Hurts so good...Diary of a not so mad Black woman.

Mike McConnell can kiss my ass.

I just heard this newsradio segment called "The Weekend" hosted by Mike McConnnell and he was discussing how the school system in Philidelphia was forcing the students to learn African-American history and how it wasn't fair and how they (the school district) were "imposing" our history on them. WHAT?! Imposing our history? What he was basically saying was that all they need to learn is "American" history, that being the history of the people who contributed to this country. So I guess black people didn't really make that important of a contributuion to this country, is that right? When I was in school, American history pretty much consisted of all the Europeans who left England to establish this country and their history from then on, and black people? Oh, they were enslaved and freed and now they live among us. We got a few paragraphs in the entire book! They gave Malcolm X a sentence. Martin Luther King? One paragraph. George Washington Carver? Half a paragraph. And that was only the black people they thought were important.

What this man was saying, is that our history is not important, how learning it will not get you a good paying job. If that was the point he was trying to make, then how is me learning about George Washington going to get me a good job? How is me learning about JFK going to get me a better job? SCHOOL IS ABOUT KNOWLEDGE!!!!! ABOUT LEARNING ABOUT THE WORLD AND PEOPLE AROUND YOU!!! THAT IS WHY WE LEARN HISTORY AND SOCIAL STUDIES!!! School does play a huge part in you getting a good job after graduating because your employer wants you to be intelligent and well rounded. I agree with that, but it is also about knowing your past, the history behind what made this world what it is today. And I am not only talking about black history. I'm talking about ALL of our history. Irish, German, Chinese, Japanese, Dutch, whatever. WE ALL CONTRIBUTED TO THIS COUNTRY! What Phildelphia is doing is taking that first step to learning about more than just the Europeans and colonists. You have to start somewhere. Our American History textbooks is so full of holes and gaps and propaganda (yes, propaganda). It's about time they did something about it. Yes, they started with black history. Is that so bad? We are important, whether you want us to be or not, and to say that our history isn't important enough to learn about, then you are a fucking idiot.

posted by Jas @ 7:47 PM