Black History Month

[ghoti_mhic_uait]

One of the things that suddenly confused me wrt Black History Month - is it meant to be the interaction of black people with history, or is it meant to be the history of people who happen to be black? Because that's a hell of a lot of differing histories, either way. ETA: I've also seen it suggested that it's the history of Africans/people of African descent. Which is all of us ultimately, but never mind that.

In any case, what it practically means in school is that we talk about MLK/Rosa Parks and Mary Seacole. All of whom are fine people to talk about, and Mary Seacole has relevance to a British school by virtue of being Scottish. Also, she did a lot to combat growing colour-based racism in England (and presumably Scotland and Wales) by just getting on with being an excellent person. (Basically, at the beginning of her stint in the Crimea, she was 'that weirdo who looks weird and what the hell does she hink she's doing?' and at the end she was 'Mother Seacole who saved a lot of the lives of our brave boys'.)

However, I'm sure we could branch out. How about the first black pope? Actually, Victor I is quite important in Catholic history - he was the geezer who brought the Latin Mass to Rome, where previously they used Greek (but Latin was used in Africa). How about St Augustine? I know they might not be main-stream enough for general consumption, but I work in a Catholic school so Catholic history seems relevant.

Comments

[alison-lees.livejournal.com]

I took native of Africa to mean a little more than simply born in Africa (of possibly completely non-African immigrants), although I'm not really sure that this Victor fellow was. I suppose if this wasn't the first black pope, then there maybe was another one?

[ewx.livejournal.com]

Even then northern Africans (as Victor I would have been assuming he wasn't actually descended from recent immigrants) seem more brown than black.

[ghoti.livejournal.com]

seem more brown than black

Now there's another question... who gets to be called black,and does it really matter? I'm very unclear on it myself, and tend to avoid any specifications of skin colour of people I know except when mixing paints for self-portraits. (And that I rarely do now I don't work in a class.)

Take 'white'. If a blond northern European is unequivocally white, does that mean anyone paler than them is white? Even if they are from Eastern Asia? Does it really matter?

[ewx.livejournal.com]

I don't know exactly where you'd draw the line (and many people who draw it exactly are probably up to no good); but I don't think Algerians are normally thought to fall the same side of it as Kenyans (for instance). And yeah, as a general rule it ought not to matter, but, well, the question did come up.

[ghoti.livejournal.com]

Yes, I just think that if we're not meant to care, then we may as well visualise him as black as white. Hmm. I'm beginning to shoot myself in the foot here.

[alison-lees.livejournal.com]

and a very long time ago, 'black' could be used to describe a white person with a dark complexion and black hair...

[robert-jones.livejournal.com]

It's all a bit confusing. Hispanics don't (AIUI) count as white in America, although they do in Europe, for example.