11. Únor 2004
Is Black History "X-rated?"
As a scientist, I study black history to gain insight into the history of science. I also study black history to open my mind. Black history taught me to question what I read in American textbooks and to look beyond what is in textbooks.
Unfortunately, what we call black history is limited to African-American history. Black History should be broadened beyond its original “Negro History Week” to include the black Diaspora.
Malcolm X explained that "[t]he Black man's history -- when you refer to him as a black man you go way back, when you refer to him as a Negro, you can only go as far back as the Negro goes. If you go beyond the shores of America, you can't find a Negro."
Black History has been reduced to the celebration of a few marketable heroes and contemporary figures like Martin Luther King, Tiger Woods and Oprah Winfrey.
An immense amount of black contributions to other nations has gone unacknowledged. Black history is "X-rated" for the censorship and deletions of three black popes, great writers and mathematicians, black Australians, etc.
CLOSING THOUGHTS
African history should be taught in Africa. While growing up in Africa, I studied European history, instead of African history.
I was taught that Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves. But I was not taught that Abraham Lincoln kept in slavery the slaves he could free and freed the slaves he could not free.
I was not taught that an African-American woman named Harriet Tubman, a fugitive slave, used the Underground Railroad to lead 300 slaves to freedom.
I was taught that Mungo Park discovered the River Niger. But I was not taught that a person of African descent was the first explorer to reach the North Pole.
I was taught that an Englishman named William Wilberforce lead the fight against slavery. But I was not taught that an Igbo man named Olaudah Equiano, wrote the most influential anti-slavery book.
Posted by emeagwali at 13:06 | Comments (0)