Biased Tokenism

Biased Tokenism

Elements of black history awareness can be found as early as the early twentieth century. Of course, back then it was not called black history month it was called Negro History Week. Negro History Week was established by Carter G. Woodson in 1926, which was from then on celebrated annually, eventually then evolved in to Black History Month. What compelled Carter G. Woodson to celebrate black history in February are the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln and Fredrick Douglas. Black History Month tributes the hardships and achievements of American citizens over the most overwhelming impediments. From civil rights to inspiring originality, black history month covers the hurt and passion. Many people often criticize black history month and raced-based courses, which have began to become a large part of our education system. Although black history month and race-based courses are often criticized; they serve a purpose just as mere tokenism.

A famous cartoonist Aaron McGruder expresses in one of his comic strips how Black history month serves as mere tokenism. McGruder was a college student when he conceptualized the comic The Boondocks. The Boondocks reflects the racial diversity and difficulty of the world today. One strip of the comic discusses the idea of Black History Month. In this comic the teacher is being indifferent about teaching the class about "black multi-ethnic diversity um month. So out of respect for uh our school's new un multi ethnic er diversifying I've been asked to say some inspirational words." He then says, "You can't say the word African without the words I CAN." The teacher then asks the students to open their books. In this comic strip, the teacher says a couple of words which to him seem as inspirational about Black History Month and goes back to teaching, like it was nothing and only said it because the school wanted to him to. This is an instance of how Black History Month is illustrated as tokenism.

Some inveigh that Black History Month is seen as a negation to society to most of the other months other than February. People tend to forget about black history awareness since it is hardly ever brought up through out the year. Black history alertness needs to be a more integral part of the education system year round. Many people tend to typically learn about American culture in history classes. For example, the American education system does not emphasize enough on the civil rights or, slavery. There may be some universities that have change their cores which students are required to take a race-based classes, while some colleges offer but do not require them. The people who are interested in racism, who are typically minorities, tend to take these race-based classes. Fortunately, now a African-American history class is a compulsory for all Philadelphia public high school students. The transition from slavery to freedom represents one of the major themes in the United States history. In the United States, the rebirth of freedom resulted from what was at the time the world's most disparaging civil war. Black culture has a big influence on which we are today.