Hi Friends on Facebook and Friends in Life,

Wow, February went by quick!  One minute it was the Superbowl, the next minute it was the NBA All-Star Game and the next second it was the worst Oscars ever, ok ‘ever’ is a strong word, I take that back. 

Today I was going to write my reaction to the Oscars but then I received an email from a reader asking if I was planning on writing about Black History Month seeing as it’s the end of the month.  Great question, I’m black, I write and as you may or may not know today is the last day of Black History Month, a month where North Americans are supposed to remember the history of African Americans. 

To answer the question, I wasn’t planning on writing about Black History Month on any particular day during the month of February because I choose to remember, write and recognize Black History everyday and I plan on continuing to do so for the rest of my life.  I’ve always believed that whoever decided to relegate black history into 28 days wasn’t recognizing black history.  The achievements and contributions made to this world by African Americans could never and will never fit into 28 days and people need to realize that recognizing African Americas for only 28 days is absolutely absurd.  As citizens of the world we should all vow to recognize and understand all history every day and teach it to one another.

I will NEVER forget the time when I was in highschool and I put my History teacher on the spot.  It was midway through the term and class was in session.  Back then I had a crush on my history teacher, I loved the way he taught us about the past, he kept us awake and made us happy to learn.  It was like he was Barbra Walters and we were his co-hosts on the View, he allowed us to voice our opinions on hot historical topics and encouraged us to ask questions, he made all of us look forward to history class.  One day while he was teaching us about American History I took a break to stretch my hands from writing notes.  My big curious eyes wandered away from my notebook and looked around at everyone in the classroom, I was the only Black kid in a class of 28 students.  While listening to my favorite teacher lecture us about famous Presidents I kept glancing around at my classmates who were vigorously taking notes that contained the year the White House was built, the name of the man who designed the White House, the first President to live in the White House and everything else that seemed of importance regarding the White House.   Before I could return to writing notes I flipped through my previous notes that I’d taken over the past few months.  As I skimmed through my notes my mind began racing through all the history that we’d been taught.  When I reached the latest page in my notebook a mysterious wave of curiosity shot from the back of my mind to the front of my mind.  Suddenly, I raised my hand unsure of what words would sprout from my mouth.  My teacher saw my hand right away and called my name out loud to signify my permission to speak, “Lilian!”  I slowly lowered my hand and became terrified of what I would say, I knew my thoughts were coming from deep within me and any opportunity to add a filter or think about it was long gone, I had everyone’s attention.  “Um, yeah…I have a question…um and I’m not sure if it’s a question you could answer but I’m gonna ask it anyway.  Umm…yeah so like with everything that you’ve been teaching us over the past three months (I looked down at my notes for reference) you taught us about Europeans and the European Settlers, the Industrial Revolution and now your teaching us about American History…” I had already memorized what was in my notes and I knew everything he’d taught us up to date but eyes stayed down because I was scared to look at my teacher or my peers, I wasn’t sure if what was on my mind was going to make any sense once it came out of my mouth.  I continued to speak while stumbling over my words, I was afraid of offending anyone.  “So yeah, your teaching us and I’m having a great time…we all are!  Ha!  Um-yeah-so, it’s half way through the semester and this is my favorite class…I’m just wondering, umm, where was all the Black, Asian, Aboriginal, Latino and Indian people while ALL this STUFF was going on?  I know I’m missing some other races so please forgive me…like, I’m just saying…DID WHITE PEOPLE INVENT AND BUILD EVERYTHING?”  I looked at my teacher dead in the eyes, I finally understood what I was asking and so I sat up straight and focused on forming sentences with the words that were flying out from every part of my brain.  “Huh…  like where were people like ME?  And when are we going to learn about them?  I’m just curious.  Sorry for changing the subject, I just need to know because I haven’t heard you mention anyone like me and I just wanna know where and what my great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great (breathe) great, great Grandma and Grandpa were doing during all of this movement in the world…when are you going to teach us that?”  I sat back in my chair and finally looked at my peers who stared at me with a complete confusion.  Up until that moment I was the happy go lucky kid in the class that sat front row and flirted with the teacher.  If and when I asked a question it was usually accompanied with a smile or giggle.  My teacher leaned on his chair and said ‘no, it’s a good question…and uh, we’ll be focusing on African American history at the end of the term right before final exams for two to three weeks along with Asian, Indian and Latin American History’.  I scrambled to understand his answer correctly.  “Ok so were spending almost half of the year learning about European and ‘American History’ and only two to three weeks learning about the rest of World history?”  I couldn’t believe my virgin ears, we would only need two to three weeks to learn the history of everyone that isn’t Caucasian?  That’s it?  Wow!

After that I decided that I was going to teach myself and then teach others and celebrate the history of all races and cultures for the rest of my life.  Black history is especially important to me because I live it, I am it and I become more and more a part of it with each day that passes and that’s why I refuse to follow any instructions that ask me to recognize it for a certain number of days.

I hope I’ve answered the question.  I urge everyone to learn Black History, World History and continue to pay attention to history in the making 365 days a year.

Lils

JUST Distracted

JUST Distracted

To Read Previous Perfect Lunchtime Reads CLICK HERE.

Email me topic ideas or send me your questions/comments to justdistracted@gmail.com

Thank you so much for reading and telling your friends :)