librarians aren't as helpful as they used to be before Internet was forced upon us? Next time you're at the library ask them to find you a book without using a computer. They can't do it. They don't teach the Dewey Decimal System any more because it's creator, Melvil Dewey, was a known racist, according to Wikipedia. But to Mr. Dewey's credit he did try to simplify the way we spell words in the English language. His spelling reforms didn't really catch on, but if they had they could have benefited the poor African-American children who can't get a good education because of their economic status in life.

Racism in America is the root cause of all this. You and I can't do anything about it because we're white. We need more young African-American school children to grow up to become leaders in the war on racism. But how are these children supposed to know what to do if we're not teaching them about their ethnicity's history and about Martin Luther King and Malcolm X? That's why we need a Black History Month.