Black History is Our History
February 25, 2005
February is one of the most multicultural months of the year. We’ve had Lunar New Year, Tet and our rockin,’ cockin’ Chinatown parade. You’ve partied enough for a thousand new years, leaving behind a trail of spent gunpowder, shredded firecrackers and ripped-open red envelopes.
Well, go get some more.
We must not forget to celebrate Black History Month.
My February started off with a bang on Feb. 4 at the retirement celebration of Ishmael Reed, the writer, teacher, MacArthur Foundation genius and multicultural visionary. (For the purpose of full disclosure: He also wrote the introduction to my book, Amok: Essays from an Asian American Perspective.)
At the party, Reed noted from the head table that black history was America’s history and therefore everyone’s history.
If you’re startled by that comment, then you probably couldn’t fill a teacup with your knowledge of Frederick Douglass or William Edward Burghardt (W.E.B) Du Bois.
Du Bois was the first black American to receive a Ph.D. from Harvard in 1896. A sociologist and civil rights activist, Du Bois was also one of the founders of the NAACP.
Douglass was a runaway slave and a leader of the abolitionist movement.
That’s about a teaspoonful about both of them for you.
More significantly, Douglass was born on Feb. 14, 1818. And he died on Feb. 20, 1895.
Du Bois was born on Feb. 23, 1868. And when he was part of the convention that gave birth to the NAACP, that occurred in February 1909.
Want two more reasons why February is Black History Month?
On Feb. 14, 1965, the home of Malcolm X, the black activist and leader of the Organization of African American Unity, was firebombed.
A few days later, on Feb. 21, while giving a speech at the Audubon Ballroom in New York, Malcolm X was assassinated.
Chris Rock makes a joke that February is Black History Month because it’s the shortest month of the year.
Ha ha. Rock thinks only gay people watch the Oscars, too.
Nope, February is Black History Month because a lot happened in our American history that month.
But it bears repeating because so many of us think of black history as irrelevant to our lives.
As people of color, we can’t afford to make that mistake. Asian Americans should especially have an affinity for blacks. We weren’t treated all that much better in the early days of America, unless you think being indentured is a major social promotion.
We have much more in common than most of us care to acknowledge.
But we all know how deep the racism goes within our community when it comes to blacks.
For Asian Americans, many times the most racist things we’re apt to hear about blacks aren’t from the Klan but from kin.
Go ahead and ask your old uncle or aunt what he or she thinks of black people. We can only thank God that the most offensive parts are in their native tongue and not readily translatable.
Meanwhile, I’ve heard that the hip hop youth set, most of whom don’t even see race as an issue anymore, are so advanced, so hip, that a full embrace of the multicultural world is in full swing.
We kid ourselves.
From the Los Angeles Times comes a story of racial strife in the suburbs of Valencia, Calif., just off California’s Interstate 5. That’s where gangs of white teenagers are beating up black American youth.
At least half a dozen black American families claim their children have been victims of intolerant, even racist acts. They say the white teens have bullied, harassed and attacked their children both on and off campus just because of the color of their skin.
That would be black, right?
In the case in Valencia, the most vocal family is a black/Asian American family.
“I can’t believe this is happening in L.A. County in 2005. No way,” Valencia resident Robin Williams-Nohara told the Times. She claims her three sons have been harassed and beaten by white teenagers.
Williams-Nohara is black. Her Japanese American husband is Seiji Nohara. Of course, they moved to the suburbs 35 miles north of downtown Los Angeles hoping to raise their multiracial kids in a peaceful environment.
That’s not happening.
On Feb. 5, Williams-Nohara’s 16-year-old son, Akira, was confronted at a neighborhood park by a group of white teenage boys who threatened to kill him, Williams-Nohara said. Akira and his brother Shin, 17, saw the youths jump out of three cars. They carried metal poles and yelled, “I’m going to kill you niggers,” Williams-Nohara said.
Her boys escaped injury.
Los Angeles County law enforcement officials are looking for Nazi or skinhead insignias in school parking lots, signs of troubled minorities amongst the majority.
But, of course, there have been no arrests. And fear remains in the south — as in Southern California.
If it all sounds oddly familiar, like a scene out of the ’30s, ’40s or ’50s but with an Asian American twist, it is.
It’s a damn shame to see something like this emerge during Black History Month.
It only shows what happens when America hasn’t learned its history lesson well.
We are all doomed to relive it all over again.
Reach Emil at emil@amok.com.
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