I found this article really disturbing . . .
Black History Month's lessons lost on some whites
February 27, 2005
BY MARY MITCHELL SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST Advertisement
I'm glad Black History Month is just about over. Soon, we can all go back to believing that race only matters to race mongers, and that the average person doesn't care whether someone is black or white or Asian or Hispanic -- except maybe when they are choosing a neighborhood to live in, a school for their children, or a church service to attend.
I'm glad Black History Month is over because I'm sick of sharing black history with ungrateful white people -- notice I said ungrateful, not "all" white people.
They have no idea how difficult it was to leave an office where you are surrounded by white people, go home to a barren neighborhood at the end of the Green Line or Red Line and sit down to watch the PBS special: "Slavery and the Making of America."
If I were compelled to watch the cruelty of slavery just one more year, I'm afraid I'll turn into a just-as-soon-kick-you-as-look-at-you black person. After watching Africans being whipped, chained, branded, tortured, raped, castrated and lynched so that white Americans could prosper, I was numb.
I could not wrap my brain around the inhumanity.
I sat on the edge of my chair until the credits rolled. Took myself directly upstairs to bed. And didn't trust myself to talk to a white soul the next day. They wouldn't have wanted to rub me the wrong way. I decided then that I'd better hold off on seeing Part Two until Black History Month was over.
ABC's "Nightline" caught me off guard.
Last Wednesday, Ted Koppel felt compelled to examine "lynching" in America -- probably a salute to Black History Month. That night, I was assaulted by the images of black men being hanged from trees and burned at the stake. According to this report, this savage behavior by what were described as "ordinary citizens" went on until the 1960s.
If I thought that the majority of white people in America were huddled in front of the TV sets during Black History Month, horrified by this chapter of American history and vowing a change, I'd say it was worth it.
But the majority of white people in this country don't understand why black people won't move on. They simply don't get it.
I'm not calling these people racist. I'm saying they are as disconnected from the images of young, smiling white people who attended the lynchings as black people are connected to the black men who were so horribly brutalized. We are connected to these deaths by spirit, and we feel the pain of these ancestors to this very day.
And given this history of white supremacy in America, most of us -- black and white -- should understand why African Americans are a lot more sensitive about racial heckling than others. But when I posed a question about the rise of on-air bashing of blacks, I received an overwhelming response from readers.
Most of it was disappointing.
"When will the black community realize that their cries are falling on apathetic ears. ... In the next few years, your boss in Asia, or the Middle East, is going to care less that it's Black History Month and more about what languages you can speak. ... In the end, don't you think it's all about what you can do to make people more money?" said E. Riley from Homewood.
And for some readers, like P. Pope, it is still about how whites feel, as if mobs of black people had also hung whites from trees.
"I don't think you should have limited your outrage to whites who make fun of blacks. I was listening to a black talk show host at few months ago and he was making jokes about white people. I don't see why they are any less offensive or racist than when a white person makes jokes about blacks," he said.
P. Kalas seems to be saying that blacks have only themselves to blame for white-on-black bashing.
"Just once I would appreciate it if you wrote a story about the real reasons people see 'Blacks' in a negative light. It is ... because of all of the buffoonery of the black men in their rap videos and black performers and athletes who wear giant chains," he said.
Other readers pointed out that comedian Chris Rock and syndicated radio personality Tom Joyner routinely bash whites.
"Chris Rock, Steve Harvey, hell, even Richard Pryor made a fine living making fun of white people, but you never seem to write about that. Listen to black folks on radio/TV and it's OK for them to be racist in the name of fun, but white folks are evil racists in damn near every column you write," said S. Feats.
Now really. If white people were so offended by Chris Rock, they wouldn't help fill seats at his performances, and he certainly wouldn't be hosting the Academy Awards.
Not what month was supposed to be
Obviously, this isn't the dialogue between blacks and whites that Carter G. Woodson had in mind when he came up with Black History Month. Woodson thought that if whites were made aware of the contributions black people have made to America -- and the world -- there would be less prejudice and hate.
The racial put-downs and name-calling -- on both sides of the fence -- are just another example of our failure to respect our differences. I don't call that progress. I call that a dangerous prelude.
I am glad Black History Month is just about over. The black struggle is too sacred to be subjected to ridicule.
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