This week, Vonetta Flowers became the first African American to win a gold medal in the winter Olympics, as well as claiming the first gold medal in women’s bobsledding with her partner, Jill Bakken. The two have made history and just in time, for Women’s History Month is just around the bend, though Flowers is a little bit late for Black History Month. Thankfully Black History Month is almost over, so we can enter the third straight month of guilt for the New Year.
It works like this: in January we end up all breaking our New Year’s resolutions, and thus we end up guilty and depressed. Once this depression wears off, we’re told we must feel guilty all over again, not because we didn’t start that exercise program or quit smoking, but because of history’s neglect towards blacks.
In February, the focus is on the struggles of blacks throughout history and their accomplishments. Everyone is supposed to feel guilty about slavery, and the racism against blacks in the United States. We study the achievements of blacks such as Martin Luther King Jr. and W.E.B. Du Bois, to make sure they get proper recognition in history. If this stuff is considered history, shouldn’t it already be in our textbooks? Sadly, it isn’t, and thus society’s continued need for black history month.
While we’re all feeling guilty, somewhere there’s a black person getting pulled over by a police officer. Racial profiling of blacks happens every day. This profiling leads to a higher rate of arrests, especially on drug possession. Because of this chain reaction, approximately half of the prison population in the United States is African American. The 2000 Census showed that 23.6 percent of African Americans live at the poverty level. The Census bureau also found that 26.2 percent of whites 25 years of age and older had a bachelor’s degree compared to only 13.3 percent of blacks.
The list of problems goes on and on. We never talk about things like that during black history month, because it’s not history. They’re issues that aren’t weekly or monthly, but they’re 365 days a year. And what do we do in February? We cry about the past when there is so much to lament over in our present time. If there’s anything to feel guilty about, it’s that these statistics are not more familiar to us, and we’re not doing more about it.
And the guilt trip doesn’t end at the end of February, because now it’s Women’s History Month. Though women have made certain strides, there is still a lot of work that needs to be done. This includes re-balancing the genders so that while women are becoming more empowered, men aren’t being totally left behind. The empowerment of women has created an increasingly confusing role for men today. Maybe in a few decades we’ll have Men’s History Month. Then we can feel guilty about how girl power destroyed the self-esteem of men everywhere making men a marginalized group in society.
It’s sad that in the year 2002, we still have these months. Not because the struggle for women or people of color is over, but that we still set aside one month of the year to focus on their achievements. Respect and awareness is every day, not just one month of the year. We don’t need history months to talk about things of the past, but need awareness months to talk about the problems of the present. Obviously, it’s important to study history so that we are not doomed to repeat it. However it’s a greater crime to have learned about all these things and do nothing about our current situation. People that feel guilty for the wrongs of the past need to get over it and work towards making a better future. Feeling guilty doesn’t help anyone.
Jamie Loo is a Collegian columnist.
